Page 89 of Before You Fell

“Hey, not great. Totally fucked up. I haven’t written a line in two months, keep waking up in yesterday’s makeup, and I have no fucking clue what I’m doing unless there’s a drink or a party loud enough to drown me out.”

It doesn’t really have the same casual vibe.

So I ignore them too. Ignoring people is easier than admitting I miss them or explaining that I’m not even close to okay and that partying helps because it gives me somewhere to put my body while the rest of me falls apart.

Sometimes I lie on this couch, thinking about all the times Phoenix has come to my door.

The first time, I sat on the bathroom floor with my knees pulled up to my chest, listening to him pound on my front door hard enough to rattle the lock.

“Willow.”

Bang. Bang.

“Open the fucking door.”

Bang.

“Wills, I know you’re in there.”

I stayed where I was, my hands clamped over my mouth and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.

The next time was worse. He sounded drunk or high.

“Please, Willow. If you’re in there, open the fucking door.”

That word broke me because Phoenix Stone does not beg. He walks away with his ego polished and his cock still warm, leaving others to clean up his mess. But that night, his voice cracked on my name and I stood on the other side of the door with my hand on the lock.

One twist. That was all it would have taken to see him. His dark hair falling into his eyes. His lip ring catching the light in the hall. Those eyes I miss more than I will ever admit, even to myself when I am drunk enough to tell the truth.

I wanted to open it. God, I wanted to open it so badly that it made me hate myself.

But then I remembered the way he fucked me as if I were the only thing he had ever needed, then went cold afterward as if I were another groupie he could use and step over once he got what he wanted.

So I left my hand on the lock and I let him stand there outside my door, saying my name, while I was trying not to break out loud enough for him to hear.

He stayed for twenty minutes.

I know because I heard him slide down the other side of the door and sit in the hallway, his back against the same wood my palm had been pressed to.

For one stupid, terrible second, it felt almost intimate. Me on one side, him on the other.

Then someone walked past.

Phoenix’s voice cut through the hall. “What the fuck are you looking at, asshole?”

A door shut somewhere down the hall and the silence returned. He got up and left.

Last night comes back in ugly little flashes. My new friend, Sienna Voss, was laughing under the lights, glossy hair over one shoulder, her mouth painted red, all wild party energy and expensive perfume. She works with another label, which means she knows everyone worth knowing and half the people worth avoiding.

She calls herself connected. I call her dangerous because of her contact list.

She is fun in that reckless, glittering way that makes bad ideas feel less pathetic. The kind of girl who can get you past a locked gate, into a private party, and three mistakes deep before you remember you were supposed to be healing.

The house where we party had too many people pretending the night was harmless because the drinks were expensive and the drugs came in pretty little packages.

Memphis Cross watched me across the room. He watched me with those dark eyes and that slow, dirty interest, as if he already knew I was one bad decision away from letting him touch me.

“Come with me,” he said.