Misery Loves Company

By: theinkslingerr

Track 50: An Unknown Enemy

Finding out Rocco's dad was Niccolo Segreti from Hazardous Materials had been crazy.

Watching the girl who'd rescued me from the wild mob that had surrounded me in front of the Iron Barrel waltz into Enid's room and address Rocco was somehow crazier.

Probably because she and Rocco existed on opposite planes of my life and them being in the same room, much less her talking to him like she knew him was surreal. It disrupted my reality.

This friend who I was just beginning to trust had broken the glass separating certain parts of my life and stepped over the shards into this moment.

All eyes were on Sage and Nic, including Paula who looked more dubious by the second. "You do know her, right mija?" she asked.

Enid stuttered, wide-eyed, "I-I do, but—"

"What're you doing here, Sage? How'd you— I thought you were in Jersey now?" Rocco managed to sound shocked and angry all at once. His face was pale, a study in hard lines, sharp angles, and stress. I stared between them, mind-blown, trying to come up with reasons for how this could be happening.

"I moved back to Philly a few months ago," she replied, hiking Nic up her hip. She lived in Philly? The first time we ran into each other at the coffee shop, she told me she lived fifteen minutes away.

She'd been lying.

What else had she been lying about?

The room lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. The key light hadn't been dissembled yet, and ironically, it faced Rocco, highlighting the sheen of sweat gathering at his temple. He stood there tense and disbelieving. Paula was still bent over the railing watching everything unfold; her daughter's face no doubt a confused mirror of my own. The rest of Blue Vendetta, Ji-Hyun, Sienna, Ackerman and the crew were cautious onlookers.

"I knew it was you." Rocco shattered the silence. "That night...in the crowd at the Iron Barrel."

The night he'd stopped playing mid-song and stared out into the sea of faces in horror. It looked like he'd seen a ghost, and I guess he had. Sage was a ghost from his past, and now she was here to haunt him. But why? Who was she exactly? What did she want? Why didn't she tell me she knew Rocco personally?

An answer formed very quickly, but I couldn't accept it. It was just too cruel, and the Sage I knew was anything but cruel.

Ji-Hyun moved next to Rocco, clearly in protective big sis mode. "How'd you even get his number, you psycho?"

Sage bristled. "You always were melodramatic, Ji-Hyun. I didn't get it off the dark web or anything, so you don't need to try and paint me as the crazy ex-girlfriend. I got it from a mutual acquaintance of ours. If Rocco had just picked up the first time I called, I wouldn't be here right now."

Ex-girlfriend? My stomach knotted up. They'd dated. Rocco and Sage had dated, and she'd never told me. In fact, she'd gone out of her way to hide it. I felt nauseous. Especially once I started thinking about the phone calls. When had they started? I sifted through the tangled web of my memories anxiously.

After my date with Dom.

Rocco had picked me up from the side of the road in Ackerman's fancy car, taken me back home, and made pizza rolls with leftover pizza. He'd gotten a call while we were eating and answered, thinking it was Dom with a new number. When he realized it wasn't, his eyes hardened and he'd told the person never to call again. I'd thought it was a stalker, a crazed fan that had somehow gotten his number. Not his gorgeous, older ex-girlfriend.

Come to think of it, Sage had also called the day after I'd spent the night at Rocco's apartment. The day after our first kiss.

Was she following him? Was she following me?

I stared at her, bewildered even as my brain connected the dots and put the pieces together.

Was this why she became my friend? To get to Rocco? I'd been starting to see her as another Ji-Hyun— a big sister, a confidant. She was the first person I texted after I told Rocco— aka her ex-boyfriend— I loved him.

If this wasn't so devastatingly bizarre, I swear I'd laugh. Maybe shout out a "You got me good, girl!"

"Why're you here?" Rocco asked again. His voice was even quieter, notes of an old hurt present.

He told me he'd been in love before. This was who he must've been talking about— Sage Sampson. The girl with the superhero name.

She stalled, bit her glossy bottom lip before saying, "To talk. All I've been trying to do is just talk to you, baby."

The intimate tone, the pet name— they hit me where it hurt, left me breathless. Rocco wasn't unaffected either.

