I stood in the center of everyone and willed my mind to block their accusatory gazes.
“Is he going to be okay?” Story asked, fingering the strings on his guitar.
“Hopefully.” I despised myself for this farce. Frank wasn’t ill. He was a coward. “I do think we should finish the single.” I turned to look at Gary, unsure if he was up for it.
The man gave me a one-shoulder shrug. “I’m good until midnight.”
Isabella was silent a long moment. Her eyes hardened. It made no difference whether she was going to record “Afterburn” right now or later. If she chose to finish tracking today, it’d be the only song on the album produced by Gary Torino.
“The studio is paid for,” I explained. “It’s your song. Your call. Whatever you decide.”
“Sure.” She nodded. “Let’s get this baby done since we’re all here.” Her smile was like a knife to my chest, a painful twist. I could tell she felt cheated, and sadly, there wasn't a single thing I could do to make it better.
Only Frank had that power.
Isabella returned to the booth for another take. Too wired to watch, I stepped outside to get fresh air and clear my head. The distant hum of Ventura Boulevard replaced the blasts of music. Clouds hung low above the Valley. Shy spurs of first fog licked the hillside. The evening was perfect. Dark, crisp, and full of dreams. Just not mine.
Levi found me a few minutes later. “What's going on, Cass?” Hands in his pockets, he strolled up.
I glanced at my phone, hoping to see a missed call or a message from Frank. “Don't know.”
“He’s not really sick, is he? He changed his mind. Am I right?”
I disregarded his question because I didn’t have an answer. “Let's get whatever we can for now.” A shuddered breath left my lungs.
“I guess the interview is out too?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Levi didn't press for more.
The light rattle of Isabella's wheelchair cut our conversation short.
“My eyes can’t take this cockfest anymore.” She steered over to us.
I laughed softly, wondering yet again where this girl found the energy to joke while everything we’d been working toward was falling apart.
Levi rolled his eyes.
“What?” I slapped his chest with the back of my hand. “It’s like eight against three in there right now.”
“Sure.” He snickered and glanced at his phone. “I’m going to check my time-lapse. And you two”—his index finger bounced between Isabella and me—“behave. Don’t break any hearts while left unsupervised.”
“Can’t make any promises!” Isabella hollered. “It’s not every day you meet a girl with a bondage-ready chair.”
Laughing, I watched Levi disappear inside.
“He seems very tense.” She shared her thoughts on my partner.
“It’s all the Red Bull he drinks.”
“That explains it.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say or where to even start. I had too many things on my mind right now. But I felt that I was more responsible than anyone for Frank’s behavior. Had I tried hard enough with him? Had I done everything I could?
“I’m sorry about today, Isabella.”
She gazed up at me with her big, stormy eyes, which were full of defeat. “Why? It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I told you I’d make this happen for you.”
“It’s not the end of the world that a two-time Grammy winner doesn’t want to collaborate with some chick from the San Jose ghetto. I’ve been lowballed all my life, so I’ll get over it.”
“People suck,” I offered her my theory.
She took a deep breath and pondered something for a few seconds. “If this is what fame does to people, I don’t think I want it.” I heard the tremor in her voice. “Look at me.” She jerked up her chin. “I’ll never get up from this chair. I’ll never have another dance. I’ll never have another walk on the beach. But I will sing because that’s what gives me freedom. That’s what makes me who I am. Nothing or no one is going to stop me.”
I felt her rebellion against her circumstances with every single cell in my body. Tears welled in my eyes, but my gut told me to hold them in, to wait until no one could see me.
“You’re a beautiful young woman,” I said. “You have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll sell millions of records and you’ll tour the world. And if Frank isn’t part of it, that’s okay. His loss.”
I had no idea if she was going to sell that many records in the world of streaming, but I needed to tell her that because I truly believed she had something others didn’t.
“You shouldn’t take the blame for his shortcomings. You can’t change a person if a person doesn’t welcome the change.”
Isabella sounded a lot like my mother, and I wondered how a nineteen-year-old disabled girl had this much wisdom when a thirty-eight-year-old man with everything one could dream of didn’t have enough guts to stand up to his weakness.
“I wish it wasn’t so complicated, Isabella.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We tend to create our own demons when we could be doing something else instead of self-pitying.”
I let out a ragged sigh. My heart was a fresh wound, and Isabella’s words hit me hard. “I wish he could see that.”
“It must be difficult.” Her eyes remained locked on mine. “Being with someone like him.”
I kept silent.
“I’m crippled, not blind.” She shook her head. “You really think I can’t tell you’re an item? Have been for a while now.”
For some reason, a smile touched my lips. As much as I hated Frank at the moment, one mention of us stirred me up and warmed my shivering heart. Even at his lowest, he was like an eclipse, shadowing everything else, drawing all attention. And I hated him for that.
“You look at him the way Ayala used to look at me—like I was her whole world.” A pensive expression crossed Isabella’s face. “Then one night when we were at a party, she got too drunk and I was too soft to stop her. Now I can’t walk and she’s somewhere in college in Alabama. In a few years, her record will be expunged and I’m still going to be in a wheelchair.”
I needed a second to process.
“Sometimes people we care about don’t care enough in return.” Isabella broke our eye contact and looked up to the dark sky. Her voice was a deep rasp after hours of singing. “Sometimes letting go is the best thing we can do because we’re risking everything for that one person when that one person can’t be saved. There’s no point in dying while trying.”
“How do you know when to let go?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t be in a wheelchair.”
It was a profound exploration of human relationships that came from someone who hadn’t been an adult long enough to lose so much.
“You know what?” I kneeled and grabbed her hands. “We don’t need anyone, Isabella. When Levi and I decided to do this, it was your story and it should stay your story and no one else’s.”