Page 135 of Before You Fell

“I’m nervous about going home,” I say, leaning toward the window so I don’t have to look at him.

I can still sense Phoenix’s eyes on me. Part of me wishes he would make a joke, something sarcastic and inappropriate that gives me somewhere familiar to hide.

“Goldie said I should let you sweat for at least ten minutes before I was nice to you.”

“Goldie sounds terrifying.”

“She is terrifying. And kind. And she does not take anyone’s shit.” I go back to tracing my thumb along the edge of my sleeve. “She helped me more than anyone else in there. She understood the music industry and what it can take from you if you let it.”

I peer out the window and pretend the trees are fascinating. “What about the guys? How have they been?”

“Jax and Jett keep snapping at each other over some shit. Cruz has started asking them what crawled up both their asses and died there.”

“And Damon?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Still a parasite lodged up my ass,” Phoenix says. “The man has built a luxury apartment in there and keeps complaining about the neighborhood.”

A laugh slips out of me.

He smirks. “On the last day of the tour, he called me a dickhead with the impulse control of a horny teenager.”

That sounds about right. Phoenix has never met a willing woman he did not feel personally obligated to climb into. Even without me there, it sounds as though the tour went exactly as usual.

“Let me guess. You wanted to punch him, right?”

“Yeah, I wanted to.” His fingers tap once on the wheel. “Someone has to correct that shitty behavior.”

I let the silence envelop us for a moment before I speak again, “Mom wanted me to stay with them.”

His head turns slightly.

“Dad is being short with me now.” I drop my hands into my lap. “He still thinks you’re the last person I should be around while I’m this vulnerable.”

Phoenix lets out a humorless huff. “Your dad is probably more pissed at me.”

“He’s had years of practice.”

“Yeah, well, I have given him excellent material.”

What I couldn’t explain to either of my parents was that Goldie and I talked about this. Not about Phoenix changing. Building my recovery around that would be another form of self-destruction dressed up as hope.

She helped me understand that being stronger around him doesn’t mean I stop loving him. It means I stop letting that love make all my decisions for me.

Phoenix will always reach parts of me no one else can. Maybe he will only ever be this. My oldest friend and my worst weakness. The man I love in a way that may never leave me.

But I can live with that.

What I can’t live with anymore is letting him decide how much loving him costs me.

Being around him now is not about waiting for him to become someone else. It’s about seeing him clearly enough to understand who we are, who we are not, and how I fit him into my life without disappearing into his. I need to learn to love him without abandoning myself.

This time, I come first.

A few minutes later, he signals and turns off the main road onto a narrower street. This is not the way to my apartment.

I sit up straighter. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”