The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,99

her white T-shirt.

“You doing okay?” she asked dryly.

“Fine,” I muttered.

“You don’t look fine. You look like shit. And you sound like shit too, come to think of it.”

I narrowed my eyes at her through the mirror, but she leaned on the wall and crossed her legs at the ankle, unperturbed. “You’re taking an Ambien tonight and I don’t want to hear any crap about it,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re taking one every night until Sloan gets back. You’re not sleeping and it’s making you an asshole.”

I looked away from her and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry. I just…I just miss her.”

“I know. She misses you too. But you need to get it together. Pissing her off isn’t gonna fix anything.”

Nothing was going to fix anything.

Last week I’d talked to Sloan about recording the bullshit my label had sent over. I was getting desperate. I needed to start working toward an end date and I still hadn’t been able to write anything worth a damn. But she’d blatantly refused to let me do it. She was so upset about it I’d had to swear never to bring it up again. She said she didn’t want me singing astronaut cats, that she’d be deeply disappointed in me if I ever compromised my music like that.

So then what was I supposed to do? What was the out? It was like no matter what I did, I was making her unhappy.

I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. Ernie’s words, that I couldn’t have my fame and have Sloan, streamed through my head like a prophecy come to fruition. And I didn’t fucking know how to fix it. There was no solution to this.

“Can I use your phone?” I asked, looking over at Zane.

She pushed off the wall, pulled it from her pocket, and slapped it into my hand. “Don’t fucking break it.” Then she left.

I called Sloan.

She picked up on the third ring. “Zane?”

“Sloan, it’s me. Don’t hang up.”

“What do you want, Jason?” And then she started to cry.

It was the kind of crying that didn’t sound like it was beginning. It was the kind that sounded like it was continuing. My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. My chest got tight and I had to clutch it with my free hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Sloan. You’re right. I shouldn’t be asking you to do more than you’re doing.”

“I hate this,” she sobbed. “I hate fighting with you.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I said, a lump growing in my throat. “I just can’t handle hearing you won’t have kids with me. I already feel like I’m ruining your life…I just…I have to know we’re gonna be okay.”

I wanted to walk out of that bathroom and take the next flight to Minnesota. If I hadn’t been in the middle of a concert, I would have already been out the door, even if I got to see her for only an hour before I had to get back on a plane.

“You’re not ruining my life, Jason.” She sniffed. “I know what you want me to say to you. You want me to tell you that we can have everything. And you know what? Maybe we can’t. Maybe we just have to accept that our life isn’t conducive to certain things right now and be okay with that.”

How? How the fuck was I supposed to be okay with systematically taking everything from her?

I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to say what I’d been thinking for a while, the thing that had haunted me incessantly since the first time I noticed she wasn’t handling the road well. “Sloan…have you considered that maybe us being together isn’t the best thing for you?”

She went silent on the other end for a long moment. “Why would you say that to me?”

“You’re miserable.”

I heard her swallow in the silence. “Jason, I don’t want to hear you talking like that again. We’re not breaking up. How can you even suggest that?”

I put my forehead in my hand. “You want kids.”

“And we can have them. When we can offer them more stability.”

I shook my head. “When? Ten years from now?”

“I’ll only be thirty-six,” she said. “I won’t exactly be an old lady. You know, life doesn’t always give you what you want, Jason. Being in a relationship means compromise.”

I scoffed quietly. The only one compromising was her.

We went quiet. The audience began to chant my name.