Getting Real

17. Brain Snap



The sharp-toothed gnawing, that swallowed-a-rat-whole feeling in Rielle’s stomach eased when she heard the knock. Rand had come back—he wasn’t angry anymore. It was going to be all right. She opened the door and flung herself through it into his arms.

“Whoa,” said Jake, his surprise hot in her ear, his hands coming up to catch her. She had a light silky robe on, it slithered under his fingers as they grasped her.

“Oh shit!” She pulled away. She wanted Rand; she wasn’t ready to face Jake. “I thought you were Rand.” She dragged the robe closed, and belted it, but not before he copped a look at her skimpy black lace underwear. “Come in.” She stepped back to allow him into the room.

“I’ll wait til you’re dressed.” His voice was flat, expressionless. His eyes were on the floor. Her mouth was full of chewed up heart and lung, but if she didn’t deal with this now she was a coward as well as a complete bitch.

He reached for the door handle; she put her hand on the door. “Stay.”

He stood half in, half out of the room with his hand still on the door handle.

“Please.”

He came in, closed the door and when she gestured to the couch, he sat, but he was four continents away, his face was Switzerland, a mask of neutrality. It cut worse than if he’d raged at her. Whatever he’d come to say, she needed to speak first. She went down on her knees in front of him. The same posture he’d taken when he cleaned the cuts on her neck, when he’d thought he was at fault. Even if she lay face down at his feet she wouldn’t be low enough.

“Jake, I’m so sorry. I have no excuse. I had a brain snap. I have no idea why I did that to you.”

In the midst of her own insecurity about the performance, she’d seen him standing there, so solid and secure and she’d wanted to be with him, right then, right in the middle of it all with thousands of people screaming for her. It made no sense. This tour was ripping her apart and with no logic, she’d reached for a man who was frightened of what she did and rejected who she was. Jake frowned, his eyes narrowed. His mouth was a rigid line. Ah shit. She couldn’t have Jake hating her tonight as well as Rand. She folded one arm across his knees and put her forehead on her arm to avoid his hard stare.

He shifted in discomfort. “A brain snap.” He slid out from under her arm and patted the space beside him. All she was doing was making him more uncomfortable. She got up and sat on the couch, shoulder to shoulder with him. There was nowhere else to sit. They were silent, awkward, too close, arms, hips and thighs touching. She was cold, but heat came off him in waves.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.” Her voice came out weak, soft like a child’s.

“Felt like it. I don’t have to tell you how bad it was for the show.”

She dropped her head. “I’m a complete f*ck up. I’m making a hash of everything. Rand is furious with me. You hate me,” her voice cracked, “and I I’ve hurt my hand.”

“Show me. That’s why I’m here.”

She gasped. “Not to flay the skin off me?”

He quirked a shoulder and an eyebrow in concert, in agreement, in denial, who knew. He was giving nothing away, but reached for her hand and had her make a fist. The top of her knuckles were split and bruised blue, her hand felt stiff and tight, but she could move her fingers.

“I want to take you for an X-ray.”

“I don’t think it’s broken.” Not her hand anyway. The rest of her was broken so long ago she barely knew how to live anymore, and all of that hurt was so fresh, so present because she was back under the blue Australian skies.

“I want to be sure.”

She looked at him and instead of rage saw something else, resignation, comprehension? But there was only so much Jake could understand and nothing he could fix.

“I don’t hate you, Rie.” He folded his fingers through hers.

She looked down at their hands. Was he testing her injury or something else? He’d shortened her name. He didn’t let go. He was forgiving her and it was too much. “After what I just did, with no good reason?” She shook her head and pulled her hand away. “You’re a candidate for canonisation.”

“You must have had a reason. Is Bunk making you uncomfortable?” She shook her head. She couldn’t talk about her reason. Though perhaps Jake was the only one in the world who could understand what panic could make you do. She dropped her head down on his shoulder, said in a miserable little voice, so unlike the power she had on stage, “I think you’re growing on me.”

He kinked his neck to look at her face. “What like a fungus?”

“No, like for real.”

He swivelled and took her shoulders in his hands, surprise rang in his voice. “What? You think I’m weak as piss and you just proved it again tonight in front of fifty thousand witnesses.”

