“You do. I do.” I lifted my hands up to his face. “I couldn’t make you choose, honey. No matter how much I wanted to tell you to forget it all and stay with me forever.”
He froze. “You wanted to tell me that?”
“Risk,” I whispered, rubbing my thumbs over his cheeks. “I talked myself out of it every day for six months after you left. I wanted to get on a plane and go to you. I cried myself to sleep countless nights because I hurt for you. I loved you so much, rock star . . . I still do. I love you, Risk.”
The tears that had gathered in his blue eyes fell.
“I love you more than anyone has ever loved another person . . . but we don’t work, honey. We don’t. Look at you. Look at me. Look at the hurt we have put one another through.”
Risk’s eyes were wild, he couldn’t make them focus.
“Why can’t we work?” he rasped. “You’re the only woman I want. Only you.”
And I only wanted him . . . but I couldn’t have him. I couldn’t.
“Not like this.” I shook my head. “We can’t be together like this. I’m still needed here in Southwold; my mum still needs me.”
“I need you too, Frankie.”
“And I need you, honey . . . but not like this.”
He said nothing.
“Look at me.”
His eyes found mine.
“When you first left, it broke me. I mean that literally, I was devastated. I need you to know that . . . that I had a coping mechanism of my own to help me get through it. You had your music and I had diary entries, you could say . . . only they were text messages . . . that I sent to you.”
“What?”
“I’ve sent messages, God, hundreds of them over the years to your old phone number. ‘Talking’ to you helped me, it was therapeutic for me. I’m going to do something I never thought I would do, I’m going to forward every single one of them to your new number just so you can see that I could never have erased you. You’ve always been with me even when you weren’t, you were always on my mind, always in my heart.”
I turned when Angel held out my bag.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
I dug out my phone and with shaking hands, I went into my messages and group selected every single text then I forwarded them to Risk’s new number.
“It might take a while for them all to come through, there are a lot of them. I want you to read through them all then sit down and think about what you want from your life.”
Risk was stunned into silence.
“This is your choice.” I lifted my free hand to his face. “Get clean again and we can try and figure out a way where we can be completely honest with one another so any relationship we have can stand a chance. That is the only way this will work, Risk. Get clean or this right here . . . it’s goodbye. A final goodbye. Make your decision, rock star.”
I turned and walked away. Risk didn’t call my name or chase me. He remained at the pier’s end with my words hanging in the air, and with every single step I took, I felt Risk Keller’s eyes on me as I merged into the clouded fog that had descended upon Southwold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
RISK
Eight days later . . .
“You can’t keep doing this, main man.”
I exhaled and a white cloud of smoke filled the space between myself and May.
“Says who?”
“Me, dicknose. That’s who.”
I snorted. “You gonna kick me out?”
“I’ll kick you out and kick the shit outta you along the way.”
I took another drag of my joint then held it towards Angel who took it from me. May glared his way as he smoked.
“You’re enabling him.”
“I’m smoking weed with him.” Angel rolled his eyes. “I’ve smoked for years. I’d rather him smoke this than take coke or shoot up.”
My eyes fluttered shut at the thought of heroin. I had only taken it once and it was the time when I accidentally overdosed, but I remembered how it made me feel. I wanted that sensation of bliss then numbness to take over my body and mind so I could escape the torment I felt. I wanted to feel nothing ever again. I wanted to be numb to everything in my life, the good and the bad.
“It’s been a week since shit hit the fan in Wembley,” May said. “We got through the other two concerts, just about. Nolan and our team of publicists are still doing damage control. Everyone knows Risk has relapsed, it’s all anyone wants to fucking talk about.”
I opened my eyes and laughed. “No one gives a fuck about me, it’s just—”
“We give a fuck about it, puta!” Angel snapped. “I’m supposed to be back in LA right now celebrating my baby sister’s eighteenth birthday, but I’m here with your stupid ass because I know if you get past May and Hayes, you’re going straight for the hard stuff.”
I said nothing, I stared at a spot on the wall.
“You need to accept that you’ve relapsed,” May leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “You’ve snorted coke, drank a fuck tonne and I know you got one of the guys to get you pills to help you sleep. When I find out which one, he’s gone.”
Again, I said nothing.
“We’re going back to LA—”
“I’m not going fucking anywhere.”
Angel snapped at me in Spanish. I didn’t know what the words meant, but I assumed he was calling me an arsehole in a colourful way. I reached for the joint but he stubbed it out in an ashtray, glaring at me while he did it.
“Risk,” May snagged my attention. “The facility in LA helped you before, it’ll help you again.”
At the mention of rehab, my fingers lifted to fiddle with my coin on my necklace, but they touched nothing but skin. I
