“Here, man,” he said, teeth gritted. “Take a hit of this.”
Exhausted and ready to pass out, I slowly opened my eyes to his hand, passing the joint over to me and I have to admit, I was tempted. My veins were jittering with life, my body was dragging to remain coherent and the thought of lulling into a state of pure relaxation sounded fucking incredible.
But then, there was Kylie.
I knew how she felt, and I couldn’t do that to her.
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m good, man.”
Robbie dramatically rolled his eyes, putting his whole body into it. He staggered a bit. “Come on, O’Leary, you’re not good. You just fucked every one of those women senseless with your genius, and now it’s your turn to get fucked. I mean, look at you! We’re gonna need five men to drag your heavy ass out of here.”
Ty laughed lightly. “He’s kinda right, dude. That was incredible, but Jesus … you gotta be exhausted.”
“See? Even this idiot can tell you need this,” Robbie coaxed, waving the joint in my direction.
I wanted it. I wanted it more than I cared to admit.
But … Kylie.
I asked Sebastian and Ty where she was, not even bothering to look to Robbie for her whereabouts. He had done an excellent job of staying the hell away from her and although I was getting along with him just fine since our little altercation, despite the ugly bruise covering his jaw, I didn’t want to give him the permission to even think about her.
Sebastian surveyed the room, shaking his head. “Oh, uh … I don’t know, man. You want me to go find her?”
Robbie scoffed, laughing as he puffed at the end of his blunt. “I’m sure Princess can handle herself. She’s a big girl.”
“Robbie,” I sighed, wiping a hand over my face.
“Listen, man, I’m just looking at you, right, and I can see just how badly you need to conk out. So, just puff a little of this and you’ll be good and relaxed, okay?” He sat down and folded his arms on the table, leaning forward a little. Coming closer. “Princess won’t even know, O’Leary, I swear.” I turned my head at that. I imagine my face wore the surprise I felt, because he added, “Yeah, see, I know things. I told you she holds you back. Am I right? You want this, don’t you?”
He held the joint up between his two fingers, waving them back and forth. Taunting me. The carrot at the end of the proverbial string.
God, I fucking hated that he knew he was provoking me with that relentless peer pressure, and I wondered how the hell I was still feeling that strain, even at thirty-six.
Because you’re a little fucking fish in a big fucking pond and you wish you were the shark.
“You don’t know shit,” I shot back at him, but was I convincing? I doubted it. Because the truth was, in that moment, I did feel like she held me back. I felt controlled, powerless. Maybe even a little spiteful, underneath it all, and that, I hated most of all.
“I know enough to know that she holds you by the dick. You give her way too much power, man. You’re a rock star now. Those same rules don’t apply anymore. You can do what you want, you can smoke what you want. Hell, you can even fuck who you want.”
Ty groaned. “Come on, Robbie. Don’t you ever get tired of being a fucking asshole?”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being a dripping, wet pussy, Ty?” Robbie’s response brought a smirk to his face and he laughed at his own comeback, before turning back to me. “So, what’s it gonna be, O’Leary? You gonna be a soggy vagina like these two idiots, or are you gonna be a real rocker?”
“I’m not sure drugs constitute a real rocker, asshole,” Sebastian quipped, plopping down on the old, abused couch.
“Sex, drugs and rock and roll, man!” Robbie crowed, pumping a fist in the air. “Where do you think that shit comes from?”
“From washed up pieces of crap like you,” Ty shot at him with a shake of his head, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Now, if all of you would kindly shut the hell up, I need to call my daughter.”
“You can use the dressing room. I won’t need it for a little bit,” I offered, and Ty pointed at me in thanks as he stood up to hide himself behind the door.
Sebastian eyed Robbie with disgust, and it was in that moment of faint enlightenment, that I realized maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t only Kylie. Maybe he really was a problem, one that needed to be snubbed out, and I glared at him sidelong. Eyed the pinched blunt between his fingers and in one swift movement, I grabbed it from him. His gaze widened with Sebastian’s as I leaned my elbow against the table. I held the joint between two fingers and watched him with narrowed eyes.
“You think this shit makes you a badass, huh?” I asked, the adrenaline returning, scorching my veins.
“Fuck yes,” he said, excitement blazing in his eyes.
“You think this is my ticket to being a superstar?” I put my lips to the end of the cigarette.
Robbie thrust a hand through his dried-out hair. Overbleached and overdone. “Fuck, man. No wonder Princess has it bad for you. You’re fucking intense.”
I took a long drag of the shit. Closed my eyes around the taste of it, the feel of it, then pulled it from my lips. I held it in for one, two beats of my heart before opening my eyes and shaking my head. “You’re not—”
The gasp came to my ear two seconds too late and I whipped my head to see Kylie. Her mouth hanging open, her hands clutched to her chest. I coughed and jumped from the chair, threw the blunt at Robbie and ignored his swatting hands as I rushed toward her.
“Kylie, listen—”
“What the fuck did you just do?” she asked breathlessly, her voice quivering, and Robbie giggled from behind me.
