by Melody Grace
God, she’s so beautiful: her delicate features, and those bright hazel eyes, staring at me with such tenderness it makes my heart clench in guilt.
She thinks I deserve her sympathy. She thinks I’m worthy of her care.
“Please,” I growl hoarsely. “You don’t understand.”
“So try me.” Alicia blinks. “Just talk, I’m right here.”
“But you shouldn’t be.” I swallow back my self-loathing. “I was selfish, even bringing you out here when I’m in such a mess.”
“So why did you?”
I look at the confusion on her face. She doesn’t realize her power, how one look—one touch—from her is my saving grace, the only light I’ve found to keep the emptiness at bay.
“I just wanted to forget everything,” I admit, ashamed to have used her like this. “You’re the only thing that makes it go away.”
“But I haven’t,” she murmurs softly. “Don’t you see? It’s still there, and if you keep going like this, you’ll never be able to come to terms with it. I’m here, Dex. Please, talk to me.”
I turn back to the ocean, trying to fight the truth in her words. I’ve been pretending I’ve got this shit under control, and for the last year, maybe I have.
But running isn’t solving anything. There’ll always be a reminder: a song on the radio, a memory slipping unbidden into my mind.
The long dark nights when dreams don’t obey me, when I wake shaking in a cold sweat from the glimpses of the past.
Alicia’s right.
I can’t keep hiding. And when she looks at me like that, I can’t lie to her either. I don’t have the strength anymore.
“It was last year.”
The words slip from my mouth before I can stop them, as if they’ve been stored up for so long, desperate to get out. I keep my eyes fixed on the horizon, knowing that if I look at her now, I won’t be able to say this, not if I see the disappointment in her eyes.
She thinks I’m a good man. I’m about to prove her wrong.
“The second record hit in summer, and everything got out of control,” I start to explain. “We thought it was wild before, when we first broke through, but this was next level shit. Private jets and mansions. Partying, clubs, girls…” I pause, remembering everything, every shameful late night, every willing groupie, every careless, arrogant stunt I ever pulled. “The tabloids couldn’t get enough of us,” I continue, hollow. “We all went crazy, living it up. Everything we ever wanted.”
It was a fairy tale, a dream come true. How quickly it became a living nightmare.
“I didn’t…I didn’t notice, at first, what was happening,” I force myself to continue. “We all got lost in our own little worlds. Austin took up with some supermodel, I was hitting the clubs hard. So I didn’t see what was going on with Connor. What he was doing to himself.”
I pause, feeling that familiar stab of grief, but I don’t stop. I can’t now: the words I’ve kept locked up inside for so long tumbling out of me in a broken flow of sadness and dark memories.
“Connor was with us from the start.” I sigh, thinking back. “The band was me and Austin at the beginning, but we weren’t anything until Connor came along. We found him playing with some shitty punk band at this club on the Sunset Strip. He hit those drums like nobody I’ve ever seen: attacking them like they pissed of his mother.” I give a wry smile, remembering his ferocity, that total commitment to his music. “Everyone pays attention to the guys up front: singer, lead guitar. But the truth is, there’s no band without the beat. Connor was the glue, he kept us all synched together. And he knew it.” I give a hollow laugh. “That guy was a cocky son of a bitch. He could talk the panties off any woman, walk into a room like he owned the damn building, even if nobody knew who the fuck he was.”
I take another ragged breath. “One day, he came to me—him and my sister Tegan. They’d been sneaking around, fuck knows how long, but they wanted to come clean. They were together, for real. Fuck, I smashed his face in.” I smile wryly, remembering the scene. “She was barely eighteen, but I don’t know…you could see they were crazy about each other. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t get a choice. And after a while, it just made us all closer, you know? Family.”
Alicia squeezes my hand. She doesn’t interrupt, but I can feel her warmth beside me, giving me strength, helping me force the next words from my lips.
The darkest ones.
