by Grace James
Along the wall on the other side of the bed were piles of CDs stacked on the floor and a large speaker – the type you’d see mounted on a rig next to a stage – connected to a MacBook.
My eyes skimmed over everything and then back to Blake, who was looking at a page of lyrics and scribbles, still pretending I wasn’t in the room.
Nice try.
Moving quickly, before my nerve failed me, I grabbed the legal pad from his hand and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall above his bed and fluttered down like a wounded bird, on to the black pillows.
Blake shot to his feet, his face contorted into a look of total hostility. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I pulled myself up to my full height and stepped up to him – even though I still had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. “What’s wrong with me?” I spat back at him. “What’s wrong with you?! I just drove all damn day to come see you and you can’t even look at me!”
“That what you want? For me to look at you? Why? I already told you we’re done. What did you think? That I’d take one look at you and change my mind?!”
Maybe…
“I just thought you’d have the guts to actually talk to me. That you’d stop running for just long enough to –”
He interrupted me angrily, “Stop running? I’m not running! I’m sitting in my goddamn house!”
“No, you’re hiding in your mansion. There’s a difference. This is just where you go when you can’t deal with real life. This is where you shut yourself away –”
“BullSHIT –”
“– and pretend like you’re all alone. Well, here’s a newsflash, you’re only alone because you make it so no one can get to you!”
That hit a nerve.
He started yelling. “You don’t know what the FUCK you’re talking about!”
“Yes, I do. Because I know you. It took me a little while to realize it, but I know you, and I know what this is.”
“Then educate me. What is it?”
“It’s you running away from what you feel for me. From the possibility that you can be happy and not alone. Because it’s real. What we have is real and it doesn’t have to end. There’s nothing in our way anymore and that terrifies you.”
“You’re fucking delusional,” he sneered.
“No, I’m finally seeing it clearly. After what happened with your parents, the only real family you had was Connor. And then he left you too, didn’t he?”
His eyes flashed dangerously. “Don’t.”
The warning was clear.
But I ignored it.
“Everyone you loved – all your close family – either left you or let you down, didn’t they?”
He grabbed my upper arms. His fingers dug into my flesh as he shook me once, roaring, “I SAID DON’T!”
The shock of it brought tears to my eyes, and I knew that I should push away from him and get the hell out of there. But I didn’t move. I wasn’t afraid. Blake was hurt and angry, but he wasn’t dangerous – he definitely wanted me to think he was, but he wasn’t. He never had been. Not to me.
I let my body relax in his grip as I said softly, “So, it’s not really surprising that you’re pushing me away. Especially given our history. We loved each other once before, didn’t we? And look what happened there.”
“Yeah,” he gritted out. “You picked my cousin.”
“I did,” I agreed, refusing to cower from the accusation in his eyes. “I made mistakes and I hurt you. I was trying to do the right thing and I failed. But that’s in the past. I’m not going anywhere this time.” Tentatively, I raised a hand to touch his cheek. It was only a tiny movement, but I was sure he leaned into it, just a little. “I’m here, with you, where I should have been all along.”
His eyes softened for an instant before he squeezed them shut, his fingers tightening on my arms. “No, you shouldn’t. You should never have been mine.”
I shook my head, bewildered. “Yes, I should.”
“No.”
All my confidence was fleeing; I swallowed hard against the knot in my throat. “…but…why?”
His eyes opened again and fixed on mine; they were so full of pain my breath caught. “Because I won’t be him. I won’t – I can’t – be my dad.”
I was lost. “Blake, you’re nothing like your dad.”
He choked out a bitter kind of laugh as he let me go and stepped back, dropping back down to the couch. He scrubbed his hands over his face and then just stared at the floor, unseeing. “You have no fucking idea.”
“Then tell me. Please.” I didn’t care that I was begging him. I had to understand. If I was going to have to be without him, I needed to know why.
Maybe he realized that, too.
Maybe he didn’t want me to have to wonder.
Or maybe he just couldn’t stand to keep it to himself any longer.
“I didn’t tell you everything about why I left. I didn’t tell you what happened the night we got back to Vegas after our first tour…”
“The night Connor died?” I prompted quietly.
“…yeah…” His throat worked and his voice thickened. “I could’ve stopped it…I could’ve saved him. But I didn’t.”
97
I didn’t say anything.
Every word died on my tongue.
I could’ve saved him. But I didn’t.
Connor.
It all came back to Connor.
“What – what do you mean?” I stuttered.
His voice was low and hollow as he made his confession. “That night, when we got back to town, he went to meet a bunch of the guys we used to hang with. He wanted me to go, too – but I just wanted to see you. I wanted to try make things right.” He paused, squinting at the floor. “Con was pissed, but he could tell I wasn’t gonna change my mind…he was fucking furious at me at first – about you – but…he knew. He knew how much I loved you. So he went to meet them alone, and I went to that music store you used to work at and parked up outside to wait for you.”
