He knows what I mean.
He halts, his shoulders expanding as he inhales, his hand doing that tapping thing against his leg.
I pant, saying things I don’t mean, saying anything as I grasp for something he might care about. “I swear to God, if you leave me here, I’ll be with Trenton . . . I’ll let him be my first. I’ll never think about you again. I swear, I won’t. Is that what you want?” My voice breaks.
He stands there, and I’m counting the seconds, my eyes begging him to just turn around and look at me.
His voice is low and raspy as he pushes the words out. “Tell Trenton hello for me, love.”
And then he gets in the car and it pulls away slowly.
I wipe my mouth with the back of a hand that’s shaking uncontrollably.
He’s gone.
With . . . someone else.
I don’t know how long I stand there, maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour. The doorman comes out and checks on me, but I ignore him.
It’s not until the sky opens and it begins to rain that I finally begin to see the truth as clarity arrives in bits and pieces.
I was never special to him like he was to me.
I touch my cheeks. Tears course down my face, their wetness a reminder that I’ve never hurt like this before . . . never. I feel like I’m dying of a horrible disease, as if I might waste away.
Is this what it feels like to fall in love with someone and not have it returned?
Is this what love songs are written about?
I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to beat my hands on the ground. I want to throw up.
I realize that people always leave, even the ones you love the most. They weasel into your life and then slink away as if nothing happened. They leave you in the wake of their destruction and gamble your heart to pursue their own ambitions.
I know what I have to do.
I’ll never let him near my heart again.
Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to the path which nature has marked out for him.
TWO YEARS LATER
Spider
A HALF-HOUR BEFORE SHOW TIME at Madison Square Garden, I’m tossing back a shot of expensive tequila as a knock comes on my dressing room door. It’s my second drink before the show starts. I need it to get me loose, but I’m never blitzed on stage. I made a promise to Sebastian that I wouldn’t do that, and so far I’ve stuck with it.
But afterward, once the music is over and the crowds have gone . . . it’s a whole new ballgame.
I’m wearing my usual outfit for a show: a pair of black skinny jeans and a distressed gray shirt with holes ripped artfully in the high-dollar fabric. I’m decked out in silver jewelry and the makeup girl has already popped by to outline my eyes in black kohl.
I fling open the door, expecting Sebastian or our drummer Rocco. Both of them are big talkers who like to chat before they go on . . . mostly nerves. Rocco likes to shoot the shit about the charcoal drawings I’ve been doing, and Sebastian likes to talk through the sets. Max, our rhythm guitar player, is a quiet guy who likes to be alone until we go on stage.
But it’s neither of them. It’s Rick, one of the roadies for the Wake Up and Die tour we’re currently doing after the huge success of our latest album.
“Hiya. What’s up?” I ask.
He’s chewing tobacco and swishes it aside to speak. He has a slow southern drawl; I believe he’s from Alabama.
“There’s a girl at the back door asking to see ya.”
I arch a brow. “No groupies till the show’s done, mate. Just call security.”
He spits in an empty water bottle. “I radioed them but can’t get them on the line.”
“She’ll go away once the show starts,” I tell him, my head already moving on to other things. I need to call Father and verify where I’m staying here in New York after the concert. Whenever I come here, I usually end up staying at one of his properties instead of a hotel. I probably should have done that by now, but we’re at the end of our tour and my head is everywhere.
“She says she knows you.” He’s looking at me with narrowed eyes now, like he knows something I don’t.
“Don’t they all?”
He glances down at the new tattoo I have on the top of my left hand, a red unfurled rose. I got it last week. On my back is another rose, which I got during the first year after I left Dallas.
“She says to tell you her name is Rose.”
I feel like all the air has been sucked from the room, and I cling to the side of the metal door to keep from falling.
“Did you see her? What does she look like?” My voice is thin.
He nods. “I cracked open the door, boss. She’s a looker, dressed in a tight black dress and heels. Looks like your type, a brunette.”
Sebastian walks up, dressed like he’s ready to go in jeans and a black leather jacket. His golden mane falls around his face, and I can see he just came from having his hair blown out. He stops short at my door. “Dude, you look like you just saw a ghost. You good?” His eyes search mine.
“Good,” I push out.
He eyes us carefully but keeps walking. “See you by the stage door in a few?”
I send him a nod, but I’m looking at Rick.
He continues. “Normally, I’d just ignore girls at the back door, but well, she knows your real name: Clarence.”
Pure heat ignites as images of Rose fly at me . . . our kiss on the plane . . . her under me in the penthouse . . . her breath like angel’s wings as it touches my skin.
The one memory I play in my head the most is her expression when she saw me with Mila.
I shove away the image of her ashen face.
Don’t think about that.
Most of all, I think about the promise I made to my father when I left Dallas. I swore to him I’d leave Rose to live her life, to grow up and be the person she’s meant to be. I took his half a million dollar offer and made a life for myself in LA.
Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to just . . . see her?
My heart jumps at the thought.
“Boss, what do you want me to do?”
Let her in, my body screams.
She isn’t seventeen anymore.
But . . .
I’m still not clean. Sure, I have good days, but I’m not what she needs. I have to be strong for myself before I can be strong for her.
Sebastian yells out my name. “Ten minutes. Come on, I want to run something past you.”
I stare at Sebastian blankly, my head somewhere else, and he gives me an impatient look. “You coming?”
I nod and push past Rick. “Tell her you’re calling the police if she doesn’t leave.”
I bolt for the stage, my body wired as I cover the distance between where I am and where I need to be. I run, otherwise I might just crack.
I might open that back door and let her in.
I might press my lips to hers and tell her the truth.
That she’s the one I think about when I close my eyes at night.
I snap awake as a police siren blares through an open window.
Fuck.