“Mike, don’t.” My voice breaks with the fresh tears filling my eyes. It was hard enough doing this once, it’s going to kill me to do it twice.
“I’m already in a cab, Hailey. I don’t even have my suitcase. I have my wallet and my passport and you’re not talking me out of this, because I’m not fucking losing you.”
A sob steals the breath from my lungs, and Mike says, “Why are you doing this, baby? Just talk to me.”
“I can’t,” I cry, pulling my knees to my chest in the corner of his kitchen. Phoenix licks at my tears, but I hunch my shoulders and turn away from her.
There are a million reasons why Mike is better off without me, but I can’t tell him the one reason, the one single reason, why I would be better off without him. I can’t tell him that Danica made me pick between him and school, because then he’ll know I’m just as bad as her. She made me choose between money and love, and it should have been an easy decision, but it wasn’t.
“Yes, you can,” Mike assures me. “You can tell me anything, Hailey. I love you . . .” There’s a pause, and then he says, “Baby . . . did you cheat on me?”
“No!” I say as I wipe my fingers over my eyes. “Mike, no, I would never do that.”
“Is this because we added extra tour dates?”
“No,” I assure him through a runny nose and scratchy throat.
“Then what?”
“I’m not worth this,” I say through a new wave of tears. “You should’ve tried that Indonesian candy with the guys. You should’ve seen how those girls looked at you last week.”
“What girls?”
“The ones outside your Perth show, at the front of the line. They posted a video on YouTube and—”
“Baby, you can’t look at the stuff on the Internet. It’ll drive you crazy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to escape the pages of images I looked at this morning. The girls in Australia, the girls in Malaysia and China and Korea, the girls in the U.S.—years and years of girls. Girls taller than me and curvier than me and, just . . . more than me. Smoother hair and prettier clothes and a million other reasons why Mike should be with them instead of me.
“Do you think I don’t worry every day that you’re going to meet someone while I’m gone?” Mike asks, shocking me into opening my tear-filled eyes. “We live in a college town, Hailey. You go to school every day with frat guys and future CEOs. I’m terrified you’re going to meet someone better than me, smarter than me—”
I want to tell him that there’s no one better than him, no one smarter than him.
“I’ve never taken a college class in my life,” he says. “The only thing I know how to do is play the drums.”
“I don’t want a CEO,” my small, broken voice assures him.
“Then tell me what you want, baby.”
My heart aches as I think, I want to hold his hand in public. I want to kiss him under the glow of my porch light. I want to cheer for him at his shows. I want to love him without repercussion. I want to be with him without Danica’s shadow hanging over me. I want to be enough for this beautiful man I don’t deserve.
“You,” I tell him, and Mike sighs.
“Even if I’m a drummer? Even if I have to tour?”
“Yes,” I answer without needing to think about it, because drumming isn’t just a job to Mike. It’s who he is. He’s the drummer of The Last Ones to Know, and I would never want him to be anyone different.
Mike lets out a breath of relief, but it does nothing to soften the guilt hardening in the pit of my stomach. Yes, I want him. But wanting him doesn’t change the fact that I can’t have him, not if Danica gets her way. And Danica always gets her way.
“I know it’s hard waiting,” he says, “but I told you even before I left, Hailey—I don’t want anyone else. I only want you. I’m thankful every day that I fell for the wrong girl, because it led me to the right one. It was always meant to be you.”
I shiver with the absence of his arms around me, and he says, “I know you don’t believe me when I tell you how special you are, but remember, all it took was a red dress for over two thousand people to not be able to take their eyes off of you.”
“That’s only because I was the star,” I say, remembering the way I spun around and around on the steel platform for Mike’s music video.
“You were the star for a reason, Hailey,” he says. “You’re a light in the dark. And the only person who can’t see that is you.”
Mike’s phone beeps, and he curses. “Shit. My phone is going dead.”
I close my eyes, and more tears squeeze through my lashes.
“Hailey . . . I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Can you wait for me?”
My lips part, but the call drops before they can form an answer. One dead battery, and he’s gone—thousands of miles away again—and all I can do is try to breathe in spite of the overwhelming hopelessness digging its claws into my chest.
I don’t change out of my pajamas after getting off the phone with Mike. I don’t shower. I don’t go to my classes. If it wasn’t for Phoenix, I wouldn’t even get out of Mike’s bed.
I text Rowan and Dee to tell them I’m okay and that I need to spend the day alone, and since they have no idea I’m camping out at Mike’s house with my vagabond dog, they have no choice but to honor my wishes.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, when I’ll have to put on a brave face and spend time with family, but for today, I’m off the map, and time passes slowly. I spend countless hours watching daytime TV and old cartoons from Mike’s bed, and he does call just like he promised he would, but for only two short minutes. Just long enough to ask me how I’m feeling, listen to the lie I tell him, and then have to run again.
I’m curled up under his heavy comforter when the sun sets, its yellow halo around his curtains fading to dark blue, to gray, to black. With Phoenix sleeping in her usual spot out on the living room couch, I’m alone in the dark. I close my red-rimmed eyes against his pillow, wondering how I got here.
When I moved to Mayfield, the plan was simple: do my best to get along with Danica, excel in all of my classes, try to make sure she didn’t party her education away, make something of myself. A boyfriend was never part of the picture—much less my cousin’s rock star ex, who I have fallen madly, irreversibly, desperately, soul-crushingly in love with.
I’ve never been this girl—one to cry herself to sleep in the same pajamas she wore to bed last night. But here I am, completely raw. My eyelids have been rubbed sore from all the crying I’ve done today, so I can’t even touch them when more tears begin to spill onto Mike’s pillow.
I wanted sparks, and I got them, in the form of a man who kindled an inferno inside of me. If I let it burn, it will destroy everything. But if I put it out . . .
I’ll miss his warmth. I’ll miss his heat. I’ll miss the way he consumed me, the way he made me burn.
I can’t give him up, but I can’t keep him, and in ten days, I won’t have a choice.
Under Mike’s covers, I think about playing princesses with Danica when we were little girls—how we dressed up in tiaras, wore sparkly dresses, and planned to marry our one true loves . . .