“I saw you there,” I told him, remembering back three years to that night when I had been working the late shift at Realm Records. I remembered how my heart had almost burst at the sight of Blake’s old Chevy pickup parked down the street in the shadows. But it had been gone by the time I finished my shift.
“Always thought you did,” he murmured. “Anyway…he died while I was waiting for you. I was there, waiting for you, when he died. His mom called while I watched you.” His voice became ragged as he continued, “And if I’d’a just gone with him, I coulda stopped it. I know I could. No fuckin’ way I woulda let him touch a single fuckin’ grain of that shit if I was there.” He stopped and dropped his head into his hands.
I saw the telling shudder of his shoulders, and it broke my heart.
I moved forwards instantly, tossing the envelope that I was still holding onto the couch beside him as I dropped to my knees on the floor and curled my hands around his forearms. I didn’t attempt to pull his hands away from his face. Instead, I squeezed his arms a little, rubbing my thumbs over the ink at his wrists. “Stop,” I told him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I can’t be with you when we’re the reason he’s dead…” his voice broke, and the desolate sound of it tore at me. “I did what my dad always did, just thought about myself, what I wanted, and how when I’m with you…you make me so fucking happy – like she makes him happy.”
I was lost again. “Who?”
“Helen and my dad. He failed. He failed my mom and me – the shit he did? Fuck.” He pulled in a ragged breath. “After all that, he gets to be fuckin’ happy?! He doesn’t deserve it. None of it! And neither do I ‘cause I failed, too. I failed Con. He was my family, closer than a brother, and I let him down. I shoulda been there – but I put what I wanted first and he paid for it. Just like my mom did when my dad sent her to the fuckin’ store for a fifth of vodka and some asshole hit her with his car!”
All I wanted to do was wra
p my arms around him; to hold him and comfort him and make it all okay.
But I knew I couldn’t do that. There was no way he’d let me.
So, I tried cold reason instead. “Listen to me, Blake. What happened to Connor was a result of the lifestyle he chose. If it didn’t happen that night, it would’ve been another night. Nothing anyone could’ve done would’ve stopped it. It was his life, and he threw it away.”
Blake tensed, his arms going rigid under my hands. “No, I could’ve –”
“You couldn’t!” I cried, desperate to get through to him. “You couldn’t watch him every second of every day!”
He shot to his feet so fast I didn’t have time to react. He grabbed me, hauling me with him as he crossed the room in a few long strides. His hands moved to my wrists where they closed like vices, raising them above my head as he shoved me up against the wall so that I was trapped with my back and arms against the cool surface. The hardness of his body pressed against my front as he glowered down at me.
“Are you so desperate to keep fucking me that you’ll tell me whatever I wanna hear?!” His voice was rough. His eyes were too bright, glassy with tears.
My guts wrenched at the sight of them – but I was angry now, too. Not just heartbroken.
“You fucking coward,” I hissed. “You shut yourself off, hide yourself away, insult me, and blame it all on your guilt over something you had no control over?” I shook my head scornfully. “You’re not the man I fell in love with.”
At that, his brow came down and his lips drew back on a snarl.
But I didn’t let up.
“You can’t be him, because the man I fell in love with was brave. He’d been hurt badly, but he didn’t let that get in the way of what he felt for me. He took a chance and let me in and really let me see him. He let me see the parts of him that no one else had seen before. That’s the man I fell for. That’s the man I thought came back for me – but maybe that man died with Connor.”
I saw the shock flit across his face at my words.
They were harsh, I knew that.
But they were also true.
“And if that’s the case,” I continued, “then I won’t regret a single moment of what we had. I’ll carry it with me forever, because that’s what the man I fell in love with taught me. To love with everything you have, even if it hurts like hell. So, if he’s gone, he’s gone. I can’t change that. But I’ll love the man you were for the rest of my life, even if he’s too scared to come back to me.”
Blake was totally still now. His face was set – hard and cold. The only emotion was in his eyes; they were the deep indigo of a storm at sea.
For what seemed like centuries, I waited. But he stayed silent. Pressed against me, but untouchable.
I knew then that if Blake really wanted to self-destruct, I couldn’t stop it…
…no-one could.
I wrenched my arms downwards, twisting my wrists to try and pull them from his grasp. I felt his fingers twitch against my skin, tightening momentarily before he opened his hands and stepped back, letting me go.
His gaze slid away too, dropping to the floor between us.
I had my answer.
Biting my lip hard to stop the sobs that were forcing their way up my throat, I choked out, “Coward.”
His eyes squeezed shut. His jaw bunched.
I forced myself to move.
I slipped out from between him and the wall, stepping over the ruins of his guitar as I made my way toward the door. When my fingers touched the handle, I remembered the brown envelope that still sat on the couch. I looked back at Blake one last time. His back was to me, his head bowed.
“I stopped off in Vegas and went by your dad’s house before we drove over here,” I told him quietly. “I asked him for those pictures he mentioned when we went to visit – the ones of you and your mom. There are a bunch of them in that envelope, and some of Connor, too.”
