“Why did you leave?”
“Why?” Another exhale. Another tension-filled silence. And when he spoke, his voice was ice. “Because I didn’t have any goddamn right to be there. I had no right to ask who that motherfucker was. Not the first time I saw him drop you off and not the last. You were never mine.”
Kneeling on my bed, I clutched my phone tightly. Please. Please. Please.
“I was yours, Reid. I still am. It’s not what you think with him.”
More silence. I heard a woman laughing hysterically in the distance.
“I’m sorry.”
The phone went silent in my hand.
Into the Black
Chromatics
“Stella.” It was a plea from Lexi. “Stella, please get up.”
I pressed my face into my pillow and pulled the covers over my head.
“Get up, damn it!” she snapped as she opened my blinds.
“Don’t, Lexi, please just leave me alone. Okay? I don’t need a throw-me-in-the-shower-clothed intervention. I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick! And you missed a week of classes. Your parents are calling, and I can’t keep lying to everyone!”
“Tell them I’m sick,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You’re going to lose your job. Both of them,” she said, pacing next to my bed. It dipped and I looked over to see Ben staring down at me. There was nothing close to the light humor I typically saw in his eyes.
He gripped my hand and stayed silent while Lexi ranted.
“Stella, get out of bed! You’re done doing this. He’s not worth it.”
My eyes pleaded with Ben’s to tell her he was. That he was worth every tear, every second of the ache. I just needed someone to believe me. Ben broke our gaze first.
Lexi ranted, using her fingers to point out everything I was throwing away, and when she got to her first thumb, I silenced her. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she said, staring down at me and tilting her head to judge my lie.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, sitting up and squinting at the invasion of the sun. “I’m up.”
Ben stood with a sigh and looked over to Lexi. “Give me a minute.”
She looked between us and walked out of the room. I didn’t waste a second.
“His dad?”
“He’s fine,” Ben said, prepared for the questions I’d never asked but had been on the tip of my tongue since Reid left.
“Reid?”
“He’s making it,” he said in a low tone. “He’d be pissed if he saw you like this.”
“Is he with . . . someone?” I braced myself, ready for anything.
“I don’t know, babe, but you’re done wrecking yourself. Do you hear me? You’ve got to let him go, Stella. You have to.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing my shoulders, my lips trembling. “I will. I am.”
“You’re not,” Ben said with a bite. “He’s been in this hell for a long time. You have to let him figure his shit out. And this isn’t good. Whatever this is I feel coming off you, it’s not okay.”
I was still reaching for Reid at night, even months later. I could still feel his arms wrapped around me, his steady pulse thump against my back. It wasn’t anything like I felt with Dylan. It ran deep, so much deeper, like a truth that flowed through my veins and circulated to remind me I belonged with him. Some part of me still clung to hope that he’d come back after he’d left, and his phone call had jerked that hope away from me.
My hands were still in the air, grasping for what was already gone.
It felt cruel. I’d been robbed.
“It’s over, right?”
Maybe I just needed to hear the words. Even if it was from someone else.
Ben pulled me to my feet. “Let him go.”
When they left for Ben’s practice, I spent the night in bed getting carried away in our shitty fairytale with the unorthodox ending, one last time. He’d run away with the wicked stepmother and bag of magic, while I was still scrubbing the floors.
“Stella,” Nate called from his desk. I looked up to see him peering at me over his laptop. I was at Herb’s desk. He was off on Thursday afternoons for White Knights book club. I learned from the source that the club’s purpose was gathering books for needy libraries and classrooms. Herb was a good guy. He had a wife and two German Shepherds. He was also in desperate need of a new hair growth product that worked according to his browser history and was planning on taking a vacation to Nova Scotia for a canoe trip with some old college buddies. This information was in an open email at his desk. I wasn’t exactly snooping.
“Stella,” Nate’s voice was as distracted as mine.
“Yeah?”
“It’s after midnight, go home.”
“I’m almost done,” I called as I typed out the last four lines of notes I’d scribbled down at school. I had to admit, even though my schedule was taxing with work, school, and trying to get to shows, I thrived because of it. I was never late to class, always early to work, and it left little time for me to think about anything else. Well, there were moments in the shower and long walks during my commute, but I spent those with the volume turned up so loud, the songs were impossible to ignore. My playlists were crafted to uplift and empower. Not a single note to remind me of where I’d been. And if I wasn’t so sure I’d gone there, I might have been better able to stick Reid in the oops box. And despite my new anger at the lovesick fool I’d been and the bitter heart that lingered, I knew that would never happen.
Nate’s office light switched off, and I typed furiously as my window closed. I was on my fourth weekday at Speak. And I had to admit, I loved every minute of it. It was one thing to write articles at home, a totally different atmosphere working in the building surrounded by other writers. I always started early afternoon, and I loved the bustle of the office. I’d made nice with a good amount of the staff, including JJ.
“Almost done,” I said, hitting spell check. I ran through the errors as Nate sat next to me, scanning my words at lightning speed.
“You’re getting into a rhythm,” he said. “And that’s not such a good thing.”
I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s always facts and progress. It’s like you’re writing a report.”
I blew out a breath. “Suggestions?”
Nate chuckled. “Yeah, go home.”
“I’ll just do the same thing at home,” I said as I saved the document and sent it to my email.
Nate leaned in, and his cologne lingered in the air between us. “You aren’t differentiating this from anything else you’ve written. You’re just rewording and it’s the same line of questioning.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I said, kicking back in my seat to put some space between us. “These are standard questions for a feature.”
“Great,” he said, standing and stretching next to me.
“Nate,” I said, drawing out his name. He towered over me in his suit, his pants wrinkled from a day behind his desk. His hair had that just fucked look, his deep blue eyes weary. “Tell me.”
He shoved his hands in his slack pockets and pushed out his elbows with a shrug. “Set yourself apart, Stella. It’s not like you’re nuisance paparazzi. These bands want the exposure. So be the bloodthirsty reporter. They’ll tell you anything you want to know with little manipulation. Use it to your advantage. Make me want to get off my couch and spend the money for a cover charge.”
I opened the article again and scanned through it, deflating. I wasn’t asking the questions I wanted to, not really. I was playing it safe. “You’re right. This is shit.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” he said, eyeing the screen before he looked over to me. “We just need that right side of your brain to kick in once in a while.”
“Can I make a suggestion of my own?”
“Shoot,” he said, staring at the four by four of Herb’s German Shepherds.
“Exactly. We need pictures.”