Prologue
Viola
The air is hazy, thick with the cloying scent of weed as I meander my way through the throngs of people laughing, smoking, and generally having a great time. I don’t belong here. At least that’s how it feels. Especially since I have a sneaking suspicion what I’m about to discover.
“Hey, Vi,” Henry, the bassist for the band, calls out to me with shock etched across his face as he grabs my arm and tugs me in for a bear hug. His tone is an infuriating concoction of surprise, delight, and panic. “What brings you out here?”
I’m tempted to laugh at that question, though it’s far from funny. As such, it forces a frown instead of a smile. It really should be obvious. But maybe it’s not anymore, and that only solidifies my resolve that I’m doing the right thing tonight.
Even if it sucks.
“I’m looking for Gus,” I reply smoothly without even a hint of emotion, and his grin drops a notch.
Knowing that my boyfriend of four years is cheating on me should resemble something along the lines of being repeatedly stabbed in the back. Or heart. It should feel like death is imminent as the truth skewers my faith in men, my sense of self-worth, and my overall confidence into tiny bite-sized pieces of flesh. I should be a sniveling, slobbering mess of heartbreak. I should be nuclear-level pissed while simultaneously seeking and plotting a dramatic scene and meaningless revenge.
That’s how it always goes for girls like me versus guys like Gus. And maybe I am just a touch of all those things. But right now, I just want to get this over with and go home.
“He’s umm…,” Henry’s voice trails off as he makes a show of scanning the room as if he’s genuinely trying to locate Gus amongst the revelry. My bet? He knows exactly where Gus is and is attempting to buy him and his current lady of the minute some time.
“It’s cool,” I say, plastering on a bright smile that I do not feel. “I’ll find him.”
Because when you’ve been friends with someone your entire life, in a relationship with them for the last four years, you don’t expect them to betray you. You expect loyalty and honesty and respect. You expect fucking respect, Gus! Gus cheating and lying about it is none of those things.
“I can find him!” Henry jumps in quickly. “I’d probably have a better shot of locating him in here than you will. Ya know, cuz I’m taller so I can see around the crowds better. Do you want a drink or something? Why don’t you go make yourself a drink while I look for him?”
I shake my head and step back when he moves to grasp my shoulder. “Don’t cover for him, Henry. It just makes you a dick and him more of an ass.”
Henry pivots to face me fully, a half-empty bottle of Cuervo in his hand, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. He crumples, his shoulders sagging forward.
“I know. I’m sorry. But it’s not what you think, Vi. It’s not. It’s just…” He waves his free hand around the room as if this should explain everything. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. This room is the horror show definition of that cliché.
I don’t begrudge Gus or his bandmates success. I’m sublimely thrilled for them that their first album is taking off the way it is. It’s been their dream–our dream–for as long as I’ve known them, and that’s forever.
Which is why I should have ended it when Gus left for L.A., and I left for college.
I knew the temptations that were headed his way. I knew women would be throwing themselves at him and that I was going to be thousands of miles away living a different life.
Does it excuse Gus’s actions? Hell no. Have I cheated on Gus once while in college? Absolutely not, and it isn’t like I haven’t had my own opportunities to do so.
But do I understand how this happened? Yeah. I do. I just held on too long.
“It was coming anyway,” I tell Henry. “But it’s nice to know he won’t be lonely.”
Yeah. That’s sarcasm. And I can’t help it, so I might as well allow the bitterness to make an entrance and take over the sadness that’s been sitting in my stomach like a bad burger you can’t digest. Especially as Gus has been adamantly denying his trysts, and Henry pretty much just confirmed them.
Henry’s like a fish out of water, and I lean in and give him a hug. I always liked Henry.
“He’s going to be so broken up about this, Vi. He loves you like crazy. Talks about you all the time.”
I pull back, tilting my head and shrugging a shoulder. “That doesn’t matter so much, though, does it? I’m at school, and he’s out here with…” Now it’s my turn to gaze about the room, my hand panning out to the side, reiterating my point. “Good luck with everything, Henry. I wish you all the success in the world. You guys deserve every good thing that’s headed your way.”
Henry scowls like I just ran over his dog as he shakes his head no at me. “You can’t end it with him. You’re a part of this. We wouldn’t be here without you. We wouldn’t be anything without you. You’re like…,” he scrunches up his nose as he thinks, “our fifth member. Our cheerleader.”
“Maybe once,” I concede, swallowing down the pain-laced nostalgia his words dredge up. The backs of my eyes burn, but I refuse to let any more tears fall over this. I cried myself out on the flight here, and now I’m done. “You guys don’t need me anymore. You have plenty of other cheerleaders.”
He opens his mouth to argue more before just as quickly closing it. “I’m sorry, Vi.”
“I can’t change it. It’s done. Stay safe, okay? And be smart,” I add.
“You too, babe. I’m gonna miss you.”
This is the moment it hits me.
