by Scott, S. L.
Dead tired, I drag my ass to the fridge and pull out a beer while taking a quick tally of the food inside. I’m pretty set while I’m here. I hold my beer up in silent praise for Hannah.
My stomach growls, so I take a pizza from the freezer and heat the oven.
It’s weird to be back in Austin, a place where Stella exists not but a few miles away. I was drawn to her the moment I heard her say my name again. That connection we had before was still there. I wanted to touch her, kiss her, and hold her again. It was painful to keep that distance between us, going against every fiber of my being.
She looked so beautiful, my pretty little mess, except she’s not mine. Her words come back like a vengeance and gut me once again. “I’m taken.”
Taken. Such a strange way to say she’s dating someone. Taken? Not I’m in a committed relationship. Not I’m seeing someone. Not I’m in love with someone else. But taken. Taken? She’s taken with some guy? She’s not available?
I shove the pizza pan in the oven and lean against the counter. Drinking my beer, I stare at the oven between gulps. I finish a can before the oven timer goes off and grab another. After seeing her, drunk is not a bad state for me to be in.
Eating.
Drinking.
Passing out.
I pound down the Totino’s pizza and five beers before I’m lying on the couch staring at a TV I’ve not turned on. The blank screen allows my thoughts to flow back to Stella five years ago.
My clothes are on the lawn, my textbooks flying through the air and landing at my feet when I show up outside our apartment. Stella’s yelling so loud that I make the mistake to try to quiet her before the cops are called. “Shhhh. Calm down, Stella.”
“How dare you tell me what to do! Screw you!” She flings a book in my direction, but it falls short from hitting me. “Where’s your new girlfriend, Rivers?” She disappears inside again, but I can hear her loud and clear, along with the whole apartment complex. “Or did you have sex with Naomi and actually think you could come back to me?”
When she steps out on the balcony, yelling for me to confess, I can only repeat the truth, “I didn’t cheat on you, Stella.”
“Really? What happened then?”
Her eyes are crazed, her mouth pressed so tight her lips pale. Her hands are bound in fists from her fury as she stares down from the second floor. My mind spins as I stumble between what I can tell her and what I can’t. I stupidly gave my word to Naomi to keep her secret until she’s settled. “Stella, I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because she asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Why would she ask my boyfriend to do something that he can’t talk about? You understand the problem with that, right?”
“I do, but I also need you to trust me when I say—”
“I can’t believe you did this to us. I can’t believe you would hurt me like this.” As tears run down her cheeks, she screams, “I hate you, Rivers.”
. . . Stuffed and almost drunk, I let my eyes dip closed, hoping I wake up with less pain than I feel in my chest. Just for a second . . .
A knock on the door startles me awake. I rub my brow and open my eyes. My wits are a little hazy as I try to manage the jet lag from flying half the day.
Another rap on the door rattles my head, and I stand. “Okay, I’m fucking coming.” I glance at the time before I swing the door open. “It’s eleven fucking fifteen, what the fu—”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s late.” Oh fuck. My pretty little mess . . . I’m wide-awake now.
She’s breathtaking. Stella’s hair is long, longer than she used to wear it. It flows over her shoulder with a slight wave that reminds me of when we used to sit on the banks of the Pedernales River watching the water flow over the rock bed.
Her face is clean of makeup like she used to be when she came to bed. Downplaying her great body, she’s hiding it beneath a pair of skintight fitness pants and baggy old white Hanes T-shirt that hits her mid-thigh. She always looked amazing in everything she wore, but when she wore my T-shirts was my favorite.
I used to read her so well, but now, I’m not sure what she’s thinking. I must stare too long because she asks, “Why are you back?”
“I live here.”
A car drives by, drawing her attention to the street behind her until it passes. She crosses her arms and keeps her eyes to the side. “I don’t understand.”
“You haven’t in a long time.”
When she looks back up at me, she licks her lips before tugging the bottom one under her teeth. “What does that mean?”
My heart beats hard in my chest, and I start to wonder if she can hear it. “Why are you here?”
“To know why you are.”
“Can’t I come home?”
“Yes, of course you can. As far as I know, you do regularly. But why did you come to see me?” She shifts and sighs, her arms falling back to her sides. When she pinches the bridge of her nose, she squeezes her eyes closed. The green pastures of her eyes find mine again. “You were in Vancouver this morning.” She was never afraid to broach a subject head-on.
“It was time I came back.” I could tell her I needed a break from being hounded by the paparazzi. These days, the band, my two brothers and our other guitarist, are generally stalked everywhere we go. With a successful album still hanging around the charts after a year, we became an overnight success story. Only took us eight years, but it’s a catchier headline to pretend our rise to fame was instant. “I wanted to see you again.”
“No.” Her tone is steady, her reply curt. “You don’t get to decide that on a whim when I’m still trying to recover from the last time I saw you. You screwed up, Rivers. Not me.”
I shouldn’t love hearing her say my name when it’s at the end of an accusation, but it sounds so good rolling off her tongue. I remember the way she used to say it as if I was her everything. When I was her everything.
