Mike exhales another frustrated sigh. “I hate being so far away from you.”
“How many miles?” I ask to try to cheer him up.
“Too fucking many.”
I open my car door and sit inside, my eyes focused on my steering wheel, while my mind is somewhere else. “How often do you have to do this?”
“Tour?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Usually a couple months out of the year.”
“Every year?”
I watch students walk past my car, one after another, while I wait for Mike’s answer. Eventually, he says, “You can come along. Next time, come with me.”
“I have school,” I say, hating the way the hopefulness in his voice disappears.
“Oh, right.”
Someone honks their horn behind me, and I glance in my rearview mirror. With an irritated growl, I say, “I’ve got to go. Some asshole is honking for me to give them my parking spot.”
“Tell them to fuck off,” Mike says, and I throw my hand up between my seats.
“Fuck off!”
Another long honk, another angry growl. “I’ve got to be at the shelter in twenty minutes anyway. I should go.”
“Forget the shelter,” Mike says, but the fight is gone from his voice.
“I’ll call you in the morning,” I promise. “You don’t have a show tonight, right?”
“No, just some appearance at a record store or something.”
“Okay, I’ll set my alarm and call you around eight, okay?”
“Okay,” he relents.
“Try to get some sleep. And make sure you have your ringer on.”
“I love you, Hailey.”
“And remember to send me a picture.”
“I love you, Hailey.”
“And hug a koala for me sometime before you come home.”
Mike chuckles. “I love you, Hailey.”
“I love you too,” I say, a soft smile touching my lips even as I flip off the still-honking asshole behind me.
“Ten days,” he says, and my smile slips away.
“Ten days,” I say, putting my car in reverse.
Chapter 46
On Mike’s tear-stained pillow, sleep doesn’t come easy. After we got off the phone, I worked a two-hour shift at the animal shelter, had a quiet dinner with Phoenix, and crawled into his bed, where I finally let go of the emotion I’d been holding in. It’s not an ugly cry, full of convulsions and sobbing—it’s a hopeless cry, one where hot tears escape the corners of my eyes to slide over my cheeks and onto a cold pillowcase. I fall asleep and wake up over and over again, until I’m not sure if I’m in a dream or in reality, and both feel like a nightmare.
Mike gave me five extra days—days I didn’t want—to figure out how to fix things, how to keep him and school. But the problem is, there is no way to fix this, and there never was. I want to choose happiness, but happiness is two pieces of my heart that are pulling in different directions.
When the sun forms a dim outline around Mike’s blackout curtains, I finally give up on sleep and make a pot of coffee. I take Phoenix out to let her use the bathroom before opening my laptop on Mike’s kitchen table. And then, coffee forgotten on his counter, I look up Mike Madden.
I find all the pictures Danica showed me—and more, and more, and more. Not just pictures of him with girls, but pictures of him with guys, other bands, famous people I recognize. There are pictures of Adam, Shawn, Joel, and Kit too . . . performance pictures and promotional pictures and pictures with fans. The sheer volume is overwhelming—because there is my boyfriend, smiling in hundreds, thousands of pictures.
I sit there for so long that my laptop idles and my screen goes black, and then I see my reflection: wild hair, big eyes, an unguarded frown on my face.
I swipe my fingers across the touchpad to get it to go away, and then I look Mike up on YouTube. The most recent video is from a few days ago, and I click it.
“Are you excited?” a female voice with an Australian accent asks a bunch of girls standing outside of an enormous city building. The sky is bright blue, and all of the girls are gorgeous. Different shades of sunshine-yellow hair, white smiles, pretty makeup.
“I’m freaking out!” a girl with rose highlights says with a laugh.
“What about you, Amy? Are you excited?”
“I’m dying,” Amy says, pulling the camera in close. “Dying.”
“Who are you excited to see?”
“All of them,” she says with a devastatingly beautiful smile.
“Pick one. Say you get to go home with one. Who do you pick?”
Another girl’s hand shoots up into the air. “Adam! I call Adam!”
“You can’t call Adam,” the camera girl scolds. “Adam is mine.”
“Bitch, I will cut you,” the Adam fan says, and the girls all laugh.
“Shawn or Mike,” Amy finally decides, and my stomach drops to my feet. “Probably Mike.”
“Why Mike?”
“Uh, have you seen him?” Amy asks, and the camera girl giggles.
“You think he’s hotter than Adam?”
“Way hotter than Adam,” she says, taunting Adam Fan, who launches onto her back. They’re all joking around when one of the other girls suddenly gasps.
“Oh my God. Is that them?”
The camera swings wildly around, and a chorus of screams erupts from a long line of people as Adam, Joel, Kit, Shawn, and Mike walk down the line, talking to people as they do.
Camera Girl spins the camera around so we can see her wide blue eyes. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
“Hey,” Adam says when he gets to the girls, and Adam Fan suddenly becomes absolutely speechless.
“We’re making a YouTube video,” Camera Girl announces, and the corner of Adam’s mouth tips up as he looks into the camera.
“Oh yeah?” He reaches out and takes the phone from her, turning it around to capture her blushing cheeks. “Have you gotten this huge line of people?” he asks, and Camera Girl nods as Adam backs up further to capture the true scope of the line, which stretches as far as I can see and then wraps behind the building. “How’s everyone doing tonight!” Adam yells, and the line cheers wildly. “Are you excited for the show?”
More screams, and then Adam winks into the camera before turning it on Shawn.
“What about you? You excited?”
Shawn pushes the camera away so we can see more than just his green eyeball, and Adam laughs as he turns the camera on Kit. “Excited?”
“This show is going to be sick,” Kit says as she ties back her long black hair, and Joel slides in front of her.
“Joel, you excited?” Adam asks, and Joel smiles brightly into the camera.
“I’m hungry.”
Adam’s braceleted hand reaches out to push Joel out of the way, and then the camera lands on Mike, who’s busy checking his phone. “Mike, how much do you love Australia?”
“Huh?” Mike says, lifting his eyes and pocketing his phone.
“Australia. Thoughts?”
“The toilets don’t actually flush counter-clockwise, so I’m pretty bummed.”
Adam is laughing when he turns the phone around again. “There you have it, folks. Pretty bummed.”