AllFreeNovel
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But the drive to Malibu Bluffs is familiar. I make it all the time now. I've been staying at Mom and Dad's house since the breakup.
Like Malibu itself, Malibu Bluffs is sort of a small town. It's far from the rest of civilization, it's filled with people with the goal of getting away from city life, and it's close to nature, both the untouched coastline and the Santa Monica mountains. There's also limited access to typical city creature comforts. There are two grocery stores, one bar, three restaurants, one coffee shop, a gym, a Pilates studio, and a spa.
But unlike most small towns, everyone lives in a mansion with at least a little property, and everyone is loaded. My parents moved here from the Orange County city where Dad grew up when Mom got pregnant with my older brother Jackson. They didn't want to raise a family in the suburbs or the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles.
And since Mom was putting her photography business on pause for a while, and Dad still made a living as a drummer in a rock band (and was either home or far away, on tour), it didn't matter they were in the middle of nowhere.
They didn't invite the Webb family to move with them. They just did, a few years later. They live two miles from my parents.
Our families grew up together.
I don't even remember befriending Daphne, really. More a sense, we were always friends. We grew together. Sometimes, we grew apart too, but we always came back together. We always found a way to bond, whether it was over her love of coffee cake or my hatred of chocolate ice cream (it doesn't taste like chocolate).
Things get more familiar as I turn onto the main street, pass the post office and the grocery store, head up the hill to my parents' place. It's mission style, with a red brick roof, white arches, and cacti everywhere.
It's home.
I just wish it was home in the metaphorical sense and not the place I actually live now. I'm twenty-six. I shouldn't be living with my parents. And, well—
They smother.
They pretend they don't, but they do.
Thankfully, they're not home at the moment. No doubt they're both working. It's just me and the seven-bedroom mansion—one for each of us, plus a studio each for Mom and Dad.
The driveway is empty. The downstairs is clean. The upstairs is quiet. And my room is exactly as I left it yesterday. And way back in college.
It's not that the space isn't me. It is. The star decals on the ceiling, the homemade art on the walls, the white desk covered in colorful lyrics, and the sci-fi movie posters—they're all me.
But they're a different version of me. The teenager with dreams. The girl who didn't know better.
I was never naive, exactly. I've always been somewhat… difficult. But I used to believe music would save me. I believed pouring my heart into my words was enough. I believed someone would love me and heal me with their love.
Okay. I was extremely naive. Just not the way people usually mean it. I wasn't a starry-eyed romantic. I was an angry, jaded romantic. I hated the world, and deep down, I wanted someone to save me.
Now, I know better. People save themselves. Music helps, but it's not everything.
Still, when I sit at my desk, I feel the way I did as a teenager. There are too many feelings inside me. I need to pour them onto the page. That's the only way I know how to deal with them.
For hours, I listen to Fiona Apple, and I spill my thoughts. Slowly, the words shift into something I can use. A chorus. A verse.
I add a few lines of a bridge.
It's not perfect, but it's a start.
The high of creation fills my veins. Life is good and beautiful and pure and no one can ruin that.
And then my kid brother, Zack, knocks on my door, and I come back down to Earth.
He's seen the posts and social media, and he's only interested in one thing: whether or not I'm fucking Damon Webb.
Chapter Eleven
Cassie
"Wow, Cass. Wow." Zack saunters into my room with a smile. An evil smile. The sort of evil smile he wears like his favorite pair of jeans. There's nothing in the universe he loves more than making other people's lives difficult. Nothing. "These are some spicy pictures." He pulls out his cell phone, which is already displaying my last Instagram story.
A picture of Damon standing at the edge of the pool in only his jeans. He has his back to the camera, and he has his usual brooding posture, as if he's ready to dissolve into the blue sky around him.
It might not say happy lover as much as it says miserable creative, but we are working together, and anyone who's ever partnered on a project knows it's fifty percent wonder, fifty percent misery at best.