I lost my anger over losing her without getting a fair shot to fix things a long time ago. Maybe it was selfish to come back without warning. But if I had, she wouldn’t be here now. So I get why she’s angry, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t live without giving us one last shot at redemption. “Is that why you came by? You had to get that off your chest?”
“There used to be so much I needed to get off my chest when it came to you,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “But that was all lost when I moved on. The real question is, why are you doing this to me now?”
“I’m not trying to do anything to you. I wanted to see you. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing’s simple when it comes to us.”
“You’re right, but I still wanted to check in on you and Meadow.”
Her head jolts back. “Don’t you dare pretend you care about me or my sister. And if that’s the only reason you came by, then let me put your concerns to bed. Meadow and I are doing just fine.”
I run my hand over my forehead and into my hair in frustration, not sure how to break through her barrier of anger. Her pretty eyes follow the motion of my hand, and the tension in her tight expression seems to falter. “Look, Rivers. You showing up at my workplace out of the blue was about you. Did you think about what I might want? Or how I would feel? If you showing up would be good for me?”
She makes a good argument, and as much as I want to blame the beers or the jet lag, I can only blame myself. A feeling of desperation, of losing her again, of her slipping away fills my gut and moves higher to my heart. “You’re all I think about.” I went about this all wrong, blowing this chance the minute I showed up not thinking this through and not putting her first. “I’m sorry, Stella. I knew you wouldn’t take a call from me.”
“You’re right.” When she backs away, I reach for her before I can stop the automatic reaction. When her eyes catch me, she stills. I slowly drop my hand to my side again. I fucking hate doing it, but I do anyway. Her voice is quiet, the fight weighing her down by the way her shoulders lower
, and then she says, “You made your choice a long time ago—”
“You made it for us,” I reply, matter-of-factly, keeping my tone as neutral as I can, hoping she’ll stay. “I would have made a different decision.”
“No,” she says, raising her voice. “I may have thrown you out, but you left. I wasn’t worth fighting for then, so I’m not going to make amends now. Don’t waste your life waiting on something that will never happen.”
“You can’t walk away—”
“Watch me.” She challenges me with a tight-lipped smirk.
As much as she wants to be the one in charge of this fight . . . err, discussion, her body language—the way she peeks back at me, the look of curiosity in her eyes, and her hesitation to actually leave—tells me otherwise. I’m grappling, taking a risk by pushing a button, but she’s leaving me no other choice. “You sure you want to do that?”
She stops and turns back around. She doesn’t realize I think she’s stronger because she stays.
“You know me, Stella. Want to know how I know? Because I’m in your blood, baby. There is no you without me, and there’s no me without you.”
Her gaze stays locked on the chipped paint of the porch when she braces her hand against the column. I wish I could take away the pain she carries inside, and the uncertainty that should never cloud this beautiful woman’s mind. Her eyes flash to mine, grounding me to the spot, but then the fire inside dims. “Please don’t show up . . . again.”
She gets her message across with less edge this time, but it makes me curious what dulled her spirit. It would be quicker to read War and Peace than trying to read the myriad of emotions flickering through her eyes as she says one thing but still looks at me as if it was a question. I answer her the only way I know how—being upfront and direct. “You came over to tell me you didn’t want to see me again?”
She pauses on the steps and then without responding walks down the path toward her car.
Good or bad, if I didn’t cause some old feelings to rise inside her, she wouldn’t have bothered to stop by. “Hey, Stella?” With the car door open in her hands, she stops with one foot in already and looks back. “It’s damn good to see you again.”
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she gets inside the beige sedan that is just so wrong for her and slams the door closed.
The gears grind as she takes the corner down the street, causing me to chuckle. I wait out on that front porch until I can’t see her anymore and then head inside. The lock clicks, and I head to the bedroom not only feeling like a stranger in this house but also in this city that’s my own hometown. Is this a home if she’s not in it?
The bedroom is full of hand-me-downs and thrift store finds in need of a bonfire that somehow survived my older brother’s bachelor days. Jet and Hannah took what they wanted when they moved to LA over the summer and bought new stuff for a house in the Hollywood Hills.
Still wound up from the late night visit, I need to vent. I’d call and bug Tulsa, my youngest brother and the band’s drummer, but I’m pretty sure he meant what he said when we parted ways at the airport. “Don’t call me. I’m going to be indisposed for the next three days.” He clicks his tongue. “Buried deep inside—”
“Got it,” I said, cutting him off.
He’s still a newlywed, though it’s been a few months since he got hitched. He and Nikki, his wife, go at it like fucking rabbits. That reminds me, I need to text our band manager, Tommy, and tell him to stop booking me in hotel rooms next to theirs.
Although I flew home with a bandmate, Ridge Carson, I decide not to bug others with my fucking issues. He came back to Austin to have a break, not listen to me complain.
While mentally taking a count of the days until I have to be back in LA, I walk into the bathroom.
One month until the band has to be back in the studio.
Ten days before I head back to California.
Nine days to figure out the next chapter in my personal life. I start the shower. When steam starts filling the small bathroom, I undress with a grin lingering on my lips from my late-night visitor.
