bathroom and to fill up on gas.
This time, I’m running away from someone I don’t want to leave, the evidence of our love still there in the way my body aches. Leaving feels wrong and right at the same time, and I find myself wanting to change direction over and over again.
I want to go back. I want to keep driving north.
I want to find a way I can have both—my quiet life and Denver.
I’m about an hour from hitting Utah when I have to stop. I’ve only been on the road for six hours, but I can’t take it anymore because it feels like there’s a solution, but I can’t quite grasp it yet, and the farther I get from LA—from Denver—the more it seems out of reach.
There are a few hotels and casinos in Mesquite, Nevada, so I choose the least sketchy-looking one and check in. Considering it’s barely lunchtime, I have about eighteen hours to fill. Other than telling myself to stop doubting my decision, maybe I’ll try to get some sleep. And if I get to sleep now, I might be able to check out later and drive the rest of the way tomorrow. It should only be another ten hours or so before I’m back where I feel safest.
I’ll be safe to be myself and safe from all the bullshit.
Safe from being hurt.
I groan. That’s the real reason I’m running away, isn’t it? Denver was right. This has nothing to do with the LA shit.
If I throw myself fully into this Eleven reunion, I’m terrified I’ll end up where I am right now.
Alone.
Which is why I’m doing it first. I’m protecting myself from reliving the hurt by doing it on my own terms and not theirs.
Maybe I should go back. If I leave now, I’ll be back in LA before dinner. I can swallow my pride and pretend I didn’t have this grief-induced panic attack.
But the crappy thing about panic is it doesn’t magically disappear because you acknowledge the cause.
I can’t face Hollywood alone, and even if I’d have Denver by my side once again, I can’t help reminding myself how he left me once before. All the guys from Eleven abandoned me.
After eating crappy food in the hotel restaurant, where I’m thankfully not recognized, I make my way to my room to try to nap, but it’s pointless.
I check my phone a dozen times, and I’m thrown back to the last time I went running home with my tail between my legs. I waited a long time for someone in Hollywood to notice I was gone or for someone to care. After a while, the stark reality hit me that no one did.
Except for Cameron.
Then, of course, I start thinking about what I am going to do seeing as I can’t go back to my old life. Expand the Christmas tree farm? I like working with my hands and being outdoors, but it’s not like it has ever been my calling to be a lumberjack. After Dad died, the lumber side of the business took a huge hit and had dried up by the time I left for college. If it hadn’t been for Eleven, we would’ve lost the land that’s been in our family for generations. The loans and land taxes were building up, and thanks to my career, I saved it.
But what am I going to do now?
Sleep eludes me, which leads me down the rabbit hole of checking entertainment news. Big mistake. Masochism and impulse control issues are really fun.
The internet is blowing up with rumors of an Eleven reunion after our performance, and as I watch back the video of us singing together, that spark of this is what makes the bullshit worth it tries to ignite inside me, but it flames out fast.
We were saying goodbye to one of the biggest music managers in the industry—someone important to us—and all the media can talk about is whether or not we’re going to cut another album. It’s disgusting.
When I do finally drift off to sleep, it’s not the media, the life, or performing that I’m thinking of. There are only thoughts about a boy. A man. My best friend, my rock, and the only person in this world I could break the vow I made myself when I climbed out of his bed this morning.
I said I’d never let myself go back, but I’ve been away from him for mere hours, and I already miss him.
Aside from my brief appearances