Rock Star Returns: Carlie's Story (Access All Areas 2)

"— no one knows what happened, some idiots fooling around with guns. His father got shot. It might've been an accident."

Fuck, it was his father? Holden was okay?

"Hardly likely with that family," Mum added. “There’s been trouble brewing down there for weeks. I told you it wouldn’t end until someone was in hospital. At least it was one of their own and not an innocent bystander.”

Holden had known, that night at the bar when he’d got the message from Tommy. Then he’d been on his phone again the night I left which wasn’t like him. I hadn’t even asked him what that’d been about. I’d been worried about my own shit.

Why hadn’t I asked him? I’d been too tied up in my own selfishness. Holden might’ve needed my support, just someone he could talk to about it but instead of being that person, I’d thrown a fit about that stupid girl.

Mum put a plate of eggs in front of me. I stared at them, the after-effects of the shock making me far too nauseous to consider eating eggs.

"But Holden is okay?"

Mum laughed. "Of course he's okay. He's a million miles away from this place. And good for him. If I was part of that family, I'd run away and forget they ever existed too."

She seemed to forget that I'd run a million miles away with him.

"He'll be home for the funeral," Dad said. "Even if he left them long behind, he'll be home for the funeral. He knows what's right."

"He'd be a fool to come back. He's respectable now. If he comes home for the funeral, the press will get wind of it. Then all that dirt and scandal will be dragged up." She sat down at the table. "Eat your eggs, Carlie, you're getting far too thin for my liking."

"She's all muscle," Dad said. "You want to be careful you don't get too bulky. It's not womanly."

If I could've, I'd have gotten up from the table and gone to my room.

"I'm not hungry," I said. "I feel sick."

"Yes, you do look a little pale."

I had to process this. Holden's father had been killed. Maybe in an accident, maybe a shooting. As much as I hated to side with Mum, an accident seemed unlikely.

Holden's family drank a lot and had fiery tempers. They were the last people who should ever have access to firearms. It used to freak me out a little when I'd go to his place and see the guns mounted on their walls.

Every so often they’d get worse, too. Maybe a bad batch of homebrew or crack or whatever. They’d go loopy. Old resentments got stirred up. That meant more fights than usual and all kinds of shit going down.

I should get in touch with Holden. He'd need someone right now. Not one of his shitty bandmates or those hangers-on but someone who knew him. But, if I did that, would I be opening a whole can of worms?

I needed to think. My brain had gone murky with all this lazing around. I went to my room and found my runners and some old workout gear in the wardrobe. It still fit.

"What are you doing?" Mum asked. "You aren't well enough to go out for a run. Maybe you should lie down."

"I'm fine," I said. I put my headphones in and turned the music up to a dangerously high volume. Screw my eardrums, I needed to tune the world out.

After a slow jog to the park, I got into it. I'd hated sports at school but, after Holden left me, I realized that it was just too easy to give in to drinking and, if that wasn't bad enough, I had access to harder stuff than booze. I’d hurt inside so bad that the temptation was strong. Luckily for me, there was a boxing gym near where I lived. I went in one day and got started. That became my drug, my release. If I'd not had that, I might've ended up a total mess.

I ran through the bush tracks, pushing myself to the limit. I wanted the physical pain to kick any other thoughts from my head. But those thoughts were too persistent. I had to call Holden. It was the right thing to do. I wasn't rekindling anything. It was a friend reaching out to another friend.

I pumped my legs, running faster and faster. Even I wanted to stop, I couldn’t. Not until my mind cleared and my life made sense.

We could never get back together. For that to happen, I'd have to trust him. And I couldn't even start to rebuild trust. Holden never acknowledged what he'd done to me. He’d said he was sorry but it wasn't from a place of understanding what he'd done. It was a "sorry that things went bad" or a "sorry that we didn't work out". Not a "sorry for undermining every shred of self-esteem you ever had". Not a "sorry for betraying your trust".

That was something I couldn't expect from him and, without it, there was no us.

But there didn’t need to be an “us” for me to be a friend to him. Anyone would be concerned about a friend at a time like this. I’d put those feelings aside and call him when I got home.

Sweat ran down my face. I tried to wipe it away but it got in my eyes and stung the fuck out of them. Sweat mixed with tears until I had to stop because I could no longer see where I was going.

I found a rock to sit down on, shading my eyes from the sun.