“Oh man,” he said, his voice lilting with amusement. “Just when I thought this shit couldn’t get any better.”
I was tempted, so fucking tempted, to turn around and kick his ass. But, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Afraid of what she might do if I stopped looking.
“I didn’t do anything,” I stupidly defended myself, and she scoffed, the tears welling in her eyes.
“The hell you didn’t, Devin. I just fucking watched you!”
I knew she had, but a foolish part of me still hoped she hadn’t. “I was proving a point. It was just a little weed.”
Sebastian chimed in. “Seriously, Kylie, it’s not a big deal. He didn’t—”
Kylie shook her head and opened her mouth again, her lower lip trembling fiercely. “I bet you did this on purpose,” she whispered, unable to raise her voice through that barricade in her throat. “I bet you did this, so it would be easier on you.”
I shook my head. “Baby, what … what are you talking about?”
She pulled in some air, sniffling into the deathly quiet room. “You … you knew I couldn’t stay, so you had to go ahead and do the one thing that you knew would break my fucking heart. Does that make it easier to let me go, Devin?”
And with that, she wrenched herself away from my gaze, leaving me standing in the middle of the room, dumbfounded and shaking. She stormed the dressing room, ignoring Ty’s startled questions of what happened, she grabbed her bag and left. Quietly crying and in a hurry, she headed for the backstage door, pressing her weight against it, and I left the spell of my stupor.
“Kylie!” I shouted. “Where are you going?”
“Home, Devin,” she said. “I’m going home, and you have my permission to do whatever the fuck it is you want to do. You’re free to live your dreams however you see fit.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I admitted, thoroughly confused. Robbie tittered with his high-pitched giggle again and I whirled around on my heel, pointing my finger at him and shouted, “Shut the fuck up, Robbie!”
I had took my eye off her, and the backstage door closed.
“Son of a bitch …” I stalked forward, pushed the door open and caught her in the parking lot. I grabbed her, forgetting my own strength and pulled her into me. She nearly tripped, almost fell, and I gripped her
shoulders, steadying her as I apologized profusely. “Sorry, sorry …”
“Devin, please just let me go,” she said, her arms slack at her sides. “Please.” I caught sight of her eyes underneath the parking lot lamps, glimpsed the murky blue shadowed with exhaustion. Sadness.
My chest heaved. My chest hurt. “I … I don’t know how to do that.”
“You’re going to have to try.”
“But why?”
She rolled her eyes up to the bricked exterior of the venue. “Devin, it’s just … it’s just that we can’t have everything. We’re not allowed to have everything.”
“I don’t fucking understand.”
“No, you don’t, because you’ve never lost anything before.”
My hands pushed into my hair. “Why the fuck are you doing this to me?”
“Why did you smoke that weed?”
“What?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I wanted to prove to Robbie that I’m not—”
“What? That you’re not him?” She shook her head sadly. “Babe, if you wanted to prove that, you wouldn’t have done it.”
“I wanted to show him that it doesn’t make him fucking cool,” I shot back, suddenly defensive and feeling like a child.
“And proving something like that, doesn’t make you cool either,” she hissed, glaring up at me.
“I don’t know why this is a big fucking deal to you,” I argued. “It’s just a little fucking weed. I don’t even feel anything right now.”
Startled, she blinked up at me, her chin trembling. “Sometimes that’s where it starts. Sometimes that's all it takes for you to think, oh, well, that didn’t do anything to me, so let’s try something else.”
I had more than a foot on her in height, but she was making me feel so fucking small, and in that moment, I deserved it.
“Kylie … you know I’d never do anything—”
“Do I know that? Because the Devin I know, wouldn’t put up with the shit you’ve been dealing with.”
I shook my head, throwing my arms in the air. “Oh, here we go with this again.”
She inhaled a quivering breath. “You know, I’ve been watching everything change these past few months and I’ve been blaming it on everybody else. Richard, Robbie, the hairstylist, the … the fucking security guards. I’ve been pissed at everybody for changing you, for turning you into this person who needs to smoke weed and God knows what else, to prove something to some fucking washed-up loser. But you know what I realized just now, in there?”
“What?” was all I could say.
“The problem isn’t them, Devin; it’s you.”
My heart stopped beating. It was crushed, smashed underneath the weight of those words. “How … how can you say that?”
She shook her head, dropped her gaze to the asphalt at her feet. “Maybe it’s not even a problem. Maybe it’s just that things have changed, and we don’t fit anymore. Maybe … maybe this is what you’ve always been meant to do, and I had to help get you there.”
“Kylie, what the fuck are you talking about?” I raised my voice and it echoed in the parking lot. I knew fans would be gathered outside the barricade. I knew they’d be waiting with their cellphones, Sharpies and tickets. I knew they could hear me—us—and I didn’t fucking care.
She took a breath, swallowed, and looked back up at me. “It all changed the second you picked up that new guitar.”
I narrowed my eyes. “This isn’t about a fucking guitar!”
“No, but when was the last time you touched your guitar, Dev? When was the last time you wore Billy’s jacket? You haven’t worn it once on this tour! You let them buy you a new one, you let them cut your fucking hair, you let them change your songs. You let them do this to you and I know you’ve complained about it every step of the way, but babe, you let them do it.”
