In all the years that I had spent remembering Frankie, I forgot how mad she could get once she got going.
“Frankie, listen—”
“No!” she shouted. “No, Risk. D’you know what it feels like to have a song like that written about you? A song millions of people have listened to?”
She was right, millions of people had listened to it, I just didn’t understand how she hadn’t listened to it. Frankie was the original Sinner. Back in the day, she had been in the studio for each record we laid on our EP, and most of the records on our first album that were finished ahead of time, too. She heard our music over and over and she always did so with a smile on her gorgeous face. On one hand I was glad she hadn’t heard ‘Cherry Bomb’ up until now, but on the other, it rattled my very soul to think there was a record of mine that she didn’t hear.
I spoke to her through my records; if she didn’t listen to them . . . how would she ever hear me?
“Why didn’t you listen to it before today?”
Her eyes flashed with an emotion I couldn’t decipher.
“Because I knew it was about me,” she suddenly said. “‘Cherry Bomb’. Even a dumb small-town girl like me could figure it out. We had broken up; I was scared to hear what you had to say about me.”
Hearing her explanation made the weight that had settled on my chest lift instantly. She listened to my records, to my words . . . she just couldn’t listen to ‘Cherry Bomb’ until now, and I couldn’t blame her.
“I was right to feel that way. Wasn’t I, rock star?”
“Yes,” I answered. “You were, but if you let me explain—”
“No. Get out.”
“Listen. To. Me.” I raised my voice. “I wrote it when I felt angry and upset and was fucking missing you!”
“Missing me?” she repeated with harsh laughter. “I wonder which part of me you missed. Oh, I think I know. How do the lyrics go? ‘My cherry bomb’s hips keep me awake at night, she’s got an ass that’d make a holy man cry. Big enough for me to take a bite,’ and those are the nicest lyrics in the fucking song! You went on to objectify me to nothing more than a body that you missed fucking.”
“Frankie—”
“I don’t wanna hear it, you prick!” she bellowed. “All this time I’ve wished you nothing but the best and you’ve been objectifying the memories you have of me for the whole fucking world to hear. I can’t believe you would do that to me, Risk. I just can’t!”
I felt like the room was closing in around me.
“That’s the only record where I’ve ever talked about you in that way and it was only because I was hurting. Fuck, Frank, I wrote that shit when I was out of it. I snorted coke and drank my weight in vodka that night. I can’t even remember cutting the fuckin’ thing.”
She recoiled the second the words left my mouth.
“Stupid idiot,” she spat. “You’ll kill yourself ingesting all of that poison. Is that what you want? To die? You bloody dope. You think you’re some big-time hot shot because you’re famous? Well, you’re still the stupid boy I’ve always known, but at least that boy didn’t take drugs!”
I stared down at her and I surprised us both when a chuckle left my mouth.
“This isn’t funny, wazzock!” She reached out and shoved me. “This is your life, you don’t get to risk it like that. D’you understand me?”
“Yeah, Frank,” I said. “I hear you.”
“You don’t look like you do. What’s so funny?”
“You are.” I shook my head. “All five foot nothing of you is ready to kick my arse because I said I took drugs.”
It was dumb of me to be so happy that she still cared enough about to get angry over my drug use and alcohol consumption. She could have brushed over those facts or ignored them completely, but she called me out on my wrongdoing in true Frankie Fulton fashion.
“Only stupid people take that squit. I didn’t think you were stupid. Or at least not that stupid.”
“Frank, why are you going off on me only now about what I’ve done with drugs?”
“Because I’m mad at you and I might as well get everything that pisses me off about you off my chest!”
“Okay,” I rubbed my hand over my mouth. “I get it. I’ll be quiet while you rail on me.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I can’t think of anything else.”
When I laughed, she shoved me again, but this time there was no anger behind it.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated and lifted my hand to my necklace. “I swear I am. That record . . . we don’t play that shit on stage anymore and I cringe if I hear it on the radio. I pretend it doesn’t exist.”