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There’s a hesitancy in her voice.
“What?”
“She’s been dropping hints that there’s a whole bunch aboutyouin the book, too.”
My jaw sets.
No.Hellno.
I didn’t have a say when I was kid. When Judy would give some stupid interview and paint this cutesy picture of her raising me as free spirit on the road, surrounded by love and music, I didn’t have the voice, agency, or even option to give my side of things. To refute that cutesy picture and paint the real one that involved hunger, fear, creeps, missing my own birthdays, not having friends…being molested when I was thirteen by my mother’s own boyfriend.
My teeth grind painfully as my eyes narrow to slits.
I didn’t have a say back then. Now, I’ve got awholehell of a lot to say. And if Judy thinks she’s going to milk some more cash out of desperate Velvet Guillotine fans with a book made from complete bullshit, and usemychildhood and suffering to sell it?
She’s about to get my full wrath. Because that isnothappening. Not anymore.
“Look, Mel—”
“I have to go,” I blurt. “But I’ll see you soon.”
“When?”
I close my eyes, my heart sinking even as I say the word.
“Tonight.”
28
Jackson
Every song ends.Every refrain comes to a stop, and eventually, the house lights have to come up.
It’s just that for the majority of my career, I always made sure to be backstage somewhere buried in as much escape and distraction as I could get my hands on when those house lightsdidcome up. Because I always hated that part of a concert, even ones where I was in the audience.
I hate it because it means the fantasy escape that you just fell into is gone. The experience of sharing music with a band and a bunch of strangers just ended. That shared temporary religion—and to me, that shitisreligion—is over when the lights come up. Which is why once the option was there for me, I made sure to never be around when they did. If only to pretend that the magic lived on.
Standing in my living room watching Melody glumly stuff her meager belongings back into her backpack feels like being blinded by the house lights.
My jaw sets.
I’m not a child, or some heartbroken, puppy-eyed teenager. This isn’t a movie, and I of all people understand that two adults spending a whole lotta time fucking each other does not a relationship or commitment make.
It’s just that I’m doing everything in my fucking power to ignore the little voice in my head screaming that this is different. Because I have to. Because I need that voice to shut the fuck up.
Because she really is walking out the door right now.
There’s a very Bruce Springsteen or maybe Humphrey Bogart part of me that wants to walk up to her, tilt her face up with a suave finger to the chin, and tell her take care out there. To kiss her once and let her walk out aching for more.
To watch her leave knowing I’ve left her better than she was before. That somewhere out there, there’ll be some guy her own age to make her smile. And even though he’ll never make her smile like me, and he’lldamn wellnever make her scream like me, she’ll be mostly happy, and almost certainly better out there in the world without me in her life.
I scowl.
Yeah, fuck whatever movie I lifted that from.
Instead, my heart smolders with a black cloud as I watch her zip the backpack and sling it over her shoulder with a heavy sigh. She looks up, and our eyes lock.
And she starts to cry.
