He lets out a short laugh. “I’ve been smoking a joint laced with opium and drinking J.D. since you called. So, no.”
My stomach sinks like a lead ball. “Blue... why are you doing this to yourself?”
“I don’t know. This is what I do.”
“But you stopped. You weren’t doing all this when we were together. You told me you never wanted to go down this road again.”
“I didn’t.” His tone deepens with frustration and anger. “Sometimes this road is easier. I know you don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Help me understand, then. I’m trying.”
The clink of a bottle against glass sounds in the background, then the swirl of liquid over his lips and the gulp of his throat.
“It’s like living with a monster in your head, Piper. And it just fuckin’ owns you, consumes you, bleeds you, tortures you. It doesn’t let you sleep. It doesn’t let you be happy. It doesn’t let you trust. So you do what it says just to shut it the fuck up, to try to get just a tiny amount of peace, and then it starts all over again.”
Emotional grief for him spreads through me, twisting my stomach into knots and sending tears to my eyes. I wish I could go to him, somehow take this away for him. I wish I could overtake the monster inside him, and hide him away so it could never find him again.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I wish I could do something to help you.”
Something slams on the other end of the phone. “You can’t. And the more you try, the worse it’ll fucking be. I warned you, Piper. I told you we’d destroy each other. You’ll kill yourself trying to save me and I’ll kill myself trying to make it right and in the end the monster will kill us both. Don’t you see? We can’t win this.”
“Evan, don’t get mad. You can win. You were winning. I just think you need to find the right help—”
“Evan again. Always dragging him back in.” More banging sounds come over the line, and his words are starting to slur.
“It is your name. And I like it.”
“You like it because it’s not me.”
“That’s not true. It is you. I think it reminds you of who you were before you got like this.”
He scoffs. “Don’t try to play shrink, Ladybug. That’s really not a place you want to put yourself.”
His rollercoaster mood and tone is giving me whiplash, so I decide to quit while I’m ahead rather than agitate him any further. The last thing I want is to make him get higher or drunker tonight.
“Blue,” I begin softly. “I don’t want to fight with you. I called you to thank you. That’s all.”
And because I miss you. And I wanted to hear your voice. And for once, I wanted to be in control.
“I don’t want to fight either. I’m so fucking tired of fighting everything. It’s beating me down.”
“I know, and I don’t want you to feel that way. Please try to get help. I’m so worried about you.”
“Come see me, then.”
“What?”
“Come out here and stay with me until I leave. We can talk.”
“We’re talking right now,” I point out, thrown by his suggestion in more ways than one.
“We are. But I can’t stop thinking about how delicious you taste.”
“Blue....”
“What? I want more of you. When I’m lost in you, everything else goes away.”
“I’m not entirely sure that’s a healthy situation for either one of us.”
“Everything we want is bad for us in some way, Piper. Come see me.”
My heart leaps to say yes and wants me to run straight to my closet and grab all the cute clothes and hop on a plane to re-capture the night we shared a few weeks ago—before the shit hit the fan. But my brain is screaming no, no, no. He’s still on drugs. He’s messed up right now on the phone as we speak. Tomorrow he might not even remember asking me to come see him, or he could disappear before my plane lands and I’ll be stranded in Seattle.
“I wish I could do that, but I can’t. Like I told you, I can’t just take off work last minute. And even if I could... I have Lyric to think about and you’re still messed up.” I try to word it as gently as possible. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other when you’re using.”
“Could you maybe get someone to watch her? And you come see me? Then you could only miss one day of work. Like fly out here Friday, spend Saturday with me and go back on Sunday when I leave.”
He’s right, I totally could do that. But I’m disappointed he immediately wants me to leave Lyric home. Even though I’m not ready for them to meet yet, it hurts that he hasn’t asked about her at all during this conversation. I had hoped he would be curious about her, maybe ask me to send him a picture. Something. I’m grateful he sent money for her, but that may be all he’ll ever do, and I have to accept that. I refuse to push Lyric on a father who doesn’t want her and risk her getting hurt. She deserves better than that.
I don’t let my heart sway me into another heartbreak. “I can’t see you when you’re using drugs.”
“Okay. So I won’t do anything while you’re here. I’ll be high on you, nothing else.”
I lean my forehead onto my hand and close my eyes, wishing this wasn’t so hard.
“So we have a great day together, then we both leave, and you go back on tour and get all fucked up and I come home with a broken heart. Again. And I won’t know when I’m ever going to see you. Again. And I’ll worry about you constantly. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
I hear the click and spark of the lighter again, the suck of air, and I’m pretty sure he’s getting high again.
“You’re right.” The sexy confidence he had a few moments ago has been replaced with sadness. “I can’t do that to you. I’m sorry, babe, for being such a fucking mess.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“After the tour, I’ll get in a program, okay? I promise.”
“Okay...”
“I mean it, Ladybug. I’m gonna try really hard this time.”
I sigh. “Okay.” I can’t say anything else. My heart hurts too much.
“Will you tell me you love me?”
“Of course.” I take a death breath and swallow over the tightness in my throat. “I love you.”
“Will you think of me when it rains?”
“Yes. I always do.”
“I want you to go to sleep, okay? Don’t think about the bad stuff. Think about how much I love you, and how much I want you, and no one else. No matter what, that’s always going to be true.”
That much is true. And that’s what scares me.
After we hang up, Acorn shows up at my bedroom door with Penguin in his mouth, and jumps up on the bed to cuddle against me. Blue might be a mess, but without him I wouldn’t have the love of two of the most precious little beings in the world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Morning.”
I smile at Josh as he enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffee maker.
“Hey. What time did you get home last night? I didn’t hear you come in.”
He pours coffee into his favorite mug and leans against the kitchen counter. “It was late. Like two a.m.”
“Ooh. So the date went well?”
He shrugs. “Eh. She was okay.”
Putting my book down, I look at him across the room, wearing gray sweatpants and a white V-neck T-shirt. The front of his blond hair is longer now, hanging down almost to his eyes, and it makes him look edgy and sexy. He’s been doing a lot of photoshoots lately and even landed a hair product commercial not too long ago.
“Just okay?
“She has a lot of shoes.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Do you feel threatened by shoes?”
“No, seriously, Piper. She has about a thousand pairs of shoes. She collects them. She has an entire room in her condo just for shoes. They’re all sorted by color and heel height. It was scary.”
“Well it could be worse. She could collect dolls,” I tease.
“I would’ve jumped out the window. I love fashion, but having that many of anything isn’t normal.”
“It’s expensive, too.”
“No doubt. They were all expensive brands. I don’t know how she can even afford that many shoes.”
“Maybe she steals them.”
He gulps the last of his coffee and puts his mug in the dishwasher.