this. You don’t have the right to look at me like that or make me feel guilty for something that you did.”
Stealing my hand, he nodded, his fingers shaking around mine. His next breath, loud and defeated, sagged his shoulders. “I deserve your anger. Your tears. Your hostility. But I can’t…” He swallowed, the sound thick. “I can’t be near you right now.”
“What?” The word wheezed out of me as he dropped my hand. “What did you fucking expect after being gone for months?”
“Not this.” His head shook. “Not seeing you with him.” From the same ripped jeans he always favored, he procured a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. “And if I don’t walk away now, it’ll unravel everything I’ve worked so hard on.”
Mystified and crazy pissed, I shouted at his retreating back, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Rehab, Clover.” Ash flicked into the air behind him. “Fucking rehab.”
Rehab.
Long into the night, that one word plagued me, sending me tossing and turning as I tried to get comfortable with the wiggling human attached to my insides.
For all these weeks, he’d been getting help? Then why didn’t he tell me that? Why didn’t he tell me anything, instead of leaving me with nothing but a useless weed and a bleeding heart?
The next morning, I slipped on a maternity shirt and maxi skirt as soon as I’d eaten, and with exhaustion weighing every step, I decided he no longer got to make the decisions.
He didn’t answer his phone, so climbing into my car, I called Hendrix. “Is he with you guys?”
“Steve, yeah, but—”
“No buts. Tell him if he moves, I’ll skin his balls.”
Hendrix made a sound of surprised disgust, and I hung up.
About to turn out onto the street, I stopped, feeling the anger fade. The fuel that fired my soul and revived the broken remains of my heart emptying.
I put the car in park and slunk back into the seat, staring out the front windshield.
Gold and red leaves twirled across the sidewalk, the breeze swooping and carrying them until it lost its strength and sent them tumbling with gravity’s will.
I sniffed, swiping at my nose, and then I called Hendrix back.
“Fuck, Steve. Way to turn me off my breakfast.”
“Sorry. And never mind. I was just…”
“Angry?” he offered. “Look, I get it. But he’s not at the studio. He’s staying at Graham’s apartment.”
“Oh.”
“Did he tell you where he’d been?” he asked.
“He did, but I don’t know if I believe him, or if I should even care at this point.”
Hendrix said nothing for a moment, then his voice gentled. “Believe him, Steve. I know he’s fucked it all up, probably countless times now, but he’s a deeply wounded guy. One who’s been fighting to find some kind of healing.”
Everything he said penetrated. It burrowed into the part of my heart that wanted Everett to be the best version of himself he could be. The man I knew he was capable of being.
“You’ve forgiven him,” I said. “Just like that.”
“No.” His laugh was gruff. “No way, but I see it. I see what he’s been trying to do, what he’s done for himself these past few months, and I respect that.” Lowering his voice, he mumbled, “Doesn’t mean I didn’t slug him in the gut for how he left you.”
I smiled through the wobbling of my lips. “I need to go.”
“Call me if you need anything. I’m heading to the studio in a beat, but I’ll have my phone with me when I can.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, ending the call.
Back inside, I lowered to the couch and contemplated calling Aiden. God, what a mess. Would he even want to talk to me? There was only one way to find out.
He didn’t answer, and trying not to feel dejected, I slouched back, curling my legs into the cushions.
My phone rang.
“Hey.” Just that one word sounded wary, poised and prepared for the worst.
“On a scale of one to one million, how much do you hate me?”
His chuckle fell flat, but I took some comfort in the fact I’d made him laugh a little. “I could never hate you, Stevie. Though some days it’d make it easier if I could, for sure.”
I licked my dry lips, closing my eyes. “I’m sorry, Prince.”
A ragged breath had my eyes opening. “I take it he’s not there.”
I hated what that implied. That I treated him like some dirty secret. “He left not long after you did.”
A harsh pause preceded his next words. “Shit, Stevie.”