The world went silent again.
“Goodbye, Blake,” I whispered.
Then I wrenched the door open and ran back through the house.
My tears blurred my vision and I stumbled on the stairs, but I kept going, knowing that if I stopped even for a second I’d crumble completely.
Kane was out of the car as soon as he saw me burst out of the front door. “What happened?” he asked worriedly.
“He’s…he’s…” I gave up and just shook my head.
He cursed as he stepped around the car and pulled me into a bear hug. “Give him some time,” he advised, giving me a squeeze. “He figured it out once before.”
“So…what?” I sniffled. “I just have to wait another three years?”
He hesitated.
I cried harder.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
I pulled away, trying to get myself under control. “Don’t be,” I said shakily as I ran my fingers under my eyes, uselessly trying to wipe away my tears. “Just get me out of here.”
98
Kane and I stayed in a hotel in LA that night. We’d done enough driving for one day and we were both exhausted. I was too emotionally drained to even put up a mild protest when he paid for us to have fancy rooms next to each other.
The jacuzzi bath was wasted on me.
So was the amazing view from the balcony.
I just laid on the super king sized bed and cried to the point where I was sure I was probably dehydrated. All I wanted to do was sleep, but all I could do was think.
And remember.
And get lost in my own head…
The night I met Connor, I told him that my favorite movie of all time was True Romance. I told him that I loved that movie because it showed how your life can change in an instant and become something exciting and romantic – and that was the truth. But I didn’t tell him that I was also obsessed with that movie because, in the end, it’s much more than that. It’s a ‘love conquers all’ story. An ‘all you need is love’ story. A fairy tale. Clarence and Alabama literally ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.
And I wanted that.
Even at nineteen, I wanted to find my Clarence, hop in a purple Cadillac, and disappear over the horizon to my happily ever after.
But the thing about True Romance is that it has an alternate ending. One where Alabama and Clarence don’t get their ‘forever’…
God, I used to hate that.
Lying there in that bed, with my shattered dreams around me, I saw that alternate ending for what it really was: realistic.
The funny thing is, I had no regrets.
I didn’t torture myself over what I could have done differently, because I had given Blake all of me. I’d been honest. I’d put it all out there. I’d called his bluff, gone all in, showed my hand…
And lost it all.
I guess I felt the way any failed gambler would after they bet the house, the car, and every cent they had in savings.
Dead.
But at least I didn’t have to wonder, What if…?
I knew I wasn’t enough.
He’d let me go.
And I’d just have to learn to live with it.
99
Looking back, I think the only reason that I did manage to live with it was because, for the first time in years, I didn’t see Blake at all – and I don’t mean in person, I mean on the internet, or on the cover of magazines, or on TV, or any of the other media outlets he used to haunt.
It seemed like there was a complete ‘Blake Blackout’. Radio silence. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Which could only mean one thing: he wasn’t hanging out with models, actresses or strippers. He wasn’t drunk in clubs and getting into fights. He wasn’t even ‘papped’ getting on with his life in LA. If he had been, I knew it would’ve been well documented by the press because it always was before.
So…I managed to function.
But I worried about him.
If he’d been acting like an asshole and diving straight back into his old wo
manizing habits, I could’ve hated him. Easily.
But he wasn’t.
Which made me even more desperate to know what was going on with him.
Is he okay?
Is he still sitting in his mansion?
All alone?
But I wasn’t about to call him, or text him, or even ask the other guys about him. My pride just couldn’t withstand any more.
I was done.
100
“It was the best wedding ever,” I told Hayley as I finished flicking through her newly created wedding album.
She had gotten back from her honeymoon late the day before after two weeks in the Maldives, and had called me the previous evening to tell me what am amazing time they’d had.
Of course, after she’d shared her news I’d had to share mine.
Fun.
Twenty-four hours later, we were sitting in my office at The Academy, drinking lattes and talking to Mel via video chat on my computer while we recounted every detail of Hayley and Derren’s perfect wedding day.
“It’s such a shame about the peacocks,” Mel piped up.
Hayley shot her a look. “Stop it.”
“No, really, that was SUCH a good idea.”
“I hate you.”
I let out a small laugh at Hayley’s disgruntled expression, and didn’t miss the look of happy triumph on Mel’s face when I did so. I had to hand it to her, she’d been making a solid effort at making me laugh for the last twenty minutes and this was the first time it had worked.
I hadn’t exactly been big on laughing recently.
“So, Mel, how’s the shockingly inappropriate crush on the convict-slash-patient?” I asked, mainly just to preempt her asking about how I was feeling, or if I was sleeping any better, or anything related to how I was handling my and Blake’s break up. I’d already recounted the damn thing three times (to Mel, Hayley, and Harvey) and heard their various “I’m gonna murder him in his sleep” threats. So, yeah, I was good without going there again.