“I—”

“God, Rie. I’m not sure it’s possible to shock a phobia out of someone but if anyone can do it you can.”

She looked in his eyes, so remote earlier, but now she saw he was amused. He’d forgiven her enough to laugh at her. She had another brain snap. She put her open palm on his cheek, leaned into him and kissed him.

He made a surprised, “haah,” under her lips and then hissed when her tongue touched his.

“Yeah,” she whispered, “you’re growing on me.” She kissed him again, this time less tentatively, opening her mouth to his.

He resisted until he didn’t. Until he kissed her back, until he cupped the back of her head and held her to him. He tasted of coffee and mints and safety and escape. And she wanted that so badly. She moved over his lap and he shifted to let her straddle his thighs, his hands now on her back, sliding on the silk of her robe. Her hands were on his chest, pressing, holding, hanging on to the solid reality of him.

She got lost in him. Lost in the rush of sensation and the roar of sweet need. It was familiar and foreign and from nothing, now essential. It took her breath away and it made a gift of forgetting.

She gasped when he pulled away, pulled back into the world, breathing heavily, and she heard the beeping—his phone. He snatched it out of his pocket.

“Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thanks.”

His face was flushed. He hung up, pinned her with a squint; maybe now he was angry. “What was that about?”

She looked at his throat, working to swallow. He was as affected as she was. “Brain snap.” His voice softened. “You’re prone to them tonight.”

She sighed. “I’m something out of the ordinary.”

“Are you sorry that happened?” Was still happening. He was still holding her, his hands on her hips, his phone and the real life it brought set aside. She shook her head. “It’s not like me, but I’m not sorry.”

He breathed out hard and closed his eyes. He tipped his head til it hit the back of the couch. He wasn’t buying it. He’d think she lied. She knew he’d seen her sitting in Jonathan’s lap. He’d think it was the same thing, that she was anyone’s. But she was suddenly too tired and it was too hard to explain why Jonathan meant nothing.


Jake lifted his head. He was focussed again. All business. He pushed her away. “I want to get you to casualty tonight for that X-ray.”

She stood. She needed distance too. “Yes, that makes sense.” She looked around for clothes, thinking of what she could put on quickly to give her a disguise.

“I’ll wait for you outside.”

She looked up and he was gone.

They took the bike, arrived at a riotously busy casualty department full of stoned, drunk, disorderly, sad and stupid accident victims. Half of them were probably Ice Queen fans. In the crazed activity of the waiting room, with her hair under a cap and a sloppy jacket on, no one took any notice of her, though Jake was on edge, watchful for signs of her being recognised and hassled.

She pretended to doze on his shoulder, but while her eyes were closed, her thoughts were wired open, fizzing and firing around her head. She’d dragged Jake up on the Hand and it was wrong and screwed up. Then she’d kissed him and loved it and made things worse.

It’d been a long time since she’d initiated any kind of real intimacy. Mostly she just played with it, like sitting on Jonathan’s knee, or getting piggy back rides from Roley. It was part of the act. The kind of stuff that was expected of a rock star, and it seldom went further than that. There were too many expectations. It was too much trouble. So why kiss Jake—of all people?

Did she still think he was weak, wet, had a straw heart? The way he’d calmly dealt with Jonas’s overdose and taken down Neddy, and just tonight, handled Jonathan’s tantrum—none of that was weak. But Jake—Mr Nice Guy, Mr Happy Families. Shit, what was she thinking?

She pretend dozed until a young doctor examined her hand, ruled out any breaks and asked for an autograph.

Back at the hotel in the early hours of the morning, she was awkward with Jake and he with her, as though they’d both had time to rationalise the madness of those kisses, and were grateful to have backed away from some desperate edge of insanity.

It was a relief to separate with polite goodnights and gentle smiles, each one a brick of neutrality. Rielle needed to rebuild the wall between them.

Fatigue and confusion made her limbs heavy. She knew deep sleep would be her comfort and snuggled into it only to jerk awake sometime later, suddenly sitting, clutching the sheets in the dark, her heart trying to leave her chest. She scrambled to get away from the sensation of her body tumbling, falling at a great rate from a great height, screaming Jake’s name.