“The label sent us on a world tour,” I continue. “A hundred dates in thirty cities, first class all the way. A schedule like that, it’s grueling. You barely get to sleep, always traveling. If you’re not on stage, you’re in the air, or doing sound-check in some city you don’t even remember the name. But we didn’t care.” I sigh. “That’s the real deal, why we even play at all. Thirty thousand fans screaming your name every night, singing along to every word. It’s a rush like nothing else.” I shake my head. Even the memory wakes me up, makes my blood sing in my veins. How long has it been since I felt that rush? Too long. Too fucking long.
“At least, it was everything to me. But Connor…” I stop.
How are there words for this part? How can a few syllables possibly describe everything, when it’s nothing but fear and shame and guilt? “Connor started fucking up during shows. Little things, dropping the beat, coming in too late. We thought it was just exhaustion, the pace on the road. Then Austin found him shooting up one night.”
I feel Alicia inhale beside me. “Drugs?” she whispers softly.
I nod. “I should have seen it.We all should have. Right away, we sat him down, told him he had to get his shit together. I wanted to shut the tour down right then and pack him off to rehab, but the label got wind and freaked the hell out. We were already sold out in every city, millions on the line. They threatened to sue us for everything we had if we pulled out.”
I swallow, bowing my head. “I should have fought them.” My voice cracks. “I knew then, I knew it wasn’t right, but Connor swore, he didn’t have a problem. That he was in control. He begged us not to replace him, said music was the only thing on earth that mattered to him. I wanted to believe him,” I tell her, holding her hand tight. “So, we kept playing.”
Was that my second mistake? My two hundredth? Looking back, it’s so clear, I had a million different chances to save him. All those moments I could have made it turn out differently, all those times I let him down.
“After that, we thought things were better,” I say, my voice thick with self-loathing. “Connor got his shit together on-stage, we didn’t let him out of our sight. Tegan flew out, she was good for him. He didn’t want to let her down. I figured he was getting better, but he was just getting better at hiding it. And then…”
I stop. My body is shaking just remembering it.
“It’s OK,” Alicia whispers again, soothing. “I’m right here.”
I take a breath, trying to absorb her strength, her sweetness. It’s the last of it I’ll ever taste, I know. There’s no going back after this.
“I found him in the bathroom,” I say quietly. “This fuck-off expensive hotel in London. White marble and roses everywhere, and he’s laying in a pool of his own vomit with a needle jammed in his arm.”
There’s silence, just the waves crashing on the shore in the fading dusk light. I can see it clear as the moment I walked in.
The end of a life. A stupid, pointless death.
“I called the paramedics,” I add quietly. “But I knew it was too late. He was too cold, too still.”
The anger rises in me, all my wasteful grief. “Such a fucking waste, that’s what I can’t get over,” I growl, fighting the sting of tears. “All that talent, all that heart, just erased from the world in a heartbeat. I know, there’s no good way to go out,” I add, my jaw clenched. “But that…it was cheap. And Connor, he deserved so much better. He deserved more from me,” I add, broken.
Alicia holds tight to my hand.“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”
/> “I failed him,” I confess, the words breaking me open inside. “I let him down. His family…his mother. And I can’t…I can’t ever make it right.”
We were kids, thinking like we were invincible, that nothing could bring us down. No problem that couldn’t be solved by a hundred bucks slipped to the right person, no mess our record label wouldn’t clean up.
But there’s no taking back death. No apologies or good intentions that can drag a body from the ground. And everything that came after: Tegan, and the pills, and every bloody loose end, that’s all on me too. Connor was a part of this world, and now he’s nothing but memories. And I’m still here: still able to experience everything he’s lost, still able to hold the hand of a girl beside me and want her body; still able to feel, to laugh, to love.
It’s not right. It’ll never be right.
I pull my hand from Alicia’s. It twists inside, a dull ache, but I force myself to let her go. Soon she’ll be gone forever. Not right away, she’s too good for that, but after some kind words and platitudes, she’ll walk away.