"You're funny, Sage." His Adam's apple bobbed. Something that happened when he was nervous. He shifted from one foot to the other. "Why do you feel like you deserve a conversation given the way things ended?"

She looked hurt, but there was a spark of determination in her dark eyes. "Because I know better now. You know that saying about relationships? 'How you get 'em is how you lose 'em?' I was afraid when you went on tour you'd...meet someone the way you met me."

There was a ringing in my ears; an echo of me asking Rocco if he'd ever been with a groupie and him saying, "Once. Exactly once...and it turned into a big mess."

This was the big mess. Or at least a continuation of it.

I actually felt dizzy. I needed to sit down, but I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot and I couldn't take my eyes off of Sage.

"I believed that was going to happen," she continued. "But I should've believed in us. I should've trusted you, because you never gave me a reason not to."

It was exactly what she'd told me when I'd asked her about her first relationship at the coffee shop. It was Rocco she'd been talking about so wistfully. She'd been able to give me such oddly specific boy advice, because she'd known I wasn't talking about Dom. She'd known Operation: Cinderella was a front.

Nic finally started getting restless in her arms, and the more I looked at his dark hair and brown eyes, the more I wanted to throw up.

"Mommy," he said, tugging on her shirt. "I'm hungry."

Sage's eyes never left Rocco's as she said, "We'll get you something to eat soon, honey. I just want you to meet your daddy first."

I closed my eyes.

She couldn't mean Rocco. She couldn't. When Nic had called her mommy before, she'd told me it was because they spent a lot of time together. That it hurt his real mom's feelings. There had to be a real mom out there. That's right, Nic was just one of the many kids she'd babysat and nannied over the years.

He couldn't be hers. My chest burned, each breath felt like inhaling and exhaling fire. But even if he was, he couldn't be Rocco's. He would've told me something like that.

If he knew.

I glanced at him.

Oh, god. He didn't.

He looked stricken, mouth slightly open as he stared at Sage like he didn't quite understand what he was seeing. Then his eyes slid to the little boy in her arms and I saw the anguish hit. A fine tremor broke out all over his body. He took a shaky step back and bumped into Eli who basically had to hold him up.

"His name's Nic," Sage said softly before delivering the final blow. "It's short for Niccolo."

She had to know what she was doing to Rocco right now. That naming this kid after his dead dad was rubbing salt in some very open wounds. That something like this was probably his worst nightmare.

Rocco began shaking his head back and forth. "He can't be—"

"Yours?" Sage interrupted. She sighed as if she had the right to be exasperated. "Come on, Roc. Don't be that guy."

The words looked like a physical slap to him. Most of the people in the room (including me) knew being that guy— being like his dad— was the last thing he wanted.

"Spend some time with Nic and you'll see. He's yours. I wanted to tell you sooner, but...the timing wasn't right and I was scared."

So telling him after he'd made it big and in a room full of people was her being considerate? Courageous?

"This was why you helped me at the Iron Barrel, isn't it?" I heard myself say. Five minutes ago if someone had asked me to speak, I would've written down that I'd forgotten how on a cue card. But somewhere toward the end of Sage's big reveal, I'd gotten angry. Bitterly angry with her for trying to justify all the lying and manipulating she'd done. I could feel everyone's attention shift to me, but I had my sights set on her. "You became my friend just to get to Rocco."

"He needed to meet his son." She frowned, strands of her blond bob falling forward and obscuring part of her face. "I know you're not going to believe me, but I didn't orchestrate what happened at the Barrel. How could I have known you'd be there? That you'd come through the front entrance and get rushed by everyone in line? When I saw it happen, I just reacted. You reminded me of...me when I braved the fans for Rocco. There were a lot less back then though."

I snorted, more irritated with every word she spoke. Was she really trying to compare us right now? What did she hope to gain by doing that? My sympathy? My understanding? She'd done nothing but lie to me. Play me. All so she could get what she wanted.

"OK, let's say you just 'reacted.' Why'd you have to go and team up with Enid?"

