Crashing In

Kelly

Everyone in my kitchen--Dan, Crash, Tommy, and me--stare, frozen, at the mess Crash heaved all over his shoes.

Dan goes so red he's almost purple. "Kelly, have you been drinking?" His words echo off the kitchen walls.

"No!"

"Kelly, stay back." Crash is on all fours, terrible noises erupting from his chest as he coughs and retches.

Crash is here. Crash is actually, physically, in-my-kitchen here.

Dan steps firmly back and away from him, sneering at the mess, quivering with rage. "I knew it," he seethes. "I told your mother your sweet-little-girl thing was all an act."

"No! It's not what you think—"

Dan glares and I take a step back. I feel that look in my bones.

Crash coughs. "Kel?" he says weakly, and my heart aches. I've envisioned this moment every day for a year. It was never supposed to be like this.

Dan's voice is so quiet I have to concentrate to make it out. this is not a good sign. "When you didn't answer your phone I was worried about you," Dan says through his teeth.

The bottom falls out of my lungs. "Please, I'm not lying—"

Dan steps toward me.

"You touch her once and I will end you." Tommy takes a step forward, then when I gasp and reach toward him, he stops, as still as I am.

"I will not raise a whore in my house!" Dan roars.

Rage burns in my chest right alongside humiliation. I can't believe the guys are seeing this. Even before the break up I kept them away from it. "I am not that!"

Very calmly, Tommy inserts himself between me and Dan so I'm staring at his back instead of Dan's purple face.

"Get your pussy haircut out of my way," Dan growls.

I can't see his face, but I know Tommy smiles. I'm about to beg him to go when, from the floor, Crash launches himself at Dan's waist.

Eyes wide with shock, Dan falls heavily, landing flat on his back with an almighty thud that shakes the floor.

Crash heaves again. Thankfully, nothing comes up—since it would have landed right in Dan's lap.

Dan's screaming. "My back! My back! I'm calling the police!"

And that's the last straw.

"No, you're not!" The words are too small.

"This is assault! In my own home!"

Tommy shakes his head. "Fuck, Crash. I had it under control, man."

Crash, laying on Dan's legs, says nothing. He looks very much like he needs a doctor.

Is this really happening?

I yell over everyone. "Nobody's calling anybody!"

Everything goes silent for a beat. Then Dan, voice deep, asks slowly, "What did you say?"

Right foot. Left foot. Reach down. Roll Crash off Dan's legs. Speak through teeth, gritted so they won't chatter.

"N-nothing happened, Dan. This is Tommy and Crash, my old friends. They're in a band now."

Dan rolls onto all fours. "You boys better start running before I get up—"

Tommy tenses, but I force my fingers to close on his arm and push him back. "Don't, please. He's all words."

Now Crash is on his back on the floor, fingers clawed into his hair, face screwed up in a grimace, his skin a mix of inhuman colors.

I kneel next to him to see if his pupils are even, but he keeps pushing my hands away. "Uh, Tommy, was Crash drinking today?"

"Yeah. Why?"

He's drunk in the middle of the day? Is this what he's become?

"Who cares about that little shit? Call me an ambulance! I think he broke my back!"

Dan's back isn't broken. If it was, he wouldn't be able to get up on all fours. Would he?

Crap.

"Tommy, call an ambulance." I can't believe I have my hand on Crash's chest. His chest that's broader than it was a year ago.

"Nooo." Crash has his hands over his face. "Call Amber."

"Amber?" Amber is their manager. She's the one who got them the television appearance and movie soundtrack that made them bona fide rock stars. As far as I know, she doesn't have an ounce of medical training. "Crash, we need to get you checked out—"

"Call. Amber."

I look at Tommy, but he's already on his phone, one hand in his hair. "Amber? Yeah, we have a"—he looks at Crash—"situation." He winces. "No, we're at a friend's house over in Brentwood Glen . . . It's the suburbs. You got a pen?" He rattles off my address.

He's seriously calling his manager when Crash needs a doctor?

"Get an ambulance or a doctor or something here . . . No . . . I think Crash's just really drunk. But our friend's, um, dad got hurt . . . No. It was Crash . . . No, he tackled him. Look, just get the people here, okay? We can sort it out later." The voice on the other end—Amber, presumably—gets higher and louder. Loud enough that I catch a curse. Tommy just rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I hear you. Just get them here."

He ends the call, then looks at me sadly.

Dan's eases himself back down on the floor, cursing. "Kelly, you call Holly and tell her we might need her, just in case."

