by Mia Kayla
He glanced down at the phone in my hands and back to my face. His eyes were hard, tight, and wary because he knew. He knew it was Hawke who had called. Maybe he also knew that it was only a matter of time before Hawke would reach out.
“He’s in town again. And you’re going to see him.” There was no hesitation in his words, no lightness in his tone, no cheerfulness in his eyes.
When I nodded to confirm, he tore his gaze from mine, lightning fast, as if I’d just slapped him hard on the face. The muscles in his forearms bulged, and his hands gripped the edge of the mattress.
“It would have been better if someone had fucking punched me in the face a hundred times.” He peered up, torment clouding his vision. One hand fisted against his chest. “Because…” His voice came out in sharp, broken puffs. “Shit.” He blew out a long breath. “Because I guarantee you…it would hurt less than this.”
I didn’t want to hurt Josh. I loved him above Hawke, above anybody, above anything. I needed him to understand where I was coming from.
“Josh…he was crying. He’s in the worst possible place right now,” I pressed and pleaded and reasoned. “He just wants to talk as friends.”
Josh didn’t understand, but I did. I’d lived my life watching my mother break down with her vices until she took her own life. “He doesn’t have anyone to talk to about this,” I begged. “He’s hurting, and he doesn’t want to turn to drugs. You know me. You know what I’ve been through with my mother. Josh, you don’t understand addiction like I do. He’s suffering.”
He stood and faced me, fists at his sides. “What about me?” He pounded his chest. “Shit, every time he calls, you jump.” He hit his chest. “How do you think that makes me feel when I love you?”
“We are just friends.” My heart was troubled and torn, hurting for Josh and the fact that I was the cause of his pain. “I don’t love him. I love you,” I uttered the words with fierce passion because it was the truth.
He gritted his teeth, fury rising up on his face. “He’s hurting? I’m fucking hurting, okay? Every time you go see him, I can’t take it, Sam. I can’t. Every second, I’ll be going fucking crazy.” His eyes widened, and his temper flared. “I. Need. You.”
He walked toward me and reached for my hand, his eyes building with pure desperation. “I need you to stay here with me. I need you to forget about him. He’s your past, and I want to be your future. I need you to keep him in your past, Sam. For me. Please.”
My lips quivered with emotion, and I blinked back tears, torn in half—not my heart because my heart wholly belonged to Josh, but my mind. My mind was conflicted between what I wanted to do and what I should do. Josh was my future, and I wanted to stay with Josh, but I couldn’t ignore this.
The echoes of Hawke’s cries were still resonating in my ears.
“A grown man is crying out for help.” I brushed tears out of my eyes as all my feelings bubbled to the surface. “What do you want me to do? Just turn around and pretend it’s not happening?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I expect you to do, Sam.”
The air released in my lungs in one large swoop, like a balloon popped by a pin.
His jaw locked, and we engaged in a silent fight. I realized where he stood, but I couldn’t just walk away.
And, after a few seconds of silence, he knew I had made up my mind.
He ripped his gaze from mine and stared blankly at the wall. “I can’t keep doing this.” He furrowed his brow, “I can never compete with a rock star, Sam. As hard as I try, as much as I love you, I’ll never win.”
“But you don’t have to compete,” I begged, reaching for him, needing the warmth of his touch, needing him to believe me. “You’ve already won. I choose you. I. Choose. You.”
When he tore away from my grasp, more tears burst through.
“It doesn’t feel that way.” When he faced me, his eyes were resolute. “Are you going to see him?”
I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood, afraid to answer, afraid to reveal my decision.
“I’ve never given you an ultimatum, Sam. I don’t believe in them.”
Of course he didn’t because his grandfather had pulled that card.
“Don’t start then.” I bit my cheek to control the emotions running through my veins.
In the span of the brown eyes looking straight at me, I knew that Josh occupied a piece of my heart, a permanent one, but I still couldn’t ignore the pull to Hawke, the hopelessness in his voice, and his cries for help.
And Josh knew it. He could read it in my eyes.
“Sam? Are you going to see him?” His eyes twinkled with anger. He wanted to hear me say it out loud.
Pictures of my mother lying motionless on her bed pushed to the surface. I didn’t want a repeat. I couldn’t have a repeat of something I could control.
With one nod of my head, he picked up his pants from the floor. “Fuck this!”
“Josh, don’t!” My hand stretched out to reach for him, tears flowing from my eyes in an endless stream.
He started gathering his belongings and shot past me but not before he said, “Good luck with your life, Sam. I hope you’re damn happy.”
“No, please!” I grabbed ahold of his arm with both hands, begging him to stay, but he shrugged me off. “Please. Please. Please.”
“I’m done.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t do this. Give me two hours.”
He shook his head one last time, not bothering to turn around, and then he shut the front door behind himself.
I opened the door and followed him down the hall to the elevators. “Please, Josh. Don’t do this!”
Trailing behind him, I pressed both hands against my chest, feeling my world crumbling below my feet in a never-ending pit. The elevator pinged open, and desperation shook every one of my limbs.
“Please, Josh. I. Love. You.”
