“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy doing it all by yourself,” I say as I rest the phone on the kitchen counter next to the induction stove, angling it so she can still see me, and take out a skillet. I drop in a big glob of butter and wait for it to melt under the heat.
She blows on top of the mug she’s holding, the window at her back giving a glimpse of the night sky. “You know I would’ve come to help you if you would’ve let me.”
I arch an eyebrow at her and pour the eggs into the hot skillet. “And miss going on tour with your sexy rockstar boyfriend? Like I would have ever let that happen. How is he, by the way? Where are you guys?” After the night my heart stopped on the tour bus, Knox pursued Chloe relentlessly. She was nervous and had a lot of reservations about dating a rock star, understandably so, but he turned out to be a sweet guy, and I convinced her to give him a shot since life was so short and all that.
She practically has hearts in her eyes at the mention of said hot rock star boyfriend. “I honestly don’t know, somewhere in Europe. We just arrived like an hour ago, and Knox left five minutes after that. They’re having a late session at the studio recording a new song that Jude wrote.” She takes a sip from the mug, and her expression turns serious. “By the way, he won’t stop asking about you. He keeps demanding I give him your phone number. Since I joined the band on tour, I haven’t seen him with one chick, and he hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol. Maybe you should give him a chance.”
I huff as I turn off the stove and dump the scrambled eggs on a plate. “How’s my baby?” I deflect, referring to Simba, my cat. I don’t feel like talking about Jude at the moment.
After the incident in the tour bus, he sent a dozen bouquets to my hospital room with an ‘I’m sorry’ note and then put a stop to the tour so he could get admitted into one of those exclusivist celebrity rehab centers. He said he had a spiritual awakening the moment my heart stopped and that he realized he was going down a slippery slope with the drugs and the alcohol, and what happened to me made him rethink all of his life choices.
When he got out, he tried to reach me everywhere on my social media, but I ignored his messages. He kept saying we belonged together, but c’mon, we just met, and we kissed once. I am happy he got clean and that they restarted the tour, but honestly…Jude and I, we just used each other. He probably got hung up on the idea that he never got to fuck me after all and that I chose to ignore his messages. I can’t see myself with him, and it’s silly, but he can’t compare to the longing I feel every time I dream about the wolf with amber eyes.
“My mom is spoiling him rotten. I swear to God, he won’t even want to come back to my apartment once the tour is over. She refuses to feed him kibble. Last night, she made him the cat-safe version of dinuguan, a traditional Filipino stew. Wait, I’ll send you the photos; I forgot to forward them when she sent them last night.”
Taking a seat at the breakfast bar, I dig into the scrambled eggs before they get cold. “Oh my God, he’s so fat,” I chuckle out after swallowing. Tears prickle the back of my eyes when I scroll through the photos Chloe has finished sending me. Simba really is living his best life at her mother’s house.
After I got released from the hospital, he kept hissing at me and hiding. He was so terrified of me he refused to eat. It broke my heart into a million pieces, but he was losing weight, and hewasn’t happy living with me anymore, so Chloe offered to adopt him, and he is staying with her mother while she’s on tour with Knox.
“Yeah, I keep telling her to feed him less, but she won’t listen.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “What are you up to today?”
“Nothing much. I have to look for a job. The money myAbuelitaleft me is not infinite, and I don’t want to blow it all out on rent and food, so I have to find something.”
Chloe yawns loudly as she stands up from the couch and plops on the bed. “I think I’m going to turn in for the night. This tour life is fucking exhausting.”
“’Kay. Love you.”
“Love you too,” she replies, ending the call.
Half an hourlater, I’m exiting the apartment building, the slightly chilly air prickling my cheeks and filling my lungs. The morning sun shines brightly on the cloudless sky, but the rays barely convey warmth. It’s almost the middle of September, and an array of colorful leaves cover the sidewalk like an autumnal blanket, from bright copper to a fading yellow, the smell of decay filling my nose. The weather here is vastly different from the West Coast, and it definitely needs some getting used to. However, my body temperature is running higher after the surgery so while the people I pass on the street are already wearing jackets, I don’t need one.
The city is bustling with people on their commute to work, and the morning traffic is brutal, angry drivers honking and muttering insults at each other. Luckily, I don’t have to drive mycar today. The building I moved into is a ten-minute walk from the Raven district, where I am on my way to meet the private investigator I hired a month ago to look into my donor. He’s in the area with another job and asked me to meet him face-to-face to report his findings.
The Raven district is smack dab in the center of Ashville, and it’s filled with people wandering in and out of the small restaurants and cafés. I pass by a help-wanted sign in the window of a bar named the Shabby Shotglass—information I store for later.
A chill skates down my spine with the sensation of being watched, and I frown, turning my head, expecting to find someone following me, but I can’t spot anything out of the ordinary. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way since I was released from the hospital. Every time I step outside, I feel like someone is watching me, and honestly, it’s starting to bug me how paranoid I’m becoming for no good reason.
I shake off the unpleasant feeling, berating myself, and open the small café’s door to the pleasant smell of cinnamon and freshly roasted coffee. The murmur of conversations, laughter, and the thick whir of the frothing machine fills the air. The café has a cozy urban vibe with two exposed brick walls, other two painted a nice mint green, and a few industrial light fixtures that hang from the ceiling alongside numerous plants. A long line of people at the back of the café are waiting at the wood-paneled counter for their to-go orders.
I take my phone out to call John, the private investigator, because we have never met in person, and I have no idea what he looks like. A man lifts his hand as if to signal me, and I walk to the rounded table in the far-left side corner of the café where he’s seated. He stands, scraping the plush velvet chair abrasively against the floor.
“Ava, right?” John asks as we shake hands. He is a stout andscruffy middle-aged man with a thick mustache and intelligent hawk-like green eyes. His dark hair is sprinkled with some gray here and there.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, John,” I reply, and he gestures with his hand, urging me to sit. I sling my purse on the back of the chair. “So, did you find anything?” I ask, drumming my fingers on the table.
He turns slightly and takes out a file folder from the brown leather satchel that dangles from his chair, opening it and pushing it toward me. “Her name was Hope Moore. I also emailed you everything in case you misplace the folder or lose it.”
I nod and look down at the page. I’m immediately riveted by Hope’s otherworldly beauty, her hair golden and eyes a vivid azure, her features delicate and regal. My heart starts beating erratically against my ribcage as if it recognizes her, and goosebumps form all over my body as I trace her face with the pad of my finger. “She was so young,” I murmur, swallowing hard.
John picks up his coffee from the table and takes a sip. “Actually, that’s the last photo I could find of her. She disappeared when she was fifteen years old, and she only appeared the night she was declared dead. She was twenty-three when she died.”
A horrible feeling churns in my gut. My eyes snap to his. “That’s weird, right? How did she die?”
“She got hit by a car. At least, that’s what the hospital records say. Getting that information was hard; I had to hire someone to hack into their system. When the family went to pick her up, she’d been cremated already. They made a big scandal out of it because they wanted to bury her in the woods of the community she grew up in.”
“Hello. Can I get you something?” the chirpy voice of the serverinterrupts our conversation.
“Hi, yes, can I have a cappuccino, please? Oh, and a chocolate croissant?” I reply.