I’m not just saying goodbye to my relationship with Gus, but to my friendships with these guys. To late-night band practices and weekends spent down by the lake just hanging out. I’m saying goodbye to my entire childhood, knowing that we’re all headed in different directions, and there is no middle ground with this. My throat constricts as I try to swallow, my insides twisting into knots.
Bolstering myself back up, I hold my head high.
I need to find Gus, and then I need to get out of here.
Wild Minds, the band that Gus is the second guitarist and backup singer for, opened for Cyber’s Law tonight. The Cyber’s Law. One of the hottest bands in the world. They’re also on the same label that just signed Wild Minds. This show is a big deal. This contract an even bigger one.
This is their start.
They had given themselves two years to make it big. They needed less than one.
Heading toward the back of the room, I skirt around half-naked women dancing and people blowing lines of coke. It’s dark in here. Most of the overhead lights are out, but the few that are on mix with the film of smoke, casting enough of a glow to see by way of shadows.
I bang into a table, apologizing to someone whose beer I spill when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Jasper, Gus’s fraternal twin brother and the lead singer of the band, is tucked into an alcove, a redhead plastered against him as she sucks on his neck.
Where Gus is handsome, charming, and completely endearing, Jasper is the opposite.
He is sinfully gorgeous, no doubt about that, but he’s distant, broody, artistic, and eternally happy to pass the limelight to an overeager Gus. Jasper was actually my first crush. Even my first kiss when we were fourteen. But that’s where it ended. Since that day, and without explanation, I’ve hardly existed to him.
Sensing someone’s watching, he pulls away from the girl on his neck, and our eyes meet in the miasma. His penetrating stare holds me annoyingly captive for a moment before he does a slow perusal of me. Unlike Henry, Jasper is not surprised to see me. In fact, his expression hardly registers any emotion at all. But the fire burning in his eyes tells a different story, and for reasons beyond my comprehension, I cannot tear myself away.
He tilts his head, a smirk curling up the corner of his lips, and I realize I’ve been standing here, staring at him with voyeuristic-quality engrossment for far too long.
But I don’t know how to break this spell.
The smoldering blaze in his eyes is likely related to what the girl who was attached to his neck was doing to him. Yet somehow, it doesn’t feel like that.
No, his focus is entirely on me.
And he’s making sure I know it.
A rush of heat swirls across my skin, crawling up my face. I shake my head ever so slightly, stumbling back a step.
Noticing my inner turmoil, Jasper rights his body, forcing the girl away. She says something to him that he doesn’t acknowledge or respond to. He runs a hand through his messy reddish-brown hair as he shifts, ready to come and speak to me when my field of vision is obscured.
Gus. I’d know him in my sleep.
My gaze drops, catching and sticking on his unzipped fly.
“You’re here,” he exclaims reverently, the thrill in his voice at seeing me unmistakable. I peek up and latch onto the fresh hickey on his neck. A hickey? Seriously? I didn’t even know people still gave those. When I find his lazy gray eyes, I want to cry. Especially with the purple welt giving me the finger.
“I’m here.”
He wraps me up in his arms, and I smell the woman who gave him that hickey. Her perfume possessively clings to his shirt, and I draw back, crinkling my nose in disgust.
“What’s wrong, babe?” His thumb strokes my cheek. “Long flight?”
I step back, out of his grasp.
“Your fly is unzipped, and you have a hickey on your neck.”
He blanches, his eyes dropping down to his groin while immediately zipping his family jewels back up. “I just took a leak.”
I nod, but mostly because I’m not sure how much fight I have left in me. It was a long flight. And a long eight months before that. But still, it’s one thing to know your boyfriend is cheating on you; it’s another to see it in the flesh, literally.
“And the hickey?” I snap.
“Not what it looks like, Vi. I swear.”
I reach up and cup his dark-blond stubbled jawline. My chest clenches. “Don’t lie, Gus. It just ruins everything. I don’t want to hate you, and if you lie to me now, I will.”
He shakes his head violently against my hand, his expression pleading. “You’re here, Vi. You’re finally here. Nothing else matters.”
“But it does. It all matters. The distance. The way our lives are diverging. I love you, Gus, but it’s not like it used to be with us. None of it is.” I swallow, my throat so tight it’s hard to push the words out. “Let’s end this now before it turns into bitterness and resentment.”
“I could never resent you.”
I inwardly sigh. He really doesn’t get it. “But your penis might. You’re fucking any woman who looks at you,” I bite out. “Where does that leave me? How could you do that to me, Gus? To us? Do you have any idea how awful that feels?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t mean… You weren’t here and I fucking missed you and I… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
“You seriously flew out here to end it?” He’s incredulous. And hurt. And I hate a hurt Gus. Even if we’re not the stuff of happily ever afters, I do love this man. I’m just not so sure how in love with him I am anymore. He broke my heart. He broke my trust. And absence hasn’t made my heart grow fonder. It’s made it grow harder.