My words stilled him. With one hand on the elevator door, he turned around, giving me one last look, his eyes glossed over. “Then, don’t go.”
There it was.
The ultimatum had been laid out.
Clear as a boom of fireworks.
A stream of tears fell down each of my cheeks.
I didn’t want to go, but it was like I was at the end of a suicide line. For a long time after my mother’s death, I’d blamed myself, and I didn’t want another repeat. I didn’t want to be that person, wishing and wondering if I could have done something different, something better, something to change the outcome of what had happened. There was no way I could walk away from Hawke. Every part of me knew it would be wrong.
Josh’s gaze dropped to the floor before he backed into the elevator. “Bye, Sam,” he uttered, before the doors shut him in.
A rush of air escaped me, forcing me to my knees. I stared at the ground, my tears blurring my vision.
Josh.
How could I have let Josh just leave like that? I should’ve chased him down. I should have chased him outside.
I walked back into my apartment in a daze, heaving in and out, heart palpitating in a full-blown panic attack.
Josh had to know I loved him. He just didn’t understand. He didn’t get how addiction worked. He hadn’t been there when my mother died, so although he could empathize, he wouldn’t really know. I needed more time to convince him to see my side of things. But time was something I didn’t have.
I’d convince him later. I’d make him see. Make him understand. Make him forgive me.
The ringing on my phone brought me out of my thoughts. When I picked up on the third ring, it was Tilton.
“Miss Clarke, I’m downstairs.”
I nodded and blew out a breath.
I needed a clear state of mind to help Hawke.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
I closed my eyes and pulled myself together, knowing the best way to handle this situation was to tackle things one at a time. “I’ll be down in five.”
Once in the stretch limo, I tried
to prod Tilton with questions, but his one-worded answers told me nothing. Our ride took less than thirty minutes. We ended up in Schaumburg, a suburb north of Chicago. The Hyatt Hotel sign shone brightly against the dark night sky.
“Why is he here?”
“He flew here straight after his mother’s death. To see you, Miss Clarke.”
I swallowed back a lump in my throat. Of course he had. Tilton’s words solidified my decision to come. Josh just didn’t understand. He was angry at a decision I had to make.
He doesn’t understand, but I’ll make him, I repeated to myself.
“He’s not good. Not good at all,” Tilton confirmed.
My stomach churned into a triple knot, one that you couldn’t untie.
Tilton’s usual response of, “He’s well,” was not present.
Tilton led me into the hotel and through a back entrance. I’d been this way before, just at a different hotel, at a different time, and under a different circumstance.
When I entered the massive penthouse, Tilton shut the door behind me. The air around me chilled me to the bone, and the only sound that I could hear was the blowing of the heater in the background. The space was untouched, super clean, like no one occupied the room.
I padded across the living room floor and turned on all the lights. Still, no Hawke in sight, but the dull, lifeless aura in the atmosphere had me brokenhearted. I opened the door to his bedroom and found him sitting at the edge of the bed, beer in hand, hair a disheveled mess.
His red-rimmed eyes glanced up to me with a despair I’d once been familiar with.
“Sunshine…”
The way he’d said my name, as though I were the sun shining down into the pits of wretched misery, rammed directly in my chest and had me determined to get him out of his depressed state.
I sat next to him on the bed and extended a consoling hand. “I’m sorry, Hawke.”
He peered down to where our hands were joined. “I didn’t think you would come.” The words were thick with emotion, husky with anguish.
“I promised, didn’t I?” I squeezed his hand, letting him know I was physically here, that when I promised, I meant it.
“Yeah, but things are different now.” His sullen tone increased, and his gaze dropped to the ground, a man already defeated.
I squeezed his hand tighter and ducked my head to get into his line of sight, emphasizing my words as I said, “I’ll always be your friend, Hawke.”
And I would be. He didn’t have many, given his lifestyle, and I knew the value of a good friend. I had that in Chloe.
He nodded and then a heavyhearted sob escaped him, the same hopeless one I’d heard on the phone. “I didn’t believe her.” He released me and turned away, not wanting me to see his tears. “She said she was trying to get clean before the cancer hit. That was months before I decided to get clean myself.”
I sagged against the bed, relief flooding my insides.
He was clean and off drugs, and I knew me coming here wasn’t all in vain.
“I hired an addiction counselor,” he said quietly. “We took her on tour, and she kept us off everything.” He scratched at his brow and then gripped the top of his head.
I’d had no idea. I had purposely stayed off social media and stopped watching the news to avoid seeing him.
“My mother couldn’t fight the battle until it was too late.” He covered his eyes with one hand, his breaths shallow, his shoulders hunched. “I know all the things I said about her before, but…she was my mom. Yeah, we didn’t agree, but she backed us up and pushed us to rise to fame when we were fifteen. We saw what money could buy, what it could do, and she drilled it into my head that we would never let it overtake us. We always had to make sure it was about the music.” He paused, sucking in a breath. “It used to be all about the music.”
With one hand, I rubbed his back, trying to console him.
