“Breathe,” Risk lowered his face to mine. “You’re okay, everything is okay.”
I nodded, inhaling and exhaling.
“That’s my girl.”
“You’re amazing, Risk.”
He squinted and I realised he was reading my lips, his in-ears made it impossible to hear my voice. I smiled, letting him know I was okay and he relaxed. He lifted the microphone to his mouth and said, “Sinners, I would like to introduce you all to the original Sinner, the very woman who discovered I could sing and pushed me into making music. Miss Frankie Fulton.”
I lifted my hands to my ears and laughed when the crowd screamed and cheered for me. A pair of black, lace underwear was thrown my way and it landed on my shoe. I kicked it off with a yelp which Risk, and the others, laughed over.
“I wanna sing my Cherry a little song.”
I put my inhalers back into my bag and placed my hands on my cheeks, feeling my face burn through my make-up. Music to another song began, I recognised it from the instrumental of ‘Think Up Love’. I didn’t look away from Risk as he began to sing, I tried to focus on what he was singing, but I was too overwhelmed with him to keep up. He came to a stop in front of me and held the microphone out to me. My heart dropped. I stared from the mic up to Risk and suddenly felt sick.
Risk’s smile slowly faded and the urge to run away was climbing up my spine. He reached out and took hold of my wrist, I knew he could feel how fast my heart was beating when he touched me.
“Risk, please. I can’t.”
His hold on my wrist tightened, he lowered his mouth to my ear.
“What’s wrong? Just say the words if you don’t want to sing them.”
I couldn’t move. I could only shake my head. Confusion filled Risk’s ice-blue eyes, he didn’t understand what was going on.
“Please, Frankie,” his voice filled the stadium. “Please. Sing your song.”
I couldn’t move.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know . . .”
“One word, Cherry.” He suddenly glared down at me. “Just sing one fucking word of the song. Of any fucking song.”
The mixture of anger and confusion in his eyes was overthrown by a wave of hurt that filled his gaze. He knew . . . he knew I didn’t know his songs. In that moment, we weren’t on a stage in front of thousands of people, it was just the two of us. I knew Risk forgot about his surroundings, I was his entire focus. He processed me not knowing any of his songs.
I saw his heart break.
A body came up behind Risk, it was May. I saw his blood red hair out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t look away from Risk’s eyes . . . they had glazed over with tears. I blinked and my own tears fell.
“You don’t know any of the words . . . d’you?”
The crowd nearly lost their fucking minds when I shook my head. Their screaming and booing was almost unbearable, but the sounds blended together the longer they carried on. I knew exactly what they were thinking. Risk had announced me as the original Sinner and I just threw that special honour back in his face, and the lads’ faces too.
“You don’t know them . . . you don’t hear me.”
As long as I lived, I knew I’d never forget the raw pain in his voice. It was as if his very centre, his reason for being, was snatched away from him.
I couldn’t take the way he was staring at me, like I had just upended his entire world. I looked from him and out to the sea of faces who looked angry as they stuck their fingers up at me, angrily shook their fists and shouted words that blended to nothing but rage-filled noise. I looked back at Risk, whimpered when I saw how broken he looked, then I turned and ran off the stage and right by a red-faced Chris and a wide-eyed Tobias.
I ran and ran until I burst into a random bathroom and slammed the door behind me, locking it.
I fumbled for my inhaler, grabbed my blue one and inhaled some medicine to open up my airways. My chest was tightening so I focused only on breathing until I could draw in a deep breath without struggling. I inhaled a few puffs of my brown inhaler, then I capped them both and put them back into my bag. The music from the band was still playing and I could hear Risk singing. I didn’t realise I was crying until banging sounded on the door behind me.
“Frankie?”
“P-Please,” I sobbed. “Just leave me a-alone.”
Tobias’s sigh was loud and clear.
“I’ll be right outside,” he told me. “Take as long as you need. Do you have your inhalers.”
“Yes,” I choked. “I have them, I’m fine.”
I was far from fucking fine.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Risk brought me on stage and I humiliated him and the band. The look in his beautiful eyes when he pleaded with me to sing one word of his song, any song, haunted me. I cut him like a blade. He wasn’t simply disappointed in me, he was deeply hurt. I saw how his face dropped when I couldn’t sing a single word. He looked defeated. I cried harder knowing I had hurt him in the one place where I knew he felt free . . . on stage.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed by, but eventually there was no music coming from the stage. Tobias had banged on the door to check on me several times, each time I told him to leave me alone. He didn’t leave though. Risk made me his responsibility and he took that seriously. My hands were shaking and my tears had dried onto my cheeks. I stood up and looked in the mirror. I looked disgusting. My eye make-up was ruined, twin trails of mascara ran down my cheeks and down