Holly is my aunt who has shared custody of me since Mom died. Everyone says I look just like her. If he's telling me to bring her, he must really be hurt.

It hits me that if something happened to him—the worst thing, like Mom—I'd be free.

Ugly hope rises in me, but I recoil from it, shaking my head. I do not wish Dan dead. I don't. "You'll be fine, Dan, don't worry."

I startle as a warm hand closes on mine. Crash has flattened his palm over mine on his chest.

"So sorry, Kel. So sorry."

The feelings seeing him, touching him brings . . . I press my lips together to keep the words in—this isn't the time—and tear my hand out from under his.

Breaking contact makes my skin feels like it's burning

Peeling away from my heart.

*****

When Amber strides into my kitchen as if the very room has offended her, she looks from Dan to Crash, to Tommy, then her face goes blank.

Behind her, two teams trot in like it's a military mission—one pair rushing to Dan, three surrounding Crash. Tommy shifts to stand at my shoulder, watching the team with Crash. "Welcome to the machine."

I look a question at him.

He shrugs. "Unless it's life-threatening, we have a private team for this stuff. They're under contract not to talk to the press." He's sheepish like I might not believe him.

I have no words. Medical people swarm my kitchen, Dan's on his back bellowing like a stuck pig, and Crash—they've levered him into a sitting position—keeps shaking his head at whatever the medic says to him.

How is this my life?

*****

Fifteen minutes later, Dan's strapped to a backboard, which makes me nervous, but the medic says it's just a precaution.

Tommy scowls at Crash, who's on his feet, but wavering. One of his team has a hand around his upper arm like a manacle. Crash insists he isn't drunk. He won't look at me.

I can't stop drinking in the sight of him. And hating myself for it.

Dan groans when the medics lift the backboard. I can't tell if he's genuinely scared, or just enjoying the attention. There's a third medic who arrived with an IV and quickly had Dan sorted out with "something to help with the pain."

They've taken vitals and asked him how many fingers they held up.

The one who seems to be leading—a guy with military-short brown hair and startlingly green eyes—talks into a walkie-talkie. "ETA twenty minutes. We'll need an MRI on one, and toxicology on the other."

I glance at Crash who just happens to look at me at the same time and our eyes lock. His, ice-blue and rimmed in near-black, widen.

I jerk my attention back to Dan.

The medics—grimacing with the effort—lift Dan, backboard and all, onto a gurney, then strap him down. Amber's on her phone snapping orders, but she stops when the third medic leans into her ear.

"Where are you taking him?" I look back and forth between Amber and the medic.

"It's all right. I'll take her," Tommy says before they can answer.

Amber goes back to barking into her phone.

Like I'm not even there.

The shock of Tommy—and Crash—showing up, of Dan catching them here, of these people descending on my home, parts like a fog and the simmering anger I've struggled against for an entire year broils. My hands shake. There's a chance if I don't keep myself in check, I'll just burn away in an explosion of hurt and rage.

"Someone please tell me what is going on!"

Everyone goes still with faces open in surprise. Except for Amber. "I have to go," she says, then slides the phone into her perfect suit jacket. "We're taking your father to a private hospital. Crash will get checked too. Tommy will bring you."

I bite my lip. "We can't afford—"

"It's covered," Amber snaps. "The bigger problem we have is avoiding the fans on the street. They know you're here, Tommy. But I don't think they saw Crash. What were you thinking, driving out here on your own? Merv would have handled it so we could be sure—"

"What fans?" I'm so far past shocked, I don't even blanch at the angry heat that rises on Amber's face when I interrupt her.

"Some kid posted a picture of Tommy on Twitter and now there's a bunch of them on the sidewalk, and the press is on the way. We need to get them out of here now, without any more pictures. Backdoor only. Tommy, you have your car?" He nods once, and Amber's lips go thin. "We aren't done talking about this."

"You can't tell him—"

She whirls on me. "Do not try to tell me what I can and can't do, Kelly. It's my job to keep them safe—especially from their own stupidity. And Tommy coming here unprepared and without a team was stupid."

Tommy bristles.

But I've just realized Dan is gone, and Crash is stumbling out the back door, a medic on either arm. He twists his head to look at me over his shoulder, slurring again. "Don' listen to him, Kel! He dossen know!"

I can't answer as he's hustled out of my back door. I'll probably never see him again. The thought brings both relief and utter panic.

"C'mon," Tommy says, beckoning me towards the same door. "This part is pretty cool."