He took a shaky breath. It was as though it hurt him to talk, hurt to breathe, hurt to reminisce about a past with his mother. “Then, it consumed her. The money. The fame. She was tired all the time, worn down, and she needed the coke to maintain the high.”
He swallowed back his tears, turning to bury his face in my neck. When his warm, wet tears touched my skin, the heartache in my chest intensified, and I had to fight off my own tears. I’d never seen him so vulnerable.
“Then, I got so fucking mad at her.” His voice was barely audible, and I strained to hear him. “She’d schedule two interviews at the same time. Overpromise us when we were already committed. We fought constantly, and I told her we needed to slow down. We led this. Without us, there was no band, no fame, no money, but she kept pushing and pushing until, eventually, I had enough.”
I hugged him tighter, wanting to consume some of his pain. His tears, his sorrow, his anguish caused me to tremble.
“That’s what power and fame will do to you.” His tone was low, defeated. “You don’t want the high to ever stop because you’re afraid it’ll disappear. You’ll be forgotten. I get it, but that was never going to happen. I would never let us die.
“When I was at the hospital, she apologized. She was so weak, but she said she loved me, and she was sorry for what she’d put me through. She’s the only family I’ve ever had. The one in the beginning who started us up. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, the band wouldn’t be here…and now, she’s gone.”
When his body racked with soft sobs, I couldn’t control my emotions any longer, and a hot tear rolled down my cheek. He cowered into me, reminding me of a lost, broken boy desperately looking for his mother, needing her.
“She was tired and ready, but I still begged her not to go. I wished I had gotten there sooner, that I’d believed her. Because all of this—the fame, the money—it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.” He shook his head in a continuous motion, as though he still couldn’t believe it, couldn’t grasp the idea that she was gone.
“It’s not your fault,” I told him as tears coursed down my own face, my lip quivering with emotion. “After all the lies she fed you through the years, how were you supposed to know she was telling the truth this time?”
Those same words had been said to me over and over again—by my counselor, by Chloe’s parents, by Chloe.
“I’ve been here, Hawke. I know how you’re feeling. My mother battled addiction with opiates and painkillers for years.” More tears pushed through as my breathing slowed, and my heart constricted with the memory. “I always wondered how I could have done things differently…changed the outcome of what had happened.”
A strangled sob escaped me, but I pushed through. “Know that you did all that you could, given the circumstances. She loved you, and now…she’s in a better place. She’s no longer hurting. But I promise…I promise you, Hawke…this will get easier.”
It was only after the storm when I’d realized rays of sunshine were coming through the clouds. Hawke couldn’t see that now. It was too soon. It might take years, but he would see it eventually.
His arms fell against my waist, and he hugged me into him, breathing me in, and I let him. I understood the pain of losing someone so close that it physically hurt you. Like the emotion hurt from the inside out.
“It’s okay,” I whispered over and over again, heat forming behind my eyes. “It’s fresh, but your mom loved you, and she knows you loved her, too.” It tortured me to see a grown man crying so inconsolably.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sunshine. I love you, baby…so much.”
A shiver ran through his body, but mine stayed utterly still. The words he’d uttered did nothing to my heart anymore. It was his tears that seared through me.
“I hate myself. It should have been me, not her.”
Warning bells rang loudly in my head, like a fire alarm in a burning building, and I knew the negative thoughts had to stop. They would only lead to bigger issues.
I threaded my fingers together at the base of his neck. “Don’t say that.”
<
br /> His sorrow brought back all my pent-up hopelessness. There was a time when I’d wished it had been me instead. The pain had been so unbearable, I didn’t know how to function. Flashes of my mother ran through my brain like a flip book, stills of her perfect face moving in slow motion. Her laughter, her tears, her joys that had filled my days with happiness.
And that happiness had turned into inconsolable heartbreak. Her sadness…the despair she’d felt toward the end. The cheerless person I no longer knew until it was too much for her to take.
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I know how you feel, Hawke. I do. Above anyone else, I know how you feel, and I promise, it’ll get better. She might not be here now, but you just have to believe that it will get better. Hold on to the last time you saw her, you held her hands, and be thankful she knew you loved her. Wherever she is, she knows she was loved. She was here, she was loved by you, and she wasn’t alone when she died.”
The dam opened, and tears continued to flow as the emotions deep inside me were laid out for him to see. His arms clutched on to me, as though I were his lifeline, and then we collapsed into each other, using one another for support.
“I loved her. I kept telling her every single day. Every single hour. That she was loved,” he said brokenly.
Then, he pulled back and kissed me, so abruptly that I didn’t have a chance to stop him.
“We can’t,” I said, tearing my lips away from him. “I love Josh.”
I hadn’t come to Hawke to get back with him. I’d only come to console him.
“We can’t do this,” I said, our tears meshing together in a stream of heavyhearted sorrow.
He ignored me and kissed me again with such fervor, a kiss so heavy with misery, that it took me with him.
“I feel numb. All of me,” he breathed. His fingers gripped my waist, desperately pulling me into him. “Take my pain away. I need to feel, and I only feel alive when I’m with you.”
One second.
One breath.
No exhale.
“Hawke…”
His hands went to the button of my jeans.
