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“I love you,” she said softly, holding her ground and his gaze when he lifted his head, his expression stunned. “I love you, and I want this with you. I want everything with you. Not someday, now. At our own pace, on our schedule. No one else’s. Fast means we just got lucky quicker than others. It doesn’t make it wrong.”
“Fuck, no, it’s not wrong.” He stepped toward her and stopped, his jaw clicking as he snapped it closed.
And that was the sticking point. He wasn’t ready to move all the way toward her, because he didn’t think he was good enough. Didn’t believe it down deep where it mattered most.
“This is going to keep happening,” she said, fighting to get the words out around the lump in her throat. “I don’t know what caused what you did on stage. I don’t know if everything just crashed down on you and you flipped out. If this is all too much. But maybe it doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t speak, just avoided her gaze.
“You’re going to keep waiting for people to leave, for me to leave. You don’t think you’re worth anything more. Everything I see, everything we all see—your fans, your friends, the people who love you—isn’t enough to fill the hole inside you. You have to see it too. Have to believe you’re so much more than just the guy you were at seventeen.” He tipped back his head and she reached out to cup one of his fists, clenched so tight. “And you know what? That guy, I bet he was pretty amazing too. I bet I would’ve been honored to have a baby with him. But we can’t go back and change things. Stuff happens as it’s meant.” She swallowed hard, shutting her eyes and then opening them again.
They were wet, but her tears hadn’t fallen. Yet.
“As it’s meant,” she repeated, releasing his hand. The hardest thing she’d ever done.
She walked into the hallway, more than a little numb. If she didn’t walk away now, she would never be able to. But he was the reason she was able to at all. To know fully how much she was worth.
More than anything, she wanted to be with him. To make this work. For keeps. But she couldn’t convince him or reassure him. She couldn’t give him the self-worth he was still lacking. Somehow.
He had to figure out all of that by himself, just as she had. She’d help him in every way possible, but he had to tell her what he was thinking. He had to trust that no one else on this freaking planet could be half as good for her as he was.
She stopped by the backpack he’d dropped against the wall. She couldn’t leave it there. He’d forgotten it.
Biting her lip, she bent to pick it up, stopping short at the envelope sticking out of the pile. Pink. She’d seen it in the stack at home.
His home. Not hers. Not yet.
Without fully being aware of what she was doing, she thumbed it open. The flap was unsealed. There was a letter, but she didn’t read it. She just pulled out the picture and pressed her fist against her mouth to stifle a sob.
The picture was of a dark-haired, smiling man, with a beautiful blond girl with long, silky ponytails at his side. She was grinning, and above them stretched a banner proclaiming it the father-daughter dance.
All at once, she understood.
Gripping the picture, she stood and turned, searching for him. He was standing in the doorway to the green room, his expression unreadable.
Saying nothing, she walked to him and wrapped her arms around him. Squeezing him tight. Trying to show him without words how much she loved him and that when he was ready, she’d be right there waiting for him.
She’d wait forever.
She pressed the picture into his hand and let the sobs free for a second before she forced them back. “She looks just like you. So pretty and sweet and good.” She reached up to touch his cheek, unsurprised to find it was wet. “She looks happy. You gave her that.”
He cupped her hand against his cheek. And for a moment, it was almost enough.
Almost.
He was the one who’d helped her see she couldn’t settle.
Not this time either.
Not even for him.
Trembling, she eased back, taking one last long look at him. Then she turned around and kept walking.
Chapter Nineteen
West pulled the blanket over his head. Fuck the world. Fuck the phone. Fuck the goddamn internet. He’d tortured himself all night with videos of Lauren at his last few shows. He hated
watching his own shows.
