“God! There you go again! What if that’s not what I want? What if I want to support myself? What if I want what you have?”
Her eyes betrayed her. She’d never wanted fame. She’d been forced into it, so what kept her?
Fear flashed before she looked down.
And that’s when I saw the track marks on her arm.
And stumbled backward. My vision blurring. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is?”
She gasped and tugged the sleeve of her dress down.
“Ang,” I was ready to puke all over the floor. “Tell me. Now.”
She shoved past me.
And ran directly into his arms.
He grinned at me over her head and handed her a drink.
And I knew.
I knew what neither of them was telling me.
He’d fed her poison.
And because she had no identity outside of what she did.
She drank it.
And asked for more.
“Hey.” I knocked on the wall nearest where the door would be trying to shake the horrible memory from my mind. It was no use, because whenever I saw her, I remembered that choking fear that there was finally something I couldn’t save her from.
Herself.
Ang didn’t look at me, she was sitting on her bed cross-legged staring out the open window. “You okay?”
She blinked.
It was the only way I knew she was alive, breathing.
And because I was a bastard when I walked in and she still looked comatose, I ran my hands down her arms, looking for evidence that she’d relapsed.
She let me examine every inch of each arm.
No track marks. Thank God.
I searched her nightstand.
Nothing.
And when I faced her again, tears streamed down her face. She was still staring out at the ocean.
“Angelica.” I gripped her face. “Look at me. Do you need a doctor? Are you okay? Can you at least blink?”
She blinked, more tears fell, and then she was pulling away from me and running out of the room, out of the house. I chased after her, yelling her name.
She stumbled toward the beach, then detoured to the pool in the back of the house, she jumped in with all of her clothes on.
“Shit.” I chased. Was that all I’d ever do?
I dove in after her.
She was sitting on the bottom, holding her breath, her eyes stared me down, basically saying “Leave me alone.”
At least she was finally showing something other than an emotionless state.
I gripped her by the arm and pulled her to the surface.
“I’m not high!” she yelled. “But I wish I was!”
“Okay, okay.” I pushed her against the wall of the pool. “What’s going on? I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
“I’m not a child!” She shoved me. “I don’t need help! And I hate feeling this way, this sick twisted way about myself, nobody should feel that way about themselves! Nobody should be forced to face their demons in front of millions of judging people!” She splashed her hands against the water. “Why? Why did I say yes to this?”
“Money?” I offered cruelly. “You tell me?”
She shoved my chest, then pounded her fists against it over and over until she sank below the surface again only to come back up for air, more calm.
“Why did you take the job? Why did you come to me, Ang. The truth.” I asked, petrified of the answer almost as much as I was about her confession of wanting drugs to numb herself all over again.
“Because—” She sobbed. “When I started doing counseling, when I left rehab, I realized I had nobody, nothing. I had money. I didn’t really have a mother. I had my brother but he’d suddenly grown up, turned into this adult, and I was left behind, and all I kept thinking was where was I the happiest? When was I the happiest?”
She stopped talking and then turned to get out of the pool.
I grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her back. “And?”
“You were my friend before you were my everything,” she whispered. “And a part of me hoped that the Will Sutherland who used to sing me to sleep at night and chase the nightmares away still existed somewhere in that mature body of yours. A part of me believed the dream that the good ones, the really good ones, don’t change, they mature, they forgive, they move past the ugly even when it’s insurmountable. And maybe, a part of me, just needed a friend.”
I closed my eyes as every single thing I’d ever said to her, done to her, came crashing back down to earth, slamming me against the ground, stealing my breath.
“Ang.” My voice cracked. “I can’t ever be your friend.”
She hung her head. “Yeah. I know.”
“No. Not really. Because I’ve never wanted to be your friend, even when I said I did. It was all a lie.”
Her face twisted with pain. “I think I should go back inside now.”
“I would have fought for you.”
“I should have let you,” she whispered.
“Ang, there will never be a day in my life where I think I can ever be anything but your everything — and that’s the truth.”
“What?” She choked.
“I will always…” I licked my lips. “Always, want it all.”
I RAN AWAY.
Again.
This time to the bathroom instead of my doorless room.
I was too confused to keep crying.
Too tired from such an emotional day to even ask what the guy meant when he said he couldn’t be my friend yet needed to be my everything.
And a small part of me wanted to run back into his arms and offer him all that I had and see if he’d bite. See if he’d at least be tempted.
But I had nothing to offer.
Except a dirty past.
A shaky present.
An unknown future.
And guys like Will, they deserved the good girls, the ones with no demons chasing them down, the ones with no scars from needles. The ones who weren’t constantly showering in an effort to clean the sins away.
I started the shower.
And peeled the wet clothes from my body.
The bathroom door jerked open.