I'd told Sage a little bit about the disintegration of our friendship, and some of the things Enid had said and done to me. So for her to turn around and conspire with Enid made me feel like an idiot. Like I'd shot myself in the foot. Could I only make friends through other people? I'd met Sienna through Enid and Ji-Hyun through the boys. Was this what was going to happen every time I tried to make friends on my own? I'd get sociopathic single moms?

"Whoa, whoa! Hold up, Misery," Enid sputtered, holding both hands up. "I had no idea you two knew each other. Or...or that she dated Rocco. I met her when I was getting coffee near the concert venue in New York and we hit it off. She told me she lived in Beechmill, so we've hung out a few times and I invited her here once."

It sounded like how Sage and I had met. The next step would've been me inviting her to my house, but she'd gotten there with Enid first.

Even if she was telling the truth about not planning to save me from the mob, there was no way to explain meeting both me and Enid at a coffee shop at exactly the right time.

It had been set up, all with one goal in mind.

"Look, this was the only way I'd get a chance to see Rocco in person. He wasn't answering my calls and when I used a different number, he'd block it. I couldn't just...text him about Nic. I had to tell him in person. That doesn't mean I didn't like you guys or enjoy the time we spent together. Under different circumstances we could've even been friends," Sage explained.

"Do you hear yourself right now?" Ji-Hyun looked ready to claw her eyes out. "You don't want to be seen as the crazy ex, but that's exactly how you're acting! You dragged innocent people into this insane game of yours!"

"It's not a game!" Sage snapped. "I didn't tell Rocco about Nic, because I know how much he's wanted this. Getting to play music for a living, doing what his dad couldn't by his own merit and not using his name or connections. He finally got that, so I didn't wanted to take it away from him. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that hiding Nic would be a bigger betrayal to Rocco. He'd want to know if he had a son, so he could do what his dad never did for him."

"Stop talking." It was Eli, and he was seething with quiet rage. I'd never seen him angry before. "Don't try and make this about Rocco. No matter how you try to spin it you'll still be the selfish one."

"At the end of the day, I don't care what any of you think. I came here so my son could meet his father, and to give Rocco a chance to know his son." She turned to him. "Can we go and talk somewhere quiet? You can see that this is important."

He hesitated, eyes sliding over to Nic who was staring back curiously. Jae of all people grabbed his arm before he could step forward. "You sure about this? Just because the kid has the same hair color as you doesn't mean he's yours."

"That's basically what my dad's friends said about me. I— I gotta make sure." Rocco's voice was gravel, his mouth set in a thin line as he met Jae, Eli, and Dom's expressions of doubt.

Jae finally nodded grimly and let go of his arm.

I didn't want him to go with Sage. She'd come into this mercilessly, having no trouble playing on Rocco's childhood insecurities. Just from the small glimpse I'd caught of her powers of manipulation, who knew what else she had up her sleeve or what she'd say when they were alone.

It turned out, Rocco was on the same page as me. He knew Sage well. Walking up to her, he said, "We can go somewhere and talk, but I want my manager there."

Ackerman, who'd been typing on his phone furiously the whole time (no doubt relaying everything to Winona Springsteen and prepping for damage control) slipped it into his pocket and smoothed down his suit. His lip curled in disgust as he took in Sage and Nic. Rocco and the rest of Blue Vendetta were a constant source of grief to Ackerman, but they were still his clients. It'd be in his best interest to protect them.

"No way," Sage replied.

Rocco faltered, but recovered momentum quickly. "Haven't heard from you in almost two years then you show up out of the blue and start calling me. You befriend the girl I like and her toxic friend to get close to me. Now you show up with a kid demanding to talk? We can talk, Sage, but it'll be on my terms. And stop calling me baby. The kid may be cute, but you're not."

Something cold and calculating slipped into Sage's eyes. "After everything we've been through, you won't talk to me unless your stupid manager's present?"

"It's because of everything we've been through that I know to have someone there. Who knows what kind of stunt you'll pull."

She shook her head and took a deep breath, reaching into her giant purse to take out her phone while balancing Nic on her hip. "This is the one thing I don't miss about you. You're so freaking stubborn."

"I can think of lots of things I don't miss about you."

