“I love you,” I whisper, the words tumbling from my tongue like I have no control over them.
Tate stills for a moment, eyes flicking over mine. In them I catch a flash of emotion, a hint of what almost looks like fear. Then they darken and he rolls onto his back, staring out the window at the ocean of city lights.
I bring my palms to my stomach, feeling suddenly hollow. Why did I just say that? Because it’s true, I realize—because in this moment, it’s the only thing I feel. I am desperately, turned-inside-out in love with him. And nothing else could ever make me feel like I do when I’m with him.
My lips part but I don’t know what to say—how to explain.
But then he turns to face me, reaching an arm out and pulling me to him. I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat, and he kisses my temple but doesn’t speak.
The silence feels heavy and unbreakable. He’s not going to say it back—because he doesn’t feel the same way. He doesn’t love me. Maybe he never could. Or maybe he just doesn’t know how. I torture myself with every variation, every reason why he couldn’t answer me. But eventually, exhaustion wraps its cool fingers around my thoughts and I slip into a sleep so deep that I don’t move again until the sound of a police siren outside wakes me so abruptly I sit straight upright.
But Tate is gone.
*
I climb to my feet and press my lips together, remembering the taste of him against my mouth only a couple hours before.
The black dress is tangled on the floor and I pull it on for lack of a better option, walking in my bare feet out into the living room.
The doors are still open wide and Tate is out on the balcony, leaning against the railing, wearing only his jeans despite the temperature. The air is freezing, and I stop in the doorway, arms wrapped around my waist.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
But he doesn’t turn. Maybe he hasn’t heard me. I step out onto the balcony, the air cutting across the exposed skin of my arms and legs. I reach him but still he doesn’t react, his gaze intent on the darkened city.
“You must be cold,” I say.
I want to touch him, but he’s like stone. He hasn’t even acknowledged me yet. I’m about to ask him to come inside when he finally speaks.
“I was thinking about the last time a girl told me she loved me.”
I tilt toward him, leaning my hip against the railing. I shiver. Suddenly, I am cold from more than the breeze.
“Her name was Ella.”
I brush my palms up my arms, wishing he would turn and face me, but he’s lost out there in the cityscape, looking for something only he can see.
“Did you tell her you loved her back?” I can’t help it; I have to know.
He releases a long, slow exhale. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, then?” I want to know who she was—this girl he’s never mentioned until now—and why it seems to hurt him to speak her name. There’s a heaviness in the air, a tension, and I can tell this is it, this is important.
His hands clench together in front of him as he leans out over the railing, twenty floors up. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he says, his voice caught in the air and carried away.
“Like what?”
“I was someone else then—a brand, a plastic wind-up rock star, singing when they told me to sing, dancing when they told me to dance. But after my parents went back to Colorado, things just sort of fell apart. I started partying—a lot. Just to escape the pressure. There were nights on tour, after a show, when I wouldn’t even sleep.” He swallows and looks down at the street far below. “And the fans were everywhere. They would do anything to get backstage—just to be close to me, just to touch me. It was crazy. You can’t even imagine what that feels like, that type of fame. You start to feel like you’re a god. Like you can get away with anything.”
The muscles of his shoulders and arms, bared in the icy night air, are like a fortress I can’t touch. And while I shiver, he seems unaffected.
“That’s when I met her—Ella St. John.” He takes in a breath, then releases it slowly. “She was seventeen when we first met, and she came to nearly every show I did on tour that year. I met her a few times backstage, the bouncers got used to seeing her, so they’d let her come back. We partied in a few different cities and then one night...” His mouth flattens, as if he’s chewing over the words before he lets them leave his lips. “One night...she came back to my tour bus.” He stops, gaze still locked in the distance.
“And you slept with her?” I finish for him.
He doesn’t nod—he doesn’t need to. “The night we were together—the only night,” he says, “she told me that she was in love with me. I was so wasted that I thought she was joking. We didn’t even know each other.”