I drive and am surprised when I look up and find I’m at Luna’s apartment building. I stare at what I think is her window and wait to feel that pull. I don’t feel it. Maybe we’re too far away.
Then it hits me like a wave and I’m wondering why it came on so suddenly, but then there’s a knock on my window. I look at the passenger window to see her bending down, looking in at me.
I hit the button and unlock the door. She opens it and takes a seat next to me. “Whatcha doing?”
“I was driving around aimlessly. Just trying to figure out some shit. When I looked up, I found myself here.”
She presses her lips together and nods. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I ask, looking over at her.
“For fucking everything up tonight. I understand now. You brought a date to help keep yourself in check and I pushed right through that. I know you were really trying for the both of us—to help us end things—and I wouldn’t listen. I pushed you to do something you didn’t want to do, and I’m sorry for that.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine. “It’s not that I don’t want you, Luna. That’s the problem. I do want you. I want you too much, and in the end, we’ll both end up hurt. If it’s this hard to stay away from each other now, it’s only going to get harder when it’s time for you to go on tour.”
“I know,” she agrees. “I just don’t know why it’s so hard to stay away from you. Things would be so much simpler if we had never crossed the line.”
“I would rather lose you than to have never had you at all.” I kiss the top of her hand.
She offers up a small smile. “So you took your date home?”
I nod. “Yep, and she yelled at me. I told her to keep me away from you tonight. Then I disappeared, and when I came back, I didn’t have our coats. She knew what I had done.”
She laughs. “So there really isn’t anything going on between you two?”
“Nope. We’re just good friends. She’s actually one of my best friends and has been since college. We’ve never touched or kissed or anything.”
When I look over at her, she’s staring at me. I can’t read the look in her eyes. It’s like she’s amazed I’m even sitting here with her.
“Do you think what we have is just sexual, or do you think our sexual chemistry is so strong because we were actually meant to be together?”
I wet my lips and open my mouth, but no words come out. I don’t know how to answer that and I’m praying to God we aren’t meant for each other. What a sad love story that would be. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
She pulls her eyes away from mine, looking at the brick building as she shrugs. “I should get inside. We have a long day of setting up our album tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I agree, forcing myself to let her go.
She reaches for the door and opens it, stepping out and walking inside without another word or look back. Once she’s inside, I shift into drive and head home—this time for real.
Seven
Luna
Walking away from him is hard—one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. All I want to do is to take his hand and tell him to push our problems away—to worry about them another day—but I know no good can come of that. He’s right. If we don’t end things, we’ll only hurt each other in the end. I need to focus on my music career and he needs to focus on anything but me. When I saw him tonight with another woman on his arm, I’d never felt more upset, jealous, or angry. Something inside me flipped in that moment, and I had to have him and make him mine again.
The week we didn’t see each other was the hardest for me, so when I saw him today at the meeting and then again at the party, it was like having my favorite drug offered to me. I could either reach out and take it, knowing that coming down would hurt twice as much, or I could turn it away. I reached out and took it, and now, the comedown is rough. I walk into my apartment and lock the door behind me. Most of the time when I lock it,