I don’t deserve to keep her, I know, but still, it hurts like hell. I thought she could save me. Just that brief flash of hope; the peace I’ve found in her arms. It made me believe, just for a moment, that there was a light on the horizon; that this pain wouldn’t last forever. But I had it all wrong. Why should I get to feel that peace? Why should I be happy, after everything I’ve ruined?
“Please,” I tell her, broken. “Just go.”
20.
ALICIA
Dex sits there, shoulders hunched, his heart clearly breaking wide open in his chest at the dark memories that have dragged him down for so long.
All this time¸ he’s been holding it inside.
I watch him, my heart aching for his silent grief. But it’s more than loss, carved deep on his face. It’s guilt too. Self-loathing, a bitter regret. And that’s when I realize the reason for it all: quitting music, his self-imposed exile, pushing everyone away.
He thinks he’s the one to blame for Connor’s death. He thinks this is all his fault.
“Oh, Dex,” I murmur, my heart filling with sorrow for him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him, even if you tried.” I take his hand again, shifting so I’m on my knees beside him. I tug on his hand, trying to make him look at me. “He was an addict, Dex. He didn’t want helping. No matter what you could have done, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“We could have quit the tour.” Dex turns now, his face harsh with self-loathing. “I could have told the label to fuck themselves. We could have put him straight in rehab—”
“And then what?” I interrupt. “He would have walked right out the door!”
“No!” Dex wrenches away, getting to his feet. He strides back up the beach towards the house, and I scramble after him to catch up. “You don’t get it. They said he had three times the normal level in his system. Maybe it was an accident, but maybe…”
He trails off, the horror too much to speak aloud.
“You tried to help him,” I argue. “But he lied to you, he hid his problem from you all. That doesn’t make it your fault.”
Dex shakes his head. His hands are clenched in two desperate fists at his sides, and I can see how this grief has gripped him, seized every part of his body until he’s shaking and tense with unexpressed pain. “I should have seen it!”
“Dex—”
“No!” he yells again, his voice hoarse in the wind. “Don’t you get it? I wanted the spotlight more. I wanted to keep playing, I was mad at him for putting everything at risk. That’s how selfish I was, that I cared more about the fucking tour than his life!”
“You know that’s not true.” I grab hold of both of his hands, forcing him to look at me, refusing to let go. My heart is breaking for him. He needs to hear this. He has to see the truth.
“Listen to me, Dex. If someone had told you what would happen, you wouldn’t have paused for a heartbeat, we both know that. You would have put him straight into treatment, and you wouldn’t have quit until he was clean. You would have taken care of him, because that’s what you do,” I swear, my voice shaking with fevered emotion. I meet his eyes, seeing the regret there, the endless pain. “You’re a good man, and you protect the people you love. I’ve only known you a couple of weeks, and even I know that. What happened to Connor was a tragedy, but his choices were his own. He took his own risks, and nobody could ever blame you for that. Do you hear me, Dex? This isn’t on you, it never was. Please.” My voice breaks, desperate to make him understand. “You have to see. You’re more than this, more than his selfish mistakes!”
Dex stares at me, breathing heavily. I can see the agony in his eyes, how much he wants to believe me—but how he’s wrapped in the chains of his past. It’s crazy, that I’ve known him so little time, but still, I can’t bear to see him hurting like this. Something about him has slipped under my skin, wrapping around my heart, and now it squeezes tight, so I feel his grief as if it were my own.
“You can’t let his choices rule your life,” I beg him. “You can’t feel guilty for every good thing that happens to you. You’re allowed to be happy. You’re allowed to play your music, and to perform again.”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched to keep his emotion at bay. “I swore, if he couldn’t play, then I shouldn’t either. That night was the end for me.”