She glared at him before looking down at her phone and thumbing through it. "I actually don't enjoy pulling these so-called stunts. If you weren't so hard-headed maybe I wouldn't have to. But being a mom has taught me to always come prepared, baby."

"Sage," Rocco said in warning. 

She turned the phone around, but from where I was standing, I couldn't see the screen. It only took the stiffening of Rocco's shoulders for me to remember I had legs. I shuffled behind him and peeked at it to see what had immobilized him.

I gasped, jerking back so hard I almost fell.

Was my emotional distress causing me to hallucinate? This wasn't possible!

Rocco seemed to be thinking the same thing if the confused hurt on his face was anything to go by. A thousand excuses and explanations raced through my mind, but I instantly knew none of them would work. The damage had already been done.

"I want to talk to you alone," Sage insisted. "And if that doesn't happen this pic of you and Misery kissing is going up on Twitter."

Right there, on her phone was the picture of me and Rocco's first kiss on stage after the show in New York. The one I'd just been trying to delete off Enid's phone before Sage came downstairs.

It didn't make any sense. Why did she have it? Did Enid send it to her?

I turned to see Enid's panicked face. She'd been closer to the stairs, so she'd probably seen the picture as soon as Sage flipped her phone around. "How did you—" She stopped and turned to me,  desperate. "I didn't give that to her, Misery. Why would I when I already told you I was waiting for the perfect time to post it myself?"

It got dead quiet as Enid's words sank in.

She'd just outed herself prematurely.

"Would you mind repeating that, Miss Diaz? Because I couldn't have heard you say you were planning to post something that would jeopardize the narrative of Misery dating Dominic," Ackerman hissed. His face was completely red and he was doing the Angry Birds scowl again.

"So, it wasn't a misunderstanding then?" Paula finally walked down the last couple of steps into the basement. She looked heartbroken. "You were actually holding something over Misery? Oh, Enid, how could you? She's like your sister! And worst of all, you gave it to this loca?"

"Mom. Ackerman. I can explain—"

A loud crash sounded over the budding chaos. The young crew member who'd been flirting with Sienna earlier had fumbled the pile of equipment in his arms. Various tripod parts, wires, and his phone littered the ground. He knelt quickly and started picking them up, blushing like crazy at being the temporary center of attention. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Sage sighed before turning to Paula and Ackerman. "She didn't give it to me." It was admitted a bit reluctantly. "I took it."

"How?" Enid asked.

"When we met up for coffee on Friday. I texted it to myself from your phone."

If she was talking about this past Friday, that was the day I'd also met up with her for coffee. I'd bumped into Enid afterwards, tried to delete the picture, and we'd ended up scuffling in the parking lot. Which meant that when I bumped into her, she'd been going inside to see Sage.

Because Sage had set up back-to-back coffee dates with us.

The idea boggled my mind, and it amazed me how stupid and oblivious we were. Everything was right there in front of us, but we hadn't noticed. She'd maneuvered us like she was playing an easy game of checkers. I bet she hadn't even broken a mental sweat. Embarrassment and helplessness filled the holes in my anger until they drowned it out completely.

She elaborated further. "I saw you enter in the code, so after you got up to order your latte, I took a little peek and found this hidden gem."

Enid's face was frozen in horror. I'm sure it was shocking to be standing in the presence of someone more manipulative than herself. The master, so to speak.

"Who actually took the picture?" Rocco asked suddenly.

"Enid," I choked out.

"And you've known since New York, but didn't say anything?"

"Yes, but—"

"Even though I asked you over and over if things were OK? If she was planning something?"

I started panicking, grasping for straws. This was exactly what I feared. "I thought I could handle it. I didn't want you to worry."

"It was my right to worry," he said coldly. "That picture had me in it too. We just talked about honesty and transparency. About telling each other things even if we were scared of how the other would react."

"I was going to tell you. I swear! That was the real reason I came over on Saturday. I- I was going to try again upstairs, but Ackerman came up." Tears pooled in my eyes and slid down my cheeks. I had to make Rocco understand. He had to believe me.

His jaw was clenched, eyes shining as he said, "If you'd told me sooner then maybe we could've prevented this."

The words cut deep, because they were true. He was right. If I'd told him about the picture sooner maybe he could've done something