Grayson Harris
Kk – love you.
Mia Alexander
Love you more.
“Jesus,” I mutter. “What the fuck am I doing?”
Love you more.
Well, that’s fucking haunting.
I put the phone away again and brace both my hands against the hallway wall, head bowing between them. Behind me, I hear the familiar click of Johanna’s heels—toned down these days, but still unmistakably her. She leans against the railing of the stairs, studying me. Maybe she’s waiting for me to admit what we both already know.
“You’re being a dumbass,” she says bluntly.
I don’t move. “Thanks, Joey. That really clears things up.”
She moves into the hallway and leans against the wall beside me. “You idiot, you shouldn’t have pushed her away. I know you think it was noble, or protective, or whatever bullshit story you told yourself, but it was stupid.You’restupid.”
“She doesn’t need this,” I insist. “She doesn’t need to watch me fall apart. It’s not what she signed up for.”
“She already had—watched itandsigned up for it. And shewantsto pick up the pieces,” she reminds me. “Or, at least, she wanted to. What on earth were you thinking?”
I push myself off of the wall and run both hands down my face. The frustration is boiling underneath the surface again—at myself, at Lily for calling and making me blow up the onegood thing in my life, at this house, at my parents for dying and leaving me to clean up the mess… all of it.
“I wasn’t thinking, Jo,” I admit. “I found out about Mom, then Lily called right after I got off stage and—”
“Shewhat?”
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “I guess the hospital called her when they couldn’t get a hold of us. It messed with my head in ways I can’t even begin to describe, and Mia got the worst of it. I didn’t know what I was saying, Joey. I just…”
“Like I said,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You’re a dumbass.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do now? Call her and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong, everything’s shit, come hold me together again’?”
“Yep. That about covers it.”
But I can’t do it.
It isn’t just about pride. It’s about fear.
Fear that I’ve already lost her. Fear that I’ve hurt her so badly, nothing I say will make her come back.
And all of it’s my own damn fault.
Chapter thirty-nine
"Control" - Loveless
Mia
Ithink I’ve slept maybe thirty minutes since last night.
I’d slept in our bunk reluctantly. Couldn’t sleep anywhere else. Everything on this damn bus reminds me of him.
I rise from the bed, my joints cracking as though I aged fifty years overnight. I have to get out of here. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I sure as hell can’t stay here.
