“Aiden?”
I could barely hear Lola’s voice above the roar of blood in my ears.
My hand bolted down to the table for support, desperate to keep myself grounded, my fingertips bleaching white. Just a little bit longer. I could do it.
“Aiden!”
Was that Harry?
I couldn’t tell anymore. The lights made my mind hazy, old and new memories blurring into one. I tried to count to ten, reminding myself to breathe—just like Lola had taught me—but panic surged through my veins. No matter how many times I told myself to calm down, no air reached my lungs.
“Dancers, it’s time to take it up a notch!”
The piercing screech of the microphone being dropped sliced through my last fragile thread of control.
Images of that dark night ten years ago hurtled faster than the squad car. And when the only noise I could hear was the constant tick of the indicator as I pulled out onto the highway, I shuddered a breath, clawing frantically to drag myself from the memory before it was too late.
But when I closed my eyes, raindrops danced in the fog of broken headlights. And then I shouldered my way out of the crumpled wreck onto the broken glass littered all over the road…
Fuck.
I bolted upright out of my chair. The squeal of wood on wood only pushed me closer to the edge. The chair tumbled to the ground, but I didn’t stop to pick it up.
I had to get out of there.
Nothing else mattered. Not Harry stumbling to his feet, confused, his face scrunched up. Not Lola’s frantic call after me.
I just had to get the hell out of there.
Ruth couldn’t see me break.
Not ever.
27
She Saw How Much He Struggled
Lola
I cracked open thedoor. Just a tiny peek.
Sometimes, it paid to be cautious. I was venturing into the uncharted territory of the men’s bathroom, and as much as I wanted to find Aiden, I really didn’t need the unexpected sighting of a random man’s penis—orworse—when I was off the clock.
My eyes skipped over the stalls. No doors shut. Not a soul in sight.
I nudged the door open a tiny bit wider.
A light flickered above the washbasins, a broken sun blinking on and off above Aiden’s hunched shoulders. His hands braced the basin, his head hung low, and even though water gushed out of the tap, he didn’t turn it off. His eyes were closed, and his mouth moved in a slow, steady beat. My heart twisted. He was counting.
“Aiden?”
He didn’t answer.
He wasn’t ignoring me. He was lost in the other world he disappeared to sometimes—the one where he hovered on the edge of something sudden and scary. That was a world where I was powerless. Nothing I did helped him.
I crept a few steps closer. “Aiden?”
Silence.
