by Piper Lawson
Haley sighs. “Jax—”
“Sure. No problem. I’ll tell Miss Norelli I’m out of the musical—which I’m now getting credit for, by the way—because Jax Jamieson declared it,” I say sarcastically, shifting out of my chair and throwing my napkin down on my seat. “My report card’s coming soon. Since you’re more interested in my grades than my life, you can have the next family photos taken with that.”
I stalk out of the room, eyes burning. I nearly run into a startled server bearing a carafe of water and mumble an apology as I trip around tables toward the bathrooms.
I’m halfway down the hall when a low voice comes from behind me. “Annie. Stop.”
I whirl to face Tyler. The dim lights overhead cast his tense face in shadows as he closes the distance between us.
“What’s wrong with you?” His low voice has every muscle in my body tightening, and he comes to a stop a foot away.
I toss my hair over my bare shoulder. “Why do you care? You’ve been avoiding me all night. You should be halfway to New York by now.”
A woman walks down the hall toward the bathroom, attention flicking to us. I step to the side, and Tyler does the same.
Somehow, that brings us even closer.
“Are you mad I’m not on a plane to New York?” he murmurs when we’re alone again. “Or that I’m not paying enough attention to you? You can’t have it both ways.”
There’s a bite to his words, as if the stakes are way higher than our dinner conversation.
Maybe they are.
“I’m mad you didn’t tell me. I care about you, damn it!”
He leans in, a muscle in his jaw ticking in frustration. I breathe through my mouth, ignoring the scent of his shower, the way his dark button-down shirt clings to his muscles, the jeans that hug every inch of his hard legs. “Then pretend you don’t, like everyone else pretends.”
I step back on instinct, but there’s a coatrack behind my shoulders. I hit it, hard enough a few empty hangers fall to the ground.
I drop to the floor to retrieve them. Tyler’s next to me in a second.
“I never asked for you to care,” he mutters, kneeling at my side. “In fact, I’ve done everything I could to avoid this.”
We reach for the same coat hanger, neither of us letting go.
“Oh, really?” I retort. “You hang out with people you don’t like. The only time you show the world what you’re capable of is during gigs with Brandon at frat parties. Instead of putting yourself out there, you bury your talent and ambition and who you are because you’re afraid to take what you want. If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is.”
I wrench the hanger from his grip and stand, replacing the hangers on the rack. My dress has ridden up embarrassingly high, and I work the hem back down my thighs as he stands, too.
“I don’t need the psychoanalysis, Six.” When I look up, his angry expression is inches away. “If you think I’m your boyfriend, you’ve made a big-ass mistake.”
“Clearly.” I brush my hands down my dress one last time emphatically. “I have all the responsibilities and none of the benefits.”
His eyes flash, and I know I’ve pushed him too far.
I’ve never seen Tyler out of control.
That changes tonight.
I know it as the words hang between us for a heartbeat. Two.
“That’s what you want? Benefits?” Tyler’s voice is a rasp.
His gaze lands on my mouth, and heat floods my body. He strokes a finger down my cheek gently. Then he rubs his thumb against my lower lip.
“You want me to kiss you until you can’t breathe.”
My mouth opens on instinct, my breath trembling out. I don’t know when I’ll need another because the way he’s looking at me, I might die right here. As if he knows what I’m thinking and likes it, his eyes darken more.
“Or run my hands up this dress the way I’ve been thinking about all night.”
He hitches a finger under the hem and traces a slow path upward.
Somehow, we’re still alone in this hallway, but we won’t be for long.
Anyone could walk in and see his hand up my skirt, inching to the apex of my thighs.
“If I go high enough“—his voice is drugging—“I’ll find all your secrets. Written and otherwise.”
I’m throbbing. Shock twines with desire in my gut.
I’m in a restaurant thirty feet from my family, and I’m soaked for him.
It’s messed up, but I want this, so fucking much.
More than that, knowing he’s here, a breath away, and that he wants it too…
It’s the biggest turn-on.
Trying to reconcile my former friend with the popular asshole I thought betrayed me with the one who’s in front of me is impossible.
I give up trying.
Tyler leans closer, his hair tickling my neck and his mouth a hot caress against the shell of my ear. “I could steal you out of this restaurant. We could take my bike and run away. Leave your dad, the assholes, the expectations.”
I’m drowning. The wanting and craving and longing combine in a writhing mass of guilty need that expands to fill my entire being.
“But what happens then?” he murmurs. His touch falls away, and I nearly moan in protest.
I blink once, twice, before the soft sound of footsteps on carpet alerts me to the woman making her return journey from the bathroom, steadfastly avoiding eye contact.
“I hope you have a plan for then,” Tyler says once she’s past. “Because that’s where I get stuck.”
When I meet his gaze, I’m startled to see the fire behind his eyes is leashed once more.
The truth slams into me and leaves me aching.
He’s not asking for real—he’s proving a point.
That even if I want him and he wants me, we can’t be together.
