Death of a Rock Star: A Boy in the Band Novella
Death of a Rock Star
© 2014 NJ Frost
Published by NJ Frost
Interior Design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A special thank you to all my writing group members past and present. Without your encouragement I would never have made it this far. Melinda & Vanessa, you’re always so generous with your friendship, support and advice. I love you ladies!
Thanks to all the amazing authors who inspire me every day (there’s far too many to name!) and to all the dedicated bloggers out there, whose love and passion for books makes being an indie author even possible.
Thanks to my lovely beta readers for your enthusiasm! Your feedback has made me so much braver about self-publishing.
Finally, thanks to you readers for taking a chance on a newbie. I hope you enjoy! :)
For my beautiful family
I love you x
Oh my fucking God! Fuck! No.
The phone drops out of my hand as every cell in my body seizes up. My eyes are glued to the TV screen. Words are coming out of the newsreader’s mouth, but I don’t hear them. The images of the body being stretchered into the back of the ambulance are like some weird fucking vortex pulling me in. Everything pours into those images. There is nothing else. No me. No vicious September sky spitting at the window. No Bernie trying to pull me into her embrace, trying to make me look away. I can’t. A huge fucking void has opened up in the middle of everything. He’s gone. My body has forgotten how to breathe. It feels like I’ll never breathe again.
The fucking idiot! He only went and did it. I should be shocked, but I’m not. I should be sad, but I’m not. I just feel fucking furious – with him for being so weak, with her for slowly taking him apart piece by piece. I’m furious with a world that destroys the most beautiful of us without even stopping to pause on its axis for a moment. My mind feels shattered. It’s screaming for relief, to disappear down the rabbit hole again. I’m itching to use, to not feel, to forget. But there’d be no honour in that, what kind of memorial would that be? A pretty fucking shameful one, that’s what.
Instead, I hunt around the flat for Fran’s stash of booze. I find a bottle of tequila under his bed and knock back a shot to end all shots – straight from the bottle. Nearly half a bottle later I’m still feeling too much. I scroll through the contacts on my phone to call someone up for a fuck.
Bethan, she’ll do.
The voicemail from Jamie’s number is still on here. I haven’t got the stomach for it just yet. I don’t know if I ever will. I never called him back – the guy who was like a brother to me, who saved me from myself countless times. Our lives may have been pulling us in different directions, but that’s no excuse, I wasn’t there for him when
he
needed saving. The guilt is nauseating.
Bethan shows up all chatty and pretty and pert, wearing some absurdly provocative underwear. While she babbles away I’m monosyllabic, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. If she suspects that anything is off, she doesn’t mention it. She’s so very eager to please, but I couldn’t give a shit if I give pleasure or not. Today I will not be fucking like a gentleman. This act will be all about me, about trying to purge this empty panic that has a death grip on me.
Lucky then that Bethan is also in up for something brief and brutal. She’s screaming out my name, clawing at my arse, shuddering through her own climax, as I come fast and furious. But for once fucking doesn’t help. With my release, the emptiness gets thicker. It gets even harder to breathe. Bethan tries to wrap herself around me, to draw some after-show tenderness out of me, but there’s not a speck of tenderness in me right now. I feel empty, wraith-like.
“Get dressed and get the fuck out.” I order, peeling her off me.
I’m not usually such a dick. I don’t usually kick girls out before they’ve barely had a chance to catch breath, but I want her gone. She won’t appreciate this, but I’m doing her a favour. Even
I
don’t want my own fucking company right now. I don’t look at her as she gets dressed. I don’t watch as she pauses at the door, or make eye contact with her as she tries to engage me.
“Blake–”
“Just go.” My voice is cold and feels alien to me.
“You know what – don’t bloody well bother calling me again!”
From the sound of her voice, I can tell she’s pouting. Little Miss Pretty isn’t used to feeling quite so disposable. I close myself off to the hurt in her voice. She knows nothing about hurting. I’m the one fucking hurting here, like I haven’t done in a very long time.
“I won’t.” I say, but my words are lost beneath the slam door of the door.
