excited. So excited. Just got some bad personal news.”
Her eyes glanced over at the vanity to the letter, stained with fresh tears. I clenched the pin he left me so hard, I thought it might pierce my palm.
“Just cry, they won’t stop until you are done,” she said, grabbing some tissues and handing them to me. “Then we will get some ice and cucumbers because I cannot have my favorite dancer with puffy eyes on her night.”
So I let myself cry, and she was right, the tears stopped when I let them do their job. Alana sat there quietly. One of my heroes sat there and just let me be a vulnerable human being. It was surreal.
“This is about love?”
“Mmmhmm,” I said, afraid that talking about him would give me more reasons to cry.
“There is no better reason to cry than for love. He is the artist, no?”
“Yes.”
“He is not coming tonight?”
I shook my head. She sat back on the small sofa in my room and we were silent for a while.
“The DeMill from my name, I got that from love. I was young too. There is no love like that. You still believe that love can make magic.”
I thought my love could fix Ash.
“He was your husband?”
“Yes, but not for long. I was so young. It was years before I created the Roché DeMill Dance Company. He was a dancer, too. Beautiful dancer. But he left me, too. Not in the way your boy left you. Jean decided that this world was not for him, and I found him in the bathtub. It was too late to bring him back.”
“I’m so sorry.” I admired this woman in front of me who was strong in the face of such tragedy and it gave me strength. I could get through this. I loved Ash, but I could still have a life without him, a great one. Alana helped me know it in my mind, but it would take a long time before my heart truly believed it.
“At first I was angry, then I was sad. But I realized what he did was not about me. It was about him. I thought I would die, too. But I didn’t die, and you won’t either.” She leaned forward. “That boy is not the only source of love. You may have to collect in pieces from everyone to make it equal to what he gave, but it’s already surrounding you. So it’s time to look away from him and hunt for the pieces.”
“Okay,” I muttered. It would take maybe a lifetime to collect enough pieces of love to match that of Ash’s, but I would need to if I was going to survive this heartache and give it my all tonight.
“I’m going to get some things for your puffy eyes.”
She headed for the door and stopped. “Oh, and sex. Lots of sex will help, too.” Mary Poppins ain’t got shit on Alana Roché DeMill.
She slipped out of the dressing room and I decided to collect my first piece. I had been yearning for it since I found myself in the dressing room. It was instinctual. It was a deep need I had convinced myself I didn’t have. But Ash ripped my heart out and he exposed everything hiding in there that I had suppressed. And like he once told me, I don’t know if we ever stop feeling like kids.
I cleared my throat and grabbed my cell phone, calling a number I hadn’t called since I got to LA.
“Birdie?” the woman’s voice on the other line allowed me to be a child again. I just wanted to fall down and let someone else to the catching.
I sobbed into the receiver. “Mom? It’s me. I—” the sobs stifled my words. “I just wanted to say hi.”
I had collected the first piece.
BIRD
I WAS HUNGOVER. Not on alcohol, but envy.
Last night, Trevor proposed to Jordan. I knew it was coming, and I was happy . . . really happy. But my wounds weren’t healed and, like any wound, it was prone to infection. The sickness of envy had taken hold. It had been almost a month since Ash disappeared. He was here, his voice, his touch, his smile . . . and then he was gone. And with him, he took all the color and magic he brought when he came. I had made Ash’s world brighter, but he had done the same for me. I don’t think he truly understood that.
These should have been the happiest