Page 75 of Backstage

“What more do they want to happen before they decide to pull the plug? How can we go out on stage and do a show with all this stuff coming down on Damian?” slams Thomas, angry, while his best friend doesn’t move an inch.

I shouldn’t be so worried about him, given how he treated me earlier, but it’s impossible not to feel pain at his suffering.

“I know,” Evan says, trying calm Thomas down, “but they say that until there’s a complaint from the girl, it’s just her word against Damian’s. Before you freak out, I know they’re assholes. Right now, we’re trying to contain the press out there. We’ll have a press conference, the five of us, where we’ll strongly deny the charges. Damian, do you feel like talking? You don’t have to answer the questions, I can handle that, but if you make a statement to the press, it’ll be more credible.”

Damian just nods. Evan waits a few seconds for an answer, but then he lowers his head. He’s done all he can, and the pain in his eyes is not just that of a manager who has to get his client out of a huge mess: it’s that of a genuinely concerned friend.

“You stay away from socials, don’t respond to comments, don’t delete the bad ones, absolutely zero,” he says to us, who are just nodding. “Pretend your accounts don’t exist. If we’re really going on stage tonight, you won’t be there. It’s going to be a tense evening. You’re too inexperienced to handle a situation like this. Don’t take it so hard. You’ll have your share of scandals to worry about.” He smiles melancholily, trying to lighten the situation.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” My voice comes out faint but seems to be the only sound that brings Damian back to reality. He says nothing but looks up at me, a grimace of pain on his face. His eyes are veiled with tears, then he looks down again.

“Be quiet on your bus, don’t let anyone see you around, and don’t respond to the provocations of the journalists. They will try to reach you in any way they can.”

“Evan, there’s someone here.” Dave’s quiet voice makes us all jittery.

“Dave, you’re gonna have to wait. I can’t handle any more problems right now.”

“It’s the girl who accused Damian. She’s outside.”

His words snap us to attention. My heart bounces inside my chest with rage, my head spins, and I have to lean on Luke to keep from going down. He grabs my hand as Dave lets the woman pass through us once their manager has agreed to let her in. Her face is still covered in bruises like in the picture. How the hell is that possible? Wasn’t this supposed to have happened months ago? Damian’s been with me the whole time. My mind starts to retrace every single moment of the last week, and I don’t remember ever seeing her near Damian.

“Breathe,” Luke whispers in my ear. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath.

Damian looks paralyzed, his eyes wide open, staring at the woman like he’s seeing a ghost. Evan moves a chair for her, then hands her a cup of coffee that she holds with trembling hands. She’s dressed in a long-sleeved jumpsuit, even though it’s a hundred degrees outside. He smiles at her, but he’s tense and alert to her every move. No one in the room dares to move, only Simon’s eyes bounce between his bandmates and the woman. Michael is studying her as if he’s trying to remember if he’s seen her before.

“Eva, I looked for you this morning, but all I could find were your husband and your lawyer,” says Evan.

The girl lowers her eyes, seems ashamed. “That’s not my lawyer. It’s my husband’s. They put this story together.”

My heart explodes in my chest, I take a breath, my legs shake, and my grip on Luke gets stronger.

“Okay. So the bruises aren’t from Damian.”

She shakes her head no. A general sigh of relief rises up in the room. Only Damian keeps staring at her as if he still cannot believe she’s in front of him.

“Can you explain to me, please, how this whole thing came about?” Evan asks her calmly, but I can see his desperation to know the truth.

“I met Damian months ago when you guys came to L.A. My friend and I managed to break into the hotel, and we waited for him.”

“Was that the night he was photographed kissing the three girls outside?”

The woman nods.

“But you’re not one of them, are you?”

“No, we waited for him in the lounge outside his room. He came up drunk, we tried to pick him up, but he turned us down. We were a little offended because he’s got a reputation for fucking every girl, but he sent us away, so when we saw the room key fall to the floor, we grabbed it and went in right after him.”

Anger takes over my stomach. I wish I could protect Damian from this whole absurd situation, but I’m as silent as everyone else.

“He collapsed in bed, so we undressed and took some pictures together. It was supposed to be between her and me. It wasn’t to become public knowledge.”

“What part does your husband play in all this?”

“Three days ago we bought two new phones. He set them up and asked me if he could back them up online. I said yes, thinking he was just going to copy the data, but a few hours later, he came into the kitchen furious and told me I was a whore. He saw my pictures with Damian and started beating me up and made me look, well, like this. When he left, I left the house and went to my friend’s. I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but she convinced me to take pictures if I wanted to report him later. I only found out today, when I saw the photos in the newspaper, that he didn’t really do a backup but just got access to the contents in my phone, including the pictures of the bruises.”

Son of a bitch. I look around, and I see we’re all finally breathing again.

“So, he took the photos and tried to blackmail Damian behind your back.”

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