“Would you rather I ended it on the phone?” His face meets my neck, and my eyes fling open wide, only to find Jasper watching us from over Gus’s shoulder. A curious observer, and my insides hurt all over again. His expression is a mask of apathy lined loosely with disdain. The way it’s always been with me. All that earlier heat a thing of the past. I don’t care either way.
“I don’t want you to do it at all,” Gus’s voice is thick with regret as he holds me. “I love you, Vi. I love you so goddamn much. I just…”
“I know. I really do.” I squeeze him back, feeling like I’m losing the only good part of my childhood in saying goodbye. “We’re just in different spaces now, with different lives, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
He shakes his head against me, holding me so close and so tight, it’s hard to breathe. He smells like that girl. But he smells like him underneath, and I cling to that last part because the scent of some unknown meaningless girl hurts too much. It rips me apart, knowing he did that to me.
To us.
I close my eyes for a moment and push that away. It’s useless at this point, and I don’t want to leave here more upset than I already am.
“Don’t end it,” he pleads, cupping my face and holding me the way he always has. “I can’t lose you.”
I lean up on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. Tall bastard. “And I can’t come in third. I handled second well enough, but not third.”
“Third?”
“Music first. Other women second. Me third. It’s done, Gus. No more lies or I’ll hate you, and I’ll hate myself.”
“No,” he forces out, but it’s half-hearted. We’re nineteen, and just too young. There isn’t enough of the right type of love between us to fight harder for something we both know will never work. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy. The cheating guy who pushes his long-time sweetheart-best-friend away. “You’re breaking my heart.” A tear leaks from my eye as I battle to stifle my sob. “I’m in love with you, and you’re ending it.” I blink back more tears, watching as he accepts what’s happening. “I’m going to regret this,” he states matter-of-factly. “Letting you go is going to be the regret of my life. Years from now, I’m going to hate myself for not making you stay.”
But you’re not fighting for me now.
“And that’s why I have to go.” I lean in and kiss him goodbye and then run like hell.
I make it outside, the heavy door slamming behind me. Warm, stale air brushes across my tacky skin, doing nothing to comfort or bring me clarity. I’m a mess of a woman as useless tears cling to my lashes.
“You’re leaving already?” Jasper’s voice catches me off guard, and I start. Why did he bother following me? “You just got here.”
“Yes,” I reply, twisting around to face the green eyes that have been fucking with my head since I caught them ten minutes ago. “You can’t be surprised.”
“He loves you. He’s just lost in this life, ya know?” I shake my head at him. Jasper takes a long step in my direction, wanting to get closer and yet hesitant to. “So that’s it? You just walk away from him?”
“I can’t ignore the fact that he’s been cheating on me.”
“No. You can’t. And I can’t make excuses for it either.”
“What do you want, Jasper? You can’t honestly tell me you’re disappointed to be rid of me.”
“I see we’re at the zero-fucks-left-to-give portion of the evening.”
I continue to stare because that just about sums it up.
His eyes, filled with anger, indecision, and frustration, bounce all around, the street, the lights of the neighboring storefronts, the crowd still dispersing from the show, everywhere but at me. I can’t stand this any longer, so I turn away and start to walk out into the Los Angeles night, away from the arena where Wild Minds–the band and the boys I’ve loved my whole life–just performed.
“It’s yours,” Jasper calls out, and I’m so confused by his hasty words that I freeze, turning back to him. His expression is completely exposed. Utterly vulnerable. And he’s staring straight at me. Directly into my eyes in a way he hasn’t dared since we were fourteen. My heart picks up a few extra beats, my breath held firmly in my chest. God, this man is so intense, I feel him in my fingernails.
“What is?” I finally ask when he doesn’t follow that up.
“The album,” he answers slowly, reluctantly, like it pains him to confess this, his darkest secret. “Every song on it is yours. All of them, I wrote about you.”
I stand here, lost in space as I grasp just what he’s saying. What it means, as random lyrics from random songs on their album flitter through my head. Song after song filled with the most achingly beautiful poetry.
“Jasper?” I whisper, my hand over my chest because I’m positive my heart never beat like this before.
But he is already at the door, having confessed his sins without waiting for absolution.
“Why did you tell me?” I yell after him, praying he’ll stop. Needing him to explain this to me. Why did you tell me, Jasper? Why did you pick this moment to ruin me?
His hand rests on the frame of the now open door, his head bowed, his back to me. “Because I didn’t think I’d ever get another chance, knowing I’ll probably never see you again.” He blows out a harsh breath. “But it doesn’t change anything, Vi. Absolutely nothing. So you can move on without us and pretend like I never said a word.”
And then the door slams shut behind him.
Jesus.
It takes me forever to move. To force myself to try and do just that. To try and forget his words and ignore the havoc they just created.
Knowing it’s futile. Knowing those words will reside in me forever.
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