In his world, we can’t.
I take a deep breath, willing my heart to stop racing as I tug on my hem with one hand, smooth my hair with the other.
“We’d figure it out together,” I say, and the words come out surprisingly level. “Except you don’t want to.”
I turn and head straight into one of the single-stall bathrooms, slamming the door hard enough the frame shakes.
12
Some moments seem destined to remain mysterious even if you stop, rewind, replay them from a million angles.
Until last night, my most recent was the moment the woman calling herself my mother approached me at Dad and Haley’s wedding, pressed that envelope into my hand with pleading eyes, and added to the uncertainty I’d always had about my place in this family.
Now, it’s the scene in the hallway with Tyler that haunts me when I drive home after dinner alone. I stare out the window at the lights of the pool house for a long time before yanking the curtains closed.
After I close my eyes, I’m transported back to that hallway, remembering his sensual words, his searing touch, the look of pure desire on his face.
Still, it’s the mask of regret and frustration as we stepped apart that stays with me.
I know if we get caught, my dad will lose his shit, maybe even send Tyler away.
None of that explains why Tyler looked as if he’d betrayed himself by his words and actions.
Somehow, I fall asleep.
After grabbing a coffee in the thankfully quiet kitchen the next morning, I return to my room and shut the door.
In the top drawer of my desk, I find a familiar envelope. I run my fingers over the name on the front, the return address, as I have a hundred times.
I’m aching to open it. It’s been sitting there for a year, untouched. Waiting for the right moment.
Which isn’t when you’re pissed at the world.
But I’m too worked up to deny myself.
Ripping at the seal makes me feel like I’ve crossed another point of no return, and my hands shake as I unfold the paper.
* * *
Dearest Annie,
Your father wants you to believe I didn’t care about you. I did.
I told him immediately I was pregnant. It took me two months to get through his people and get to him.
He came to see me and told me he didn’t care. He looked me in the eyes and said it wasn’t his problem.
You weren’t his problem.
Eighteen months after you were born, a lawyer showed up with adoption paperwork.
He promised if I didn’t sign it, he’d get me fired from my job.
I hated it, but I signed it. I was afraid.
What I didn’t fully understand was the NDA, which meant I couldn’t talk about any of this or I’d be sued bankrupt.
If you want to reach out to me, I’ve included my email address and mailing address. It would mean the world to me to see you.
* * *
Love always,
Fiona
Your mother
* * *
It’s not a long letter, but my breath hitches as I struggle to get through the entire thing.
I’ve always intuited on some level that I didn’t fit in, that my dad didn’t want me, but I told myself it was bullshit.
If this is true…
It’s evidence he didn’t want me.
I pace my room, up and down the line of music boxes on the wall.
It’s me. There’s something wrong about me, something that makes it impossible to love me.
Wow, that’s heavy.
But I need to get these feelings out, replace them with something better.
If I can just get the right words, the right phrase, on my skin, it’ll remind me I can handle this.
But the words don’t come, and the emotions claw at me, scrambling to get out.
I take my notebook and a pen over to my bed, and I write.
I don’t stop.
All of it pours out.
Every line on the page is like tugging at a thread inside me, unraveling one more ball of wants and needs and fears.
My phone buzzes, making me jump. Somehow, it’s been nearly two hours.
Pen: We working on English after lunch? Jenna wants in.
I tuck the letter into the back of my notebook and set both on my desk before taking a shower, scorching away what’s left of the feelings until I’m empty.
“Have you seen Tyler today?” Haley asks when I head downstairs for breakfast at noon. “He seemed upset last night, and his bike’s gone.”
“Nope.”
I play with Sophie and study my dad as he fixes a coffee. He keeps secrets from the world, but now I wonder how much he keeps hidden from me too.
“I think you can be ungrounded,” he decides under Haley’s watchful gaze. “If you keep up your schoolwork.”
The relief isn’t as big as I’d expected, like a single brick sliding off my chest and leaving ninety-nine more.
“Freedom,” I inform Sophie solemnly, clapping. “Free-dom.”
She moves her arms, trying to clap along, and laughs at our game.
What if for a year and a half—a year older than Sophie is now—my dad knew I existed and wished I didn’t?
Before I can play that out, the doorbell rings. Pen and Jenna fall inside the moment I open it.
“So… homework and snacks?” My friend holds up a box of mini cupcakes.
Jenna wrinkles her nose. “Those will go straight to my ass.”
“Good. More for me.” Pen’s already regaling us with stories of debate team as we settle into my room.
“Ooh, what’s this?” Jenna asks, glancing at the notebook.
“Nothing.” I grab for my journal, but she’s too fast.
“Is that your poetry assignment for English?” Jenna asks as she thumbs through the pages.
The letter remains tucked in the back, but my breath is tight in my chest.
She flips through to the pages I was writing today, emptying my soul onto the page. “Whoa, these are intense.” Her gaze flicks to mine, filled with anticipation. “Tell me they’re not about Kellan.”