“No!” I cry, furious that he’s clinging to this darkness, that he’s punishing himself for something beyond his control. “It was the end for him. He got to make that choice, he got to decide for himself. And he chose a fucked up way to go, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay for his mistakes forever. You have a gift!” I yell, trying to make him see sense. “You’re denying everything, a part of who you are. But even if you never played another note in your life, it won’t bring Connor back, and it won’t make everything OK. It’ll just be another fucking waste of your talent!”
“Alicia…” Dex grips my hands tightly. “Why are you doing this? Why are you still here?”
I stop. My heart pounds. I can’t think of anything to say, so I just tell him the truth.
“Because it’s you.”
Before I can stop myself, I go up on my tiptoes and throw my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me in a tear-soaked, anguished kiss. He doesn’t understand how special he is, he doesn’t see what I do, so I kiss him to show him: to give him everything he wanted from me. An escape.
Oblivion.
My lips crash against his, hungry and desperate. For a moment, he stays frozen, but then with a ragged growl, Dex clasps me against him and claims my mouth with his. Every moment of pain and loneliness, every self-loathing sleepless night, I feel it all in his kiss. He clutches me like the world is ending, and I’m the only thing that can save him. And God, I’m right there with him, lost in the hunger and sheer breathless need of his embrace. The kiss takes us under, it splits the earth apart, and leaves nothing but our ravenous bodies and desperate mouths. I lose myself in him, in his strength and regret, in his grief and hope; I find his darkness and I refuse to look away.
I’ll take all of him. I’ll take everything he is.
Dex breaks away, and the look in his eyes is enough to make my blood burn, a fevered inferno in my veins. He gazes at me with an intensity more than desire, more than need, cradling my face in both hands as we both gasp for air.
“I made you a promise once,” he says, his voice harsh. “That I wouldn’t take you until you were begging for me. Until the only thing you wanted was me sliding deep inside. Tell me you feel it,” he demands, his hands threading in my hair, holding tight. “Alicia, tell me you’re there, because I don’t think I can wait another fucking second.”
I’m dizzy, reeling from that kiss and the crescendo of pure emotion. But my body, oh, my body shudders to hear his words—already wet and aching to have him fill me.
“Yes,” I murmur, clinging to his chest. I feel like my body is a live wire, shaking in the wind for a single touch. “Dex, I need you. Please…”
He answers me with a searing kiss, and then he lifts me in his arms, effortlessly carrying me up the stairs to the house. I cling to him, wrapping my legs around his torso and claiming his mouth again, greedy for another taste as he strides down the hallway to the bedroom and throws me down on the soft mattress of the master bed.
My heart catches in my throat. He’s looming above me in the fading dusk light, a tattooed angel with a ferocious passion in his eyes. This time I know there’ll be no holding back.
I want it all.
I reach for him, and then Dex is on me: pinning me to the bed with his hard body, grasping me to him as his lips explore every inch of me. He strips my shirt away, yanks down my bikini top and closes his mouth over my breast in a hot, wet lick.
Oh! I cry out, arching up against the delicious rasp of his tongue, toying with my nipple, his hands sliding over to my other breast, making me crazy with electric sensation until finally he takes the tight nub in his mouth and sucks. Pleasure crashes through me, and I’m mindless, writhing in his arms. I tug his shirt over his head, greedily running my hands over the muscular planes of his shoulders, his back, his chest to revel in the feel of him. I grind against him, feeling the hard length of his desire straining against my hip.
Dex groans against me. He grabs my hands away, pinning them above my head with one hand, and then returns his attention to licking down my body, nibbling and nipping at me in a cacophony of pleasure and sharp, delicious pain. He shoves his knee between my thighs and Lord, I gasp from the hard friction, there, right there, where I need it most, where I’m clenched and aching for him.
“You want me.” Dex’s voice is hoarse, grating with lust. He fixes those dark eyes on mine, and rocks into me again. “You want me filling you, deep inside. You want my cock sliding into your wet, wet pussy.”
