“They’ll figure it out,” I say. “These monitors have to be good for something.” It hurts to see him here, knowing where he’s been tonight, at some club with other girls—it’s a pain that has nothing to do with the aches in my body, but I don’t want him to go. Not quite yet.
He rubs the back of his neck and his eyes fix on mine. But they are not the eyes I remember—the eyes of someone who can’t live without me. They are the eyes of someone who’s already gone.
“Charlotte,” he begins, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea about that girl—I didn’t know I had a stalker, much less that she’d go after you. God, I never meant for any of this to happen. I never would have put myself back in the public eye if I’d thought it would make you a target. You have—”
“I wasn’t on the list,” I manage to say.
He is silent.
“I watched other girls get in, but I couldn’t.” I swallow, my voice scratchy and raw. “Do you know how humiliating that was?”
His face tenses and his gaze drops to the floor. “You should rest,” he says, instead of acknowledging what happened tonight. How he so callously pushed me back out of his life. “We can talk about this later, when you’re healthy again. When your voice...when you’re feeling better.”
I think briefly about telling him to call the doctor after all—surely they can bring enough morphine to numb the pain I know is coming. Instead I study him, the tired eyes and set jaw. “I don’t think there is a later for us, is there, Tate?”
“Charlotte, you don’t... I can’t...”
I want him to stop there, not to say anything else. But he goes on, and I know I’m right.
“You’ll never know how sorry I am for what I did to you tonight. But I can’t let you give up college for me. Your dreams, everything you’ve worked for your whole life. You said you loved me, and I... I can’t tell you what that means to me. But what happens when you get tired of being on the road—living in a cramped tour bus, spending hours backstage in a greenroom, traveling to so many cities and countries you start to lose count? When every arena looks the same? What happens when the novelty fades and you start to resent me for taking you away from the life you were meant to lead? And who knows how many other crazy fans might be out there. It’s safe to say I haven’t had the best luck in that department. You think I want to risk what happened to you tonight happening again? I just...it can’t work, Charlotte. You need to go to Stanford, where you belong. Where you’ll be safe.” He touches the metal bar on my hospital bed, tightening his knuckles around it.
I should feel some relief, hearing the explanation I didn’t get before the concert—he has always worried about keeping me safe, protecting me, even if it means breaking my heart. But instead, I just feel anger—overwhelming rage that once again, his fear of hurting me is driving us apart. “So you’re making the decision for me. It doesn’t matter what I want, what I need, or what I’ve told you I can handle. You get to decide, just like always.”
His shoulders straighten back, his arm falls to his side. He’s so gorgeous, I think. Even now, even though every word he says is breaking me apart, I can’t help but admire how achingly handsome he is. It makes this hurt even more.
“I wish it could be different,” he says, looking away from me now, unable to meet my gaze. “But it’s easier if—” He bites down on his lip.
“If we end this,” I finish for him, pain dancing across my temples.
He nods. “I can’t live with watching you sideline your future for me. And you’re right, you deserve more than the occasional weekend visit. There’s no middle ground here, Charlotte.”
For a moment I can’t respond. The tears I’ve held at bay are biting at my eyes, my lips threatening to quiver. “There’s never been middle ground with you. It’s always all or nothing.” My fingers clench the sheet, holding tight to steady myself. “I think you should go now.”
He makes a soft sound—part protest, part sigh. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. For everything.”
His fingers slide along the edge of the bed, so close he could touch me, run his hands up my bare arm and kiss me. But he doesn’t. He pulls his hand away and turns for the door. He pauses once, his back a rigid line. And I think he’s going to turn around, say something else—just one more thing to make everything okay, to make this not hurt so, so much—but instead he steps out into the hall, disappearing from my life.
And I am undone.
TWENTY-FOUR
GRANDMA AND MIA TAKE ME home from the hospital the following day. I ride in the front seat, silent. Everything feels muted: watercolors bleeding across a white page. At home, I brush through the living room and down the hall. Even this house feels foreign to me, the old Charlotte who used to live here someone I no longer recognize.
“You all right?” Mia asks behind me. I hear Grandma across the hall, putting Leo down for his nap.