With my career on the rise, and my family settled in LA, it makes sense to relocate permanently. But I’m here to either say goodbye forever or be hers forever. And I won’t know the answer until I’ve given it my best shot.
Stepping into the shower, I wash my body—over the three crow tattoos that represent my brothers and me, then clean the skin where the star that is there for my once true north marks my skin.
My smile fades when I think of her earlier parting words.
Taken. I really fucking hate that word.
2
Rivers
The sun shines through the window blinding me too early in the morning, reminding me of how I used to spend early mornings in my mom’s arms when I was little.
My mom loved the mornings, especially around sunrise before everyone woke up. With my arm draped over my eyes, a distant memory comes back, one I hadn’t thought of in years.
I can’t sleep, too excited to see what presents I’m getting for my birthday. I climb out from the bottom bunk and tiptoe out of the bedroom, making sure to not wake my little brother on the top bed. As soon as I enter the living room, I see the presents, and my eyes go wide as I count seven—one for each year. My mom’s tradition. I can’t wait until I’m twenty. Twenty whole presents.
Sneaking a closer peek, I’m about to ease the tape off a big box when I see a figure on the front porch. My mom. I thought I’d be up before anyone. Dang. I set the present down and walk to the door that’s cracked open. When I try to spy on her, she says, “Is that my birthday boy?”
Does she have eyes on the side of her head? Nothing escapes her.
I open the door and go out. The sun makes her brown hair golden in the early hours, and her brown eyes shine when she looks at me with her arms wide. I move into her warm embrace and lean my head on her shoulder. While rubbing my back, she says, “Happy birthday, Rivers.”
“Am I bigger like Jet now?”
We maneuver until I’m seated on her lap. She chuckles. “You’re getting there. You’ll be grown before you know it and too soon for me.”
“You don’t want me to get big?”
“I want you healthy and happy.” Tapping my nose, she says, “Boop. To grow old, and yes, big and strong.”
. . . I don’t remember much else from that day. I don’t know what presents I got or what kind of cake I had. I remember her, though. I remember her holding me while we watched the sunrise together, feeling safe in her arms, feeling loved.
Walking to the window, I lean my hands on the sill and bend down to catch the sunrise, wishing I could watch it with her again.
Kids don’t understand the concept of time, life, or death. They shouldn’t have to. Fuck, I still don’t get why she had to die. Seventeen years will never be enough.
I open the window, allowing the slight chill in the air to invade the room. It feels good after sweating out my nightmares.
The sun rises above the trees, and my gaze lifts to the golden-pink skies. The beauty of the heavens makes me wonder if my mom can see the mess I’ve made of my life. I may have all the material things a person could desire, but I don’t have that happiness she wished for me.
I hate that I’ve disappointed the two women I’ve loved more than life.
All the money in the world doesn’t matter when you fail your family, fail yourself, and fail the one person you thought you couldn’t fail. Bestselling albums, sold-out tours, and more money than the devil can sin with are all empty accomplishments when you have no one to share it with. When there’s no one to be proud of you.
No blame falls on Stella for my fuckups. She tried her best to save me. When my mom died on my seventeenth birthday, the pain tormented me. By eighteen, I was trying to drown myself in whiskey. When that wasn’t working, I was looking for any way to take my mind higher than in the depths of hell it normally resided.
Moving back t
o the bed, I lie down, wanting this constant regret to stop taunting me.
When it came to fights, disagreements, or hurt feelings, my mom used to tell me that hope wasn’t dead until the person we hope in closes the door. Last night, Stella tried to close that door, but my gut tells me she left it cracked open. Her visit gave me a kernel of hope. She’s not the only one who’s riding the line between conflict of the heart and mind. This middle ground I’ve been dwelling in for years is slowly killing me.
My head swims with memories of how Stella and I used to be.
Stella Fellowes, the prettiest girl in school, sits under the big oak tree at lunch, like most days. While I stand at a distance, I wonder if she’s ever noticed me?
I live in Jet’s shadow, and Tulsa snags all the attention when he’s around. As a middle kid, I’ve learned to let them own the spotlight while I tend to disappear in the background. I never really minded until now.
But Stella’s not just a pretty face. She’s smart and talks to anyone, unlike the other popular girls. Jet told me he thinks she’s cute but called her a kid like me and told me to make a move before someone else did.
I take a deep breath, then blow it out, gathering any stupid courage I can muster, and head for the tree because today is the day I find out if she even knows me. Her head is down, her full attention on the book in her lap.
At first, she doesn’t see me standing there beside her. I’m about to go back to the cafeteria, thinking I might have made a big mistake coming over, but before I have a chance to leave, she looks up. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I reply. Not very smooth. Say something. Say something. Say anything. God, I need to fill this deadening silence. “I play guitar.” What the heck? I’m screwing this up so badly.
I turn to leave, knowing I just blew any cool I might have faked. But then she says, “I heard you in the music room the other day. You’re very good. My dad told me there are different types of guitar. Which one do you play?”