“No. Besides,” I go on, eager to change the subject, “isn’t he dating Carly?”
“Really?” Pen makes a face. “Scratch that. They’re perfect for each other.”
“I can’t see it lasting,” Jenna comments, surprising us. “Kellan’s obsessed with himself, and Carly has the attention span of a flea. Except when it comes to what she can’t have.”
“Well, she’s running out of time if she wants to try to steal lead in the musical.”
“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.” Jenna shakes her head. “You’re getting really good in rehearsal. You have some secret sauce you want to share with the rest of us?”
Tyler.
“I have nothing to lose,” I say at last, and she frowns.
“We all have something to lose.”
I hold out a hand, and after a second, Jenna passes me the notebook. I tuck it into my desk drawer. “Let’s study in the dining room.”
Jenna shrugs as we collect our books. “Fine. Bathroom?”
I point her in the right direction. “Meet you there.”
Maybe she’s right and we do all have something to lose.
Because after last night, there won’t be more private rehearsals with Tyler.
There can’t be.
I wish it didn’t hurt so damned much.
“First day of freedom. How do you feel?” Pen asks as we head to English on Monday.
“Like a new woman.”
As we filter into the classroom, my gaze lands on the boy in the second row. The messy hair, the broad shoulders under his jacket. When he turns to listen to something Brandon says, I soak in the strong lines of his profile.
Tyler and I haven’t spoken since I slammed the bathroom door in his face at the restaurant.
Last night after studying with Pen and Jenna, I practiced in my room, the window shut.
The text came through after dinner.
* * *
Tyler: We need to talk.
* * *
Instead of responding, I’d kept my curtains closed until I turned out my own lights.
There’s no way to make this better because what I want is for him to take it back. Not what he said, but the resignation after.
Hell, I’d even take the irrational, angry Tyler over the coolly distant one.
Because that, at least, would be validation that he felt something. That he still feels it.
“Carly, are you passing notes?” I half hear the teacher’s question, but Carly’s response has me snapping to attention.
“Annie sent it to me.”
The teacher intercepts the message. Denial slams into me as I recognize the paper from my notebook, the paper I’d written on yesterday morning.
That’s impossible.
“Annie, why don’t you come up and read this for the class.”
My legs are blocks of ice as I shove myself out of my seat. I can’t meet Pen’s gaze or Carly’s or anyone’s on my way to the front of the room.
I take the paper, unfold it, and draw a breath.
No one gets in deep
Except you
You take the shovel from my hands, scrape back the dirt
I watch you dig
Your hands, your arms, your heart
My soul splinters with every inch you gain
Until you’re at the bottom
The words I wrote privately spill out, fill the silent room.
My tongue has swelled to twice its normal size as I sneak a look over the top of the page. Everyone’s staring, but there’s only one gaze that drags mine like a magnet.
Tyler’s sitting back in his seat, his posture casual, but his face is anything but. A muscle tics in his jaw, those dark eyes sparking with emotion. He’s still as a statue, but beneath the surface, he’s roiling.
Still, you don’t stop
You find the edges of my deep, the cracks
You peel it back, toss each piece over
your shoulder
As if each one isn’t a layer of my heart
Hold my breath while you look inside
Hold my breath while you meet my eyes
I might wear my heart on my sleeve, but this is something new.
Perfect transparency.
I’m stretched thin, a spider web ready to tear in the lightest breeze.
But it’s not for Tyler—it’s for me.
Each word is clearer, more deliberate than the one before.
Each emotion is more raw, but my hands have stopped shaking.
It’s too much, too deep
I see that now
You rise and I take your place
I throw the pieces back inside, make a new floor and keep going
Without looking up, I know you’re gone
And I’m alone
Wondering if it was my fault to dig that deep
I’m throbbing when I finish.
Still, a part of me remains intact, as if I’ve peeled away the layers of my heart, leaving only the most vital parts, and seen for the first time the wonder it truly is.
I fold the piece of paper, the piece of my soul, and walk back to my seat.
For the rest of class, I ignore everything and stare straight ahead. I don’t talk to anyone until Pen and I go off campus for lunch.
“Jenna stole your notebook,” she says once we’re sitting outside the café.
“No,” I say firmly. “It was in my drawer this morning. I would’ve noticed it was missing. She ripped out the page.”
“She wanted to humiliate you.” Her lips curve. “It didn’t work. You were great.”
“It wasn’t a performance, Pen. It was like putting my intestines on display for everyone I hate.”
“You wanted a stage, you got one.”
My phone buzzes with another text from Tyler, but I ignore it.
He won’t approach me at school. He’s their prince, and this is a reminder of the bullshit lines he sees between us. A way for him to stay removed, unemotional, in control.
I turn Pen’s words over through the rest of classes. You wanted a stage, you got one.
I always felt as if being on stage meant playing a role, but now I wonder for the first time if this is how my dad feels playing his own music, if it’s possible the crowd can make you as vulnerable as it makes you strong.
