Still, admitting it out loud felt like I was stabbing myself in my own damned back.
I shouldn’t have been offering it right then, anyway. Not with an audience. Not with Shea. Least of all with Blue.
She’d shifted, facing me more. I felt pinned beneath her stare. Beneath all the questions and concern and outright confusion pouring from her. I felt trapped with the way it felt like she were digging her fingers into my skin, sinking in and going deeper.
Invading.
Intruding.
Penetrating.
Fuck.
The entire room jumped when a beer bottle slammed against the wall. It shattered the silence. Shards of glass rained down and pinged across the hardwood floor. My attention flew to Ash who glared down at me from the middle of the room.
Anger.
Disappointment.
Sympathy.
I sucked in a steeling breath.
It was the last I hated most.
I’d dug my own fucking grave.
“What the fuck, man?” he accused, head cocking to the side in contention. “You get to make that decision for the whole band? You made it before, remember? You just fucking walked away and look where that got you.”
I was on my feet before I processed the action. Anger rippled through me on roaring waves, and I was fucking shaking, trying to hold myself back. Bitterness fell sharp from my tongue. “I came back, and look where that got me. It wasn’t the leaving that was the issue.”
Furiously, he blinked, and he dragged both hands down his face in frustration. “Seriously, man…you think that was because you came back? It was because we were fucked up. All of us. We fucked up and a whole ton went to shit. And I know you bore the brunt of it. Lost the most. But five years are gone, man, and you’re still making us pay for it.”
“Ash,” Sebastian uttered a low warning as he untangled himself from Shea and climbed to his feet.
Ash pointed at him. “This needs to be said, Baz. Out loud. Too much time has been spent tiptoeing around this shit. Pretending it doesn’t follow us everywhere we go. Pretending Lyrik isn’t still stuck back in that day.”
He swung his attention back to me. His voice dropped lower and strained with the plea. “It’s time to let it go.”
My entire face pinched. Pain sheered through my chest like that day was yesterday.
Because he was right.
I was still living in that day. I woke up every morning just to die over and over again.
“Let it go?” The words grew louder, my cool evaporating like sizzling mist. “Let it go?” I demanded as I took an incredulous step forward. “I lost everything. Everything. And I’m going to be paying for it for the rest of my life.”
Because there were some things you weren’t ever going to make amends for.
Ash knew better than pulling this shit. Throwing it in my face. Especially with outsiders looking in.
“But that’s what you don’t get,” he said. “You don’t have to keep paying for what you can’t change. And I can’t sit around watching you suffer for one more day. Not when being free of it is right there. Right in front of your face, and you refuse to see it.”
He made no secret of the fact he was referring to Tamar. Like I could ever actually have her. Like I could ever be with her the way she deserved.
Anger and hurt rolled over me like a heavy, roiling storm. Closing in. I could feel myself coming unhinged. Fiber by fiber. Memory by memory. It was a loss so intense it almost knocked me to my knees.
Fuck.
I wanted to scream. To beat something or someone.
I shouldered passed Ash before I did something stupid like launch myself at him.
The fucked-up thing was he was the same guy part of me couldn’t help but blame, even though I knew none of it was his fault.
All of it was on me.
“Lyrik, man, come on…don’t fucking do that,” Ash called behind me. “For once, stop being a fucking hothead and listen. All of us…we just care about you.”
Care.
Nice.
Glad he was doing such a bang-up job of caring in front of those who had no business in any of it. Bringing it out into the open for them to see. Shedding light on what was written on me like the blackest stain.
“Lyrik,” he shouted.
I ignored him because I was finished with his bullshit. I shoved through the old-fashioned double doors that led to the massive kitchen and stormed into the renovated space that was larger than the apartment I was renting.
Inside, it was dark. Except for the moonlight streaming in from the big windows overlooking the sprawling backyard, the milky rays striking against the silver flecks in the white and gray granite countertops.
Pressing my palms to the island that took up the center, I dropped my head between my shoulders and tried to catch my breath. To purge the memories from my mind. To stop the barrage of images from slaying me. Cutting me in two. To stop the assault of their faces that struck me again and again.
Thunderbolt after thunderbolt.
The loss.
The loss.
The loss.
The swinging door creaked and let in a flood of light as it opened, before it swung closed.
I was no longer alone.