Breaking South (Turner Artist Rocker #3) - Alyson Santos Page 0,22

feel sick as I force myself up from the bed and hold up my hands.

“Okay. I’ll go,” I say softly.

She doesn’t move as I back toward the door, everything in me screaming not to leave her like this. To fix it. But my puck is sailing over my head, so far out of reach that all I can do is watch it clear the glass and tangle in the netting. How long will it be trapped there?

I grip the door on my way out, hesitating against one last truth I can’t let go. If I never see her again, she needs to know. I turn my head and watch her for several seconds. So beautiful. So shut off from everyone else—herself most of all.

“I think I could have loved her,” I say quietly.

A sheen spreads over her eyes. “Who?”

“The girl in the mirror.”

And I leave.

CHAPTER 6

He speaks without words, laughs without caution

Strange in the way he brings color to gray

He’s a danger to himself

How he stands in to help

Facing storms meant to keep him at bay

If I let him suffer as my buffer

If I open the vault no one sees

Who will be waiting in the wake of courageous

When he finally believes

The vault is empty?

GENEVIEVE

I can’t breathe after Oliver leaves. Even if I’d wanted to call him back, I end up on the bed, trying to pull in air at a reasonable clip. An anxiety attack, sure, I’ve had them before. Often lately, and I have plenty of strategies to deal with them. After getting myself back to functional, I pop a pill and cuddle against a body pillow to wait for it to take effect. I still have twenty minutes to get my crap together before we have to leave for the meeting. Twenty minutes to make sense of what just happened and bury it.

Oliver saw my poetry. Another soul brushed mine, and I’m not okay. No one’s seen that part of me, not even Hadley who tapped on my door a few minutes after Oliver left. Like Oliver before her, I sent her away after assuring her I was fine. I’ll do damage control on that hiccup later. I can only imagine what he told them all on his way out.

Your boss is a train wreck. How can you work for that crazy bitch?

I wrap the blanket tighter around me, shuddering at my own harsh appraisal. There’s no way he’d think something like that, let alone say it. He’s a saint, which is why I sent him to safety. Every time my gaze lands on the door, I see those warm brown eyes melting in betrayal as I kicked him out. His tall, solid body temporarily filling the gaping hole leading to the dark corridor beyond. But his large frame wasn’t what filled that void in the doorway, it was his overwhelming presence—his essence—and I wrecked it like I wreck everything. I threw him away, the color, the light. A wave of chills washes through me at each blast of the thought in echo. My limbs tingle; my heart rate stutters on the verge of erratic rhythms again. I clench my eyes shut and pull in deep breaths. Fifteen minutes to finish grieving and get back up.

Maybe if I rinse off in the shower? But then I’d have to move and I’ve just found the sweet spot of my pillow. That place where my own warmth has been absorbed and is now being fed back to me in a soothing lie. If I close my eyes I can pretend it’s someone else. Anyone who would dare a connection with the cold, colorless girl who sucks light and life from those around her. Like what I did to Oliver. I could see it in that moment before he turned away. The life I drained from him in our short acquaintance.

Stop. You are in control.

You are in control.

Am I? I hope so if I have any chance of surviving the rest of this day.

Everyone’s here. Everyone’s smiling. Stocker Carmichael, C.E.O. of White Flame Records himself made the trip in from New York for this. As usual, my parents sit to my left, nodding in agreement with everything White Flame says, except for the occasional insignificant point to preserve the illusion they have any control over my career. My manager Samantha Turner sits across from me with her typical steeled poise that simultaneously makes you feel comfortable, confident, and protected. But things are different today. Even Sam’s professionalism isn’t enough to quiet