I shook my head. “You wanted this for me.”
She released a heavy, trembling breath. “I wanted your dreams, Devin. I wanted you to do what makes you happy, but this? Is this what makes you happy? Because if it is, I will support you every step of the way, but my heart can’t handle being a part of it. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
Anger blackened my vision and I tucked my lips between my teeth, and I bit down hard. “It’s always about you.” I shook my head, crossed my arms over my chest and dug my fingers into my sides. “God, it’s always about you.”
Her murky blue gaze widened. “Excuse me?”
“God, the only reason I continued with this shit was for you,” I said, the words singeing against my lips. “You wanted me to. You wanted me to play that piece of shit guitar in the store that I fucking built and spent my money on, for you.” I regretted the words immediately before I even said them and they expanded in my throat. The tears caught in the corners of my eyes and I breathed through them, determined that I wasn’t going to cry in the middle of a fucking parking lot.
She shook her head and her tears fell. “W-what?”
“I could’ve let you deal with your own shit and gone after what I wanted, but I didn’t. I threw it all away to help you, to fix shit for you,” I continued. Determined to not let her see how badly I wished I hadn’t said anything at all. How badly I was hurting myself by hurting her. She chewed her inner cheek, unable to look at me, and I knew I had the upper hand. “I gave this shit up, Kylie, and I was prepared to do that, because I love you. But you just kept pushing and pushing and now, you’ve got it. But nothing is good enough for you. Nothing will ever be good enough for you.”
God, my stupid fucking mouth. Why couldn’t it just stop?
Wiping her face and clearing her throat, she looked up at me. She attempted a look of strength and stability, but all I saw was the crushed expression on the face of the girl I made a promise to, all those years ago.
“Well,” she said, “consider my debt paid now, Dev. You’re free. You have no obligations to me anymore and you don’t have to fix anything else,” and without a second glance, she turned around and walked from the parking lot.
And for the first time, I didn’t go after her.
PART FOUR
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
-Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kylie
The year after my father died was the darkest year of my life, and Devin was the silver lining. Because every story has a hero; Devin O’Leary was mine. And without him, there was nobody to save my heart, and so, the first full day with him absent from my life, was worse than that entire year combined.
My plane landed at six in the morning and I went straight to work from the airport, determined to let life continue the way it does after tragedy. I did my makeup. I did my hair. I tied my apron tight and held my head high as I took the orders and made the coffee. Jealousy didn’t scorch my heart at the sight of Brooke’s engagement ring and I even smiled when Trent came in.
“Hey!” He hurried behind the counter and engulfed me in his big arms, more similar to Devin’s than I ever realized before and I fought myself from burrowing into his chest. I stepped back, resisting temptation, and smiled up at him. “How was your trip down the East Coast?”
“Oh, it was awesome,” I half-truthed.
“How’s Dev? I haven’t heard from him in a while.”
My heart ached as my shoulders shrugged. “He’s fine. Busy.”
“He didn’t even call me back when I tried telling him we’re engaged,” he said, noticeably let down, and I shrugged again.
“He just doesn’t have a lot of time right now,” I said, trying to brush it off by walking away.
“Maybe you could tell him—”
“Trent.” Brooke hurried out from the back, with her pu
rse slung over her shoulder. “She doesn’t want to talk about Devin.”
He looked taken aback. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know, but something obviously happened and she’s not telling me what it is.”
He turned to me. “What happened?” he asked, as though I’d give him the response that I wouldn’t give his fiancée.
Ignoring him, I hurried from behind the counter, grabbing a book from a table to put back on the shelf, but Trent stalked after me with persistence.
“What happened with Devin, Ky?” he asked again, and I shook my head.
“Nothing,” I lied, sliding the book onto the shelf. “I just don’t know why these people can’t put the books back. They can at least show me that kind of courtesy, you know?”
“See what I mean?” Brooke said from the counter, helpless and concerned.
Trent shook his head. “Hey,” he said to me. “Kylie.” I turned to look at him without replying. “Look, I’m saying this in the nicest way possible, because I’m your friend, okay? But I hate this ‘keep shit to myself’ crap you’ve done forever, you know that? I fucking hate it.” I tried to get around him in the nook of bookshelves, but the space was too damn small, and he caged me in. “Hey! Listen to me! Do you remember that night your dad died?”
“God, Trent …” Brooke groaned from the counter. “Don’t do this.”
“Screw you,” I gritted through my teeth. “Let me go.”
He shook his head, standing his ground. “You scared the shit out of us that night, do you know that? We called Devin because we didn’t know what else to do. You never talk to anybody, Ky. You force yourself to deal with shit alone when you don’t have to. I don’t understand why you do it, but I’m telling you right now that if something happened with my cousin, I want to know about it. You don’t have to deal with it alone. We’re here, if you need us, and—”
And I surprised the living hell out of him, and myself, when I wrapped my arms around his waist. I collapsed against his chest, the tears spilling from my eyes with a torrential force.
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