While he isn’t here.
With a bag of fucking candy.
Is this what Brooke had in mind? Probably not. But as I pick the lock and let myself in, I don’t really care. He seemed at least marginally interested in me at the meet and greet and he winked at me earlier tonight, so what do I have to lose?
Freedom, Alaina. He could put you in jail for this.
Maybe, but I’m unarmed. I didn’t poison the Goldfish or the Dr. Pepper Ibrought, and I know the Snickers are clean because I ate two of them on the way here.
I just want to talk.
I just need a moment to explain to him in private who I am, and then I’ll leave. I might’ve been on the fence previously about what I wanted from him, but I finally figured it out — I just want to say thank you. I don’t need him to become my best friend or fall in love with me. I don’t need some public acknowledgement or a payout or anything at all from him... I just want him to know he saved my life.
My walls were stronger because of him, the rot a little less bad. I struggle to think of where I’d have ended up without his brief moments of kindness. They were the only ones I knew.
So, I sit, and then I pace, and then I snoop.
I don’t find much. The space is too impersonal to mean anything to him, but now that I know what he smells like, I know I’m in the right place.
His cell phone is sitting on the dresser calling to me even though I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to unlock it, and when I lean down to inhale his pillowI feel like a total creep, but it’s worth it when I find the notebook hiding under it.
Inside are deep, painful lyrics that will probably never see the light of day, making me feel like I’m intruding on something private. Just before I close it and move on, I see the words“SAD GIRL”scribbled across a page to cover up a song.
He wrote me a song.
The handwriting is so bad I can’t make out most of the words, and it’s that moment I realize this is the same notebook from the treehouse.
A noise outside makes me jump and shove it back under the pillow, but when no one opens the door, I mindlessly slide open the nightstand drawer and find a fleshlight.
What on God's green fucking Earth does a rockstar need with a fleshlight? It’s oddly jarring to the point that I come to my senses, and as badly as I want to take pictures of every page of that notebook and wait for him to come back, I don’t.
I leave a little bag of Goldfish, a single can of Dr. Pepper, and a full size Snickers bar on the table below the window with a hasty post-it note that simply says, “Thank you.”
He might make the connection, he might not, but I’ve already intruded on his personal space enough.
It’s time to go back where I belong.
––––––––
Walking into the hotel room, I drop my purse and pointedly don’t look directly at Brooke, who is standing there tapping her feet with her arms crossed. “I left, okay? I chickened out. He wasn’t there so no harm done.”
“Ugh,” she groans. “I don’t know if I wanted you to get out safely or get caught by him more, but I think I was really hoping he fucked you up against his trailer wall so you could figure out that you do in factwant himwant him. Did you look around at least?”
Part of me wants to keep what I found to myself. It’s the polite thing to do, but I... well, I was raised by serial killers. It’s a miracle I can even spell the word. “He wrote a song about me,” I admit quietly. “It must have been a long time ago because the handwriting was so bad I couldn’t read it, but he did.”
“Shut up,” she whispers a little too excitedly, stepping in closer like someonemight overhear us. “Why do you think it was about you?”
“Because he titled it Sad Girl. That’s what he called me in the interview, remember?” Suddenly, it feels stupid to assume it’s really about me. Those are very common words, and it could’ve been about anyone or no one at all. He sings to sad girls for a living. “Fuck, I wish I could have read it.”
“Me too. Was there anything else in there that caught your eye?”
This feels even more personal, but I blurt it out anyway. ”He has a fleshlight.”
“I meant songwise, oh my god,” she cackles a laugh. “Did you touch it? Was it used? Why does he have one? Doesn’t he fuck?”
“Yes... yes, I don’t know, and I sure thought he did. Maybe it’s for the nights between shows?”
“Probably. That’s kinda hot. I mean you know he fucks, he’s a rockstar, but to have one of those, too? He’s probably insatiable. Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to think about that right now, but I can’t help it.”
