There was no warning. He dropped to his knees and his arms wrapped around my waist like a chokehold. I couldn’t move. A gasp was stuck somewhere in my chest. My hands were still in a drawer, plowing through my clothes, separating the ones he’d paid for.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my sweater, his breath a hot, pulse-jarring caress on my stomach. This heat he carried around was worse than kryptonite. I wanted to fall apart for him right there and then. It took all my willpower not to give in to his deadly charm.
Bracing myself, I spoke, “Frank, please stand up.”
“Tell me you forgive me.” He tightened his grip.
“I can’t.”
“Please.”
Slamming the drawer shut, I dragged my gaze to his sandy hair splayed over my sweater. “Frank, please let go.” My voice was firm and uncompromising. My heartbeat, a thrashing inferno against my sternum, was anything but.
“I’m sorry for what I said last night. I didn’t mean it. You’re not suffocating me. You never have.” He tilted his head back. His eyes, bloodshot and hollow, pleaded for sympathy, but I didn’t have any to give.
“Do you even remember any of it? Or did you have to read TMZ to get a refresher?”
He pressed his pale face to my stomach. “Please, baby.” I felt it then. His tears soaking my sweater, warm and terrifyingly familiar against my skin. They were little reminders of what he was. They were his fears, his dreams, his vices. They were impossible to ignore.
“Frank, please stop,” I said, brushing his hair, despite knowing I shouldn’t. Its softness against my fingertips was like a splash of nice memories. Memories I didn’t want right now. Anger was my fuel.
His shoulders shook. His entire body shook. I’d never seen a man cry like this before. Only on screen.
“Frank, you know this isn’t going to undo what you’ve done.”
“I can fix it. I promise.”
“No, you can’t fix it.” Exhausted, I dropped my hands to my sides. “Please let go before I call for help.”
He loosened his grip and his head tilted up. I refused to look. My gaze was trained on the wall. His brokenness was my weakness and I couldn’t afford to be weak anymore.
“Say something, doll.” He ran his palm over the small of my back.
“What do you want me to say?” I continued to stare at nothing. “You made a fool out of me, yourself, and our relationship. The entire planet is laughing at us.”
We were a fucking GIF.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” His whispers were sharp gasps that cut me deep, cut me into pieces.
“Don’t get me wrong…” I paused to take a breath. My throat stung and my lungs were out of oxygen. The room felt stuffy despite the AC and an open window panel. Even the wind was like a lick of a chemical burn. “I knew what I was getting myself into by being with you and by agreeing to go public. I can take online jokes. I can take hate mail. I can take paparazzi ambushes. What I can’t take is you ruining everything I’ve been working for these past five months in a matter of seconds.”
Frank clutched my sweater. “Just tell me how I can fix it.”
“You can’t,” I snapped, my tone accusatory. “Levi and I lost the venue. The management doesn’t like the kind of publicity your connection to the project is providing.”
I grabbed his hands and freed my sweater from his grasp. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.” My gaze dropped to his face. Our eyes locked.
“Don’t do this to me, doll. You know I need you more than ever right now.”
I took a step back, wishing to distance myself from the tempting heat of his body. Desperate, he crawled toward me. It was pathetic and painful to watch and I couldn’t bear another second of this spectacle.
“Frank, please stand up. If you keep being careless with your shoulder, it’ll never heal.”
He froze, still on his knees.
We were broken. We were irreparable. We were over.
“I need peace of mind to finish Dreamcatchers. I’m sorry.” I choked back the tears. “I can’t babysit you anymore. Yes, I know this makes me a shitty girlfriend, but I tried to be there for you. Problem is, I don’t think I can anymore. I simply don’t have it in me to watch you ruin yourself and what’s left of my life and my career.”
“So you’re going to leave me?” Wounded eyes pierced me like a pair of scissors. One stab, double the hurt. “I thought you said you loved me.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough, Frank,” I countered, my heart a thousand fragments. “It sure isn't enough to cure your alcoholism.” It hadn’t been enough to cure my father’s either. And between my mom, Ashton and me, we’d had a lot to give. He just hadn’t wanted any of it.
“I’ll get better.” Frank reached out to grab the stretched hem of my sweater. “I promise I will. I swear on my goddamn voice, I’m going to check into rehab tomorrow. Just don’t leave me.”
“We talked about this. You promise and then you slip. And every time you do, you drag me down with you, and it’s terrifying because I never know if we’re going to come back from it. Me loving you won’t make you want to get help. You need to want it, Frank. You need to understand that it’s for your own good. Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”
“I can’t do it without you.”
“You’re going to have to, Frank. I’m sorry, but I don’t like who I’ve become with you. I don’t like that my world revolved around you like you’re the fucking sun. You know what else I don’t like?”
He held on to my sweater and stared at me.
“I don’t like that I have to hurt you to stop you from hurting yourself.”
And that was it. I grabbed my backpack and left.
At first, Frank called, texted, and sent flowers relentlessly.
I didn’t respond to any of the messages and didn’t listen to the voicemails. They kept piling up on my phone like mail on the porch of a house where no one lived.
My heart needed time to heal and regroup.
The endless Hall Affinity emails that flooded my inbox daily in light of the upcoming album release were more than enough. New singer or not, one mention of the band stirred up all my memories of Frank that I tried to tuck away to the darker corners of my mind.
On Monday, Jay Brodie PR released an official statement regarding the incident during the album release party. Frankie Blade issued a public apology and a promise to get help. Sadly, thousands of Oops!…I did it again GIFs and someone give this guy crutches memes had already been circulating all over the internet. Twitter. Tumbler. Instagram. Facebook.
Frank’s meltdown was the hottest topic of the week. Possibly the month. Possibly even the year. He’d gone from the most admired man on the planet to a pathetic joke in a split second.
And my name was attached to this embarrassing moment like a label to a new pair of jeans. Even if you cut it out, it’d still scratch and irritate you.
On Tuesday, Ashton came home early. Apparently, someone in his school made fun of Frank, and my little brother took matters into his own hands. I’d never pegged him for a fighter. At least not outside his X-box games. Though tall, he was too much of a wimp to throw punches. His aggression, but mainly his need to defend Frank’s nonexistent reputation, surprised me.