“Thanks. My sister’s staying here.”
She nods. “You know you’re a day early. The show isn’t until tomorrow.”
I tuck a stray hair behind my ear. “I prefer to know where I’m going ahead of time.”
Recognition flickers across her gaze. “You look familiar. Do I—”
The desk phone rings, my saving grace. When she answers, I take the map, dip my head, and move toward the elevators. Muster up the courage to continue forward even if all I want to do is flee.
A chandelier glitters overheard and marble floors give the illusion I’m walking on melted pearls. Every nook and corner radiates my former life. A life fit for royalty.
The glitz.
The glamour.
The money.
It’s in the walls and ceilings and floors. This was my childhood. Watching my father, and soon my sisters, onstage, awaiting the day I, too, would make my debut.
The night I turned sixteen I sang the only song I’ve ever written. One that came out of anger and hurt and resentment toward the man who refused to see beyond his own pain. Jordan took over halfway through my ballad, cueing the band and drowning my voice with a fast, upbeat jam she’d performed a hundred times before.
I’d left to look for River then. When I found her at the beach, standing in the ocean with the waves lapping at her thighs, it was too late.
I was too late.
I bow my head lower, hiding my face between drapes of my beacon-bright hair. No one else recognizes me, though. No one sees. I am no longer the someday-pop-princess daughter of Jonah King—country music legend. I am as forgotten as a long-ago tale. As washed up as the foam of the sea.
I’m alone on the elevator when I step on, a low hum the only sound as I’m lifted up, up, up. No music plays. The elevator doesn’t stop and no one else gets on. I’m taken to the floor just shy of the roof. It’s another lobby, with a sitting area and a bar. The only other souls present are a bartender wiping out wineglasses and a security guard at the elevator doors ahead.
When the guard sees me, he holds up a hand. But then he pauses. And blinks. And shakes his head. “Brooke? Brooke King?”
“Hey, Will.”
“Does Jordan know you’re here?”
Remember who you are. You belong here. Or you did once. “I wanted to surprise her, since she’s in my state.”
Will considers my half-truth for only the briefest second before he steps aside and swipes a card over a reader to the right of the elevator. The doors slide open and I step inside. Seconds pass before the doors reopen. I’m on the roof, standing on the precipice of a sloping amphitheater.
It’s a stellar design, housing row after row of circular bench seating swirling down, down, down. A whirlpool, descending into darkness. And there, at the center of it all, is Jordan.
The crew performs the sound check while my sister sings her hit single. The same song that played over Jake’s car radio the day Hope died.
“I’m swimming through your head, swimming through your head.
Don’t you know my voice is poison?
Can’t you see you’re already dead?”
The depressing lyrics reverberate, transporting me back to the emotions of that day.
But rather than crawl inside myself, I choose to face my pain head-on. I feel Hope with me now. I hear her voice. See her confident smirk and optimistic attitude. She’d tell me to rip the Band-Aid off. “What’s the big deal?” she’d ask. “She’s a girl. Like you. You’re both human. She’s no better than you are.”
“Easier said than done,” I say to myself.
I wish Hope had believed her own words.
I wish I’d said them to her every day.
I wish the ones who bullied her understood the depth of their damage.
“You are not nothing,” I’d tell her again and again and again. “And neither am I.”
Jordan doesn’t see me yet. Beneath the hot lights and enveloped by the sound of the band and her own voice, she’s lost to me. As far away as the bottom of the sea.
It’s easy to feel drawn to my sister. With the San Francisco cityscape as her audience, she appears immortal, timeless. I picture tomorrow’s crowd, imagine as they listen and sway, watching in silent wonder while Jordan’s voice fills the air.
Keeping to the shadows of the amphitheater’s dark staircase aisles, I inch closer. The sound check goes on. With each new song, Jordan’s voice seems to carry farther, up and out and away. Her silver sequined halter top sparkles and her white skinny jeans appear to glow. If I angle my gaze right, I can picture Jordan with silver scales, shiny and slick, slipping beneath the waves.
When the rehearsal ends, Jordan says, “Thanks, guys,” then turns off the mic clipped to the back of her jeans. She sets her guitar on a stand by the drum set and exits the circular stage.
And that’s my cue.
When she heads up the steps of the aisle closest to her, I backtrack. We reach the top of our sets of stairs at the same time. She aims for the elevator and I follow, stepping out of the shadows and into the light as she pushes the down-arrow button.
I swallow every fear that whispers she’ll hurt me again. Extinguish each anxious wave of emotion that tells me I’m nothing.
“Jordan.”
She bristles. Turns. Squints through black-lined slits. “Brooke?”
My gut churns. I long for the courage I possessed in Nikki’s car. Instead, all I feel is the sense that this is not the beginning of something new, as I’d hoped.
This is the end.
“Hey,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” She sounds tired, irritated. Overworked and overbooked.
“I wanted to see you. I saw you were on tour and I . . .” My words fall flat. “Congrats on the single. That’s something.”
“You’ve ignored my calls for months, Brooke. You left Nashville without a word.”
I stare at her. Hard. Anger, rage, and maybe even a little insanity stir inside me. “Dad sent me away.” Why does she do this? Why does she twist the truth to make me feel like I’m crazy?
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been living it up by the beach with Mee-Maw. You always were her favorite. You didn’t even say good-bye.”
“You told me I was nothing, Jordan. You abandoned me the day of River’s funeral—”
“Don’t say her name,” Jordan snaps. “Don’t you dare say her name. Our sister betrayed us. She went off with that lowlife street musician behind Dad’s back and came back heartbroken. Served her right. She should have listened to him.”
I don’t know what I expected from Jordan, but this? Never. “How can you say that?”
Jordan glares. “What do you want, Brooke? Get to the point or leave.”
I clear my throat. “Is Dad in town?”
Jordan blinks. “No. And he wouldn’t want to see you if he was.”
“Duke?”
“Off signing the latest boy band to his record label. He’s an important man, you know.”
I don’t care about Duke’s business deals or how valuable he is to my father. He could sign all the platinum recording artists in the world and I wouldn’t give a shark’s fin. All I want to know is, “Are you still together?”