Torn
Kim Karr
For my daughter . . .
My hopes for you are that you grow up to be a
strong and independent woman
who finds her HEA
Author’s Note
Music means a great deal to me so I spent many hours searching for songs that reflect the content of this book. I hope that listening to these songs before you read each chapter will enhance your experience. Please visit my website, www.authorkimkarr.com, for song links to Spotify.
Torn Playlist
Prologue
Counting Crows—“Colorblind”
Counting Crows—“Mr. Jones”
Chapter 1
Christina Perri—“A Thousand Years”
R.E.M.—“Losing My Religion”
Rod Stewart—“Maggie May”
Rod Stewart—“Hot Legs”
Lifehouse—“You and Me”
Chapter 2
Daughtry—“Home”
Chapter 3
Seether—“Here and Now”
Gavin DeGraw—“I’m in Love with a Girl”
Chapter 4
A Rocket to the Moon—“Like We Used To”
Chapter 5
Natalie Imbruglia—“Torn”
Bruce Springsteen—“Born to Run”
Chapter 6
Chris Wallace—“Remember When (Push Rewind)”
Chapter 7
Secondhand Serenade—“Your Call”
Chapter 8
Breaking Benjamin—“Into the Nothing”
Chapter 9
Puddle of Mudd—“Blurry”
Chapter 10
The Goo Goo Dolls—“Rebel Beat”
MC Hammer—“U Can’t Touch This”
The Beach Boys—“California Girls”
Kings of Leon—“Beach Side”
Atlas Genius—“Electric”
Atlas Genius—“Through the Glass”
Dashboard Confessional—“Stolen”
Chapter 11
The Weeknd—“High For This”
Chapter 12
Kelly Clarkson—“Catch My Breath”
Chapter 13
My Darkest Days—“Come Undone”
Chapter 14
Muse—“Madness”
Breaking Benjamin—“Into the Nothing”
Imagine Dragons—“Radioactive”
Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera—“Feel This Moment”
Chapter 15
Gavin Rossdale—“Love Remains the Same”
Chapter 16
The Fray—“Never Say Never”
Adam Lambert—“For Your Entertainment”
David Guetta—“Little Bad Girl”
fun.—“Some Nights”
Ke$ha—“TiK ToK”
Chapter 17
Michelle Branch—“Everywhere”
Chapter 18
Linkin Park—“What I’ve Done”
Chapter 19
Sum 41—“Pieces”
The Wanted—“I Found You”
Chapter 20
Foo Fighters—“Everlong”
Billy Joel—“Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)”
Chapter 21
Lifehouse—“All In”
Chapter 22
The Script—“Six Degrees of Separation”
Chapter 23
Evanescence—“The Change”
Chapter 24
Labrinth—“Beneath Your Beautiful”
Zedd—“Clarity”
Seether ft. Amy Lee—“Broken”
Justin Timberlake—“Sexy Back”
Chapter 25
Theory of a Deadman—“All or Nothing”
Chapter 26
Keane—“Everybody’s Changing”
Elton John—“Believe,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Bennie and the Jets”
Chapter 27
Kodaline—“All I Want”
Chapter 28
Eric Clapton—“Tears in Heaven”
Chapter 29
Matt Nathanson ft. Sugarland—“Run”
Rihanna ft. Jay-Z—“Umbrella”
Maroon 5—“Moves Like Jagger”
Bon Jovi—“Wanted Dead or Alive”
The Beatles—“Come Together”
The Fray—“Never Say Never”
Chapter 30
Lenny Kravitz—“I Belong to You”
Prologue
Close your eyes and you can imagine what it was like. Hot, sticky, crowded. Smoke, flashing screens, and lighters flickering. Fans screaming, laughing, clapping, and crying. Bodies pushing, shoving, trying to catch a glimpse. Everyone wanting to see the stage—the lights, the equipment, the musician himself.
He was running back and forth singing, headbanging, and playing his guitar. The lyrics were jumbled. His movements out of sync. The sound of the bass thumped through the crowd so loud my body vibrated with every wrong note played. I just wanted it to end.
Nick Wilde had opened for the Counting Crows at the Hollywood Bowl. It was his second chance—and he blew it. The crowd was exhilarated at the start of his first song and he owned the stage but it didn’t last long. By the third song he was improvising, pulling notes, and forgetting words. He was lost in his own trance, soaked in alcohol, and no one could help him . . . not Xander, not my mother, and definitely not me. “Mr. Jones” started playing before he even finished his fourth song . . . and he never played onstage again.
Music was his soul. Music was in all of our souls. When we were younger he taught us everything he could . . . how to play, to sing, the right way to command a stage. We knew every song by every artist. We traveled to concert after concert. Music was his life and it became ours.
But he wasn’t happy just playing. He had a dream—he wanted to be famous. And somewhere along the way his dream became an obsession. I’ll give it to him, he got further than most do. By the age of nineteen he had been signed by a label and cut his first album. But after a disappointing run they released him. He spent the next fifteen years working the circuit—clubs, churches, weddings, birthday parties, as he waited for another big break. And then, just like that, he blew his golden opportunity.
Everything in our life changed after that. The drinking got worse, Grandpa came around more to check on us, and Mom went back to work. Every day left another kink in his chain as he lived in his own world. I was sixteen when his plan A became my plan B and, just like him, at a young age, I cut my first album. But unlike him I had Xander. He wasn’t going to let me fail. The band’s album had a slow start but after a year of touring, it started to gain popularity.
I remember the first time the Wilde Ones graced a real stage. We were restless. We had been sitting around for hours waiting. When we were finally up we strutted confidently across the stage like we had in rehearsal, but, really, we were nervous as hell. The lights were much brighter and the audience so much bigger than we were used to. When the guys started to play, soft, barely audible words flew out of my mouth so fast I forgot to breathe. The band was drowning me out and I knew it. Looking around, I adjusted the microphone height and took in the crowd. They were cheering me on with such enthusiasm that my voice finally soared over them. It was the same voice I’d grown up with, the one my dad had fostered. It was raw and present and soulful, and, in that moment, my music came alive. The crowd went crazy and just like that my life changed again.
Xander struck while the iron was hot. He arranged to go on tour. That was the beginning of the end for me. We started out small. Smaller venues, shitty hotels, crappy food, and a lot of drinking. We opened for band after band and the relationships I made . . . they kept me going, that and being up on that stage doing what I loved . . . it kept me going, wanting to make my dad proud . . . yeah, that, too.