31. Love Will Tear Us Apart
CHAPTER 31
Love Will Tear Us Apart
JOEL
“D usty, are you okay?” I ask. “Hey, you—you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Her chest rises and falls rapidly. Is she hyperventilating? Eyes wide and terrified, she’s trembling like a leaf. Maybe she’s dehydrated from earlier.
“I’ll get you some water, okay? Actually, maybe I’ll grab you some juice,” I correct myself, thinking maybe her blood sugar is low. We were in the bedroom for quite a long time and I was so excited to finally have her in my bed that I didn’t ask her when she last ate.
She doesn’t respond, but gives a kind of shaky nod of her head, so I take that as a yes. Shit, I shouldn’t have pushed her so hard. Why did I insist we do that for our first time together? I’m such a selfish idiot. I walk toward the fridge and grab the bottle of apple juice and a glass from the cupboard. Mid-pour, I’m startled by the sound of the door opening.
“Joel?”
I look up and feel the most intense relief of my life. Key’s here. He’s back. I look him up and down, making sure he’s okay, my heartbeat galloping in my chest as I fight back tears. I thought I lost him for good. But it’s short-lived by the rage that follows. Maybe I need some juice too, because I’m suddenly lightheaded.
“Key?”
He’s really here. What the fuck has he been doing?
“Joel,” he says, shaking his head. “Listen man, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so—I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for just taking off like that.”
“You’re sorry ? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Do you have any idea what’s been going on?”
He runs a hand through his tangled curls. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
I lean forward over the counter and lower my voice. “We’ve been looking everywhere! I called hospitals. We thought that you might have . . .”
His eyebrows lift. “Might have what?”
“We thought you might have tried to kill yourself,” I finally rush out.
For a moment he looks like he’s going to argue with me. Like he’s upset we could ever think that. That the situation wasn’t that serious. However, he must see the look on my face. Must understand that it’s exactly that serious.
“Oh, god,” he murmurs. “I didn’t . . . I would never?—”
“That means nothing! It’s what we all thought,” I say, my voice rising. “Where the