Will stood there, shirtless. His intense gaze moved over my skin like he was caressing me with his eyes. I didn’t cover up. There was no point. Because I wasn’t a girl who was ashamed of the current me, it was the past me I had a problem with.
“What if I was peeing?” I blurted.
His lips curved into a small smile. “Then I guess I would have asked if you needed toilet paper.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “And if I was all good on the TP?”
“Then I would have offered to turn on the shower, find you a towel, or just make sure you were okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not,” he said quickly, the beginning of his sentence colliding with my end.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed. “But I will be. And I’m not going to do drugs, I don’t do that anymore. Apparently, the new me is even more emotional and confused than before, and I’m going to feel all the things — even when they hurt like hell.”
“Life hurts, Ang.” He took a step farther, then closed the door behind him, locking us in. “So, feel it.”
“I don’t think I can tell the good from the bad anymore. Everything is alive, like this wire that refuses to stop electrocuting me over and over and over again.”
Will cupped my face with both of his hands, his lips hovered an inch from mine. “So let it burn.”
I sucked in a breath.
And Will Sutherland, the Will Sutherland of my dreams, kissed my tears.
Warm lips grazed each cheek before he pulled back, his eyes alight with something I couldn’t quite decipher, something that I knew if I tried to analyze would most likely leave me even more emotional and confused than before, and I’d already wasted too many of those tears on him.
He
didn’t deserve to steal anymore.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice was barely above a whisper, those intense eyes never leaving mine.
“Can it be when I’m clothed?”
As if remembering that I was completely naked, his entire countenance changed. His eyes flashed as he made a sound in the back of this throat, all before taking a step away from me and nodding. “Yeah, Ang, it can wait.”
I turned my back to him.
I still felt him.
The door was still closed.
“Is your plan to stay here the whole time?” I tried to keep my voice light. “I already told you, I don’t have anything in here.”
“That’s not why I’m staying.”
“I won’t slip in the shower.”
“And if you do, I guess I’ll be here to catch you.”
I jerked the shower door open and shook my head, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“It wasn’t a promise,” his gaze lowered to my mouth.
I didn’t have time for any more of whatever this was. Already my breathing was heavy, my heart ached, and I was having trouble standing without collapsing again. I stepped into the shower and under the searing spray.
I washed my body.
As fast as humanly possible.
Will wrapped a fluffy terry white towel around me the minute I stepped out, and pulled me into his arms.
“Please don’t be nice to be today if you’re going to be mean to me tomorrow,” I said with a hint of desperation that was impossible to hide with the way my voice shook. “Okay?”
He flinched, lowered his arms, and then nodded. “I’ll see you in the living room.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
I slid to the floor, my back to the door and tried to forget the way his lips felt when they pressed against my cheek, when they did what he’d always promised to do since the first time we kissed.
Make sure my tears never fell far enough for them to drip off my face, he’d always promised to catch them before they could — explaining that they didn’t count as long as he caught them.
I still remembered the very first day they did fall.
Time froze.
“What the hell?” he roared slamming the hotel room door open.
I blinked against the sunlight, my eyes heavy with sleep, heavy with drugs, my body still warm, but not warm enough to make me forget that I wasn’t in his room — that after our fight I’d run into someone else’s arms, someone who’d offered me something to take away the pain, the stress, the rejection.
Andrew.
“What’s up, man?” Andrew made no move to cover himself.
And it was then that I realized that I was just as naked.
Just as guilty.
Even if I couldn’t remember what happened, parts of me were sore enough to prove that I’d done something that I couldn’t take back.
“This isn’t what you think it is!” I yelled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t, it was late.” Every single word that fell from my mouth was a lie.
And all three of us knew it.
Will’s eyes fell to my arms.
Track marks.
Always track marks.
I didn’t even remember loading up my own needle the night before. How could I be so stupid? How?
I wiped my face, my eyes too dry to cry. “Will. Let’s just talk about this!”
“Talk?” He said in a calm voice. “Sure, okay, go ahead.” His arms crossed, his face was steel.
“I—” No words came, I couldn’t talk myself out of it, meanwhile Andrew’s smug grin made me want to puke. “I’m—”
“She chose me, man, plain and simple.” Andrew shrugged.
“Wow, I didn’t even know you were in the running, man.” Will glared. “You know, since we kicked you out of the band last night.”
I gasped.
I’d had no idea.
And suddenly it all became very clear.
I was a pawn.
In Andrew’s jealous game over Will’s continued solo success.
In our relationship.
As the new it couple.
“Don’t worry, man, we only did it once, it’s not like she can’t go running back to you now that you know the truth… she’s all yours.”
That’s when the tears fell.
When time froze.
When my eyes locked with Will’s and he did nothing. No flinch, no breathing, he watched the first one fall.
Catch it!
Catch the tear.
Take a step.
Steal a kiss.
Save me.
Two tears slowly slid down my cheeks, past my nose, over my lips. I had seconds and the tears would slide off my chin.
And Will watched.
Not just two tears collide with the hotel linens.
But so many that he was just a blur in front of me.
And then, he turned his back on me and said, “I hope it was worth it.”
“Will!” I screamed, “Will!”
ANG WAS EVEN more silent than normal when she walked into the living room, her hair was a wet messy knot on the top of her head, and once again I was gifted with the girl I remembered.
No makeup.
An oversized T-shirt.
And a pair of sweats I could have sworn I’d noticed missing from my room two nights ago when I did a load of laundry.
“Those mine?” I pointed at the black Under Armour sweats and waited for her to deny it.
Instead, she shrugged a shoulder and said, “Maybe.”
“So you’re stealing from me now?”
“Borrowing,” she corrected. “If I stole them, that would mean that I left the house with them with the sole purpose of keeping them for myself.” She rubbed her nose and sat cross-legged on the couch, barely hiding a yawn behind the back of her hand. “All right, we have to be on set in a few hours, so spill.”
I suddenly forgot everything I was going to say.
And I had no idea why.
I was better than this.
I was an agent for God’s sake. I knew the words, I was older than her, more mature, I had everything.
And yet, when faced with the girl who had nothing left to lose, I had nothing left to give that would repair what broke between us.
“It’s never one thing, Ang.”
She blinked up at me. “And I’m the one on drugs.”
I smirked. “I missed that smart-ass side of you.”
“Yeah well I was told to be on my best behavior by my agent so I’ve been keeping all asses hidden.” She cringed. “Sort of. Never mind.”
“Right, since everyone saw your ass yesterday.”
“And lucky you, twice today.” She teased.
“Yeah, lucky me.” My tone turned serious.
She swallowed and looked down at her hands on her lap as they twisted around the drawstring of my sweats. “What’s never one thing?”
“I think—” I sighed. Shit, how did I even say this? How did I even begin to make sense of us, of our past? “Hell, I don’t know, I guess I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t… between us…” I stood and started pacing. She still wasn’t looking at me. “It’s not one thing, Ang. It’s a compilation of tiny little things. I think when you look at a relationship you always try to find where the hell things went wrong, and you always try to pinpoint one situation and say okay that, that was a mistake, that’s what killed this, that’s what went wrong. But with us, it wasn’t like that. It was a million tiny little unforgiveable things that led up to one big thing that shattered whatever thin ice we’d already been slowly destroying. Does that make sense?”
Her head lifted. “A thousand shitty mistakes, are still mistakes, Will. No matter how big or small, they add up, and they break just as hard as one giant elephant getting dropped on thin ice.”
I jerked back. “Yeah, exactly.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Not what I was expecting. I was
trying, trying to help her make sense of things.
She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
“Ang—”
She stood and started walking toward her room. I tried following her, but even though there wasn’t a door to her room, I could still feel the mental walls go up, the door slam in my face.
There was probably a bigger door than I could ever find blocking me, and the chasm between us widened yet again, and I had no idea why.
I mentally kicked the door, banged with my fists, then rested my head against it in absolute confusion. What the hell had I said wrong now?
I hated to do it.
Loathed myself as I slid my phone out of my pocket and sent a quick text to the only guy I knew who wouldn’t mock me for asking for advice.
Me: You up?
Zane: You know I’m a night owl, writing some music, sent Fallon to bed an hour ago. You’ve got a busy day, something or someone… on your mind?
Me: Very funny.
Zane: Hey man, you eat yet?
Me: I’m suddenly sorry I texted you instead of Linc.
Zane: Can’t talk to the brother about the sister. Not how these things work if you don’t want him punching your pretty face again.
Me: Was that a compliment?
Zane didn’t reply for a few minutes, so I went into my room and got ready for bed, only to have my phone buzz on the nightstand.
Zane: Sorry, Fallon wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing midnight ordering of marshmallows again, last time I ordered a crate instead of a bag, it was our first real fight.
Me: I call bullshit.
Zane: Fine we fight all the time, but we always make up and she’s always right. I learned the hard way with that one.
I rolled my eyes, Fallon couldn’t be more perfect for him, from her perpetual enthusiasm and love to the way she actually got him — it was disgusting, yup, disgusting. My heart clenched.
Me: Can I ask you something?
Zane: Now we get to the point. Always, you’re my family.
I smiled down at the phone, I’d always thought of him as more of a brother than most. It made me feel good that he returned the feeling even though I wanted to kick his ass half the time for wearing no clothes on stage. Zane had hit it big right when my career switched and I retired. It was the perfect fit. He’d opened up for us once, and I actually liked the guy. He didn’t drink or do drugs, and only gave off the impression that he lived the rock star life style. I’d helped form his image so he could keep his secrets, and he knew I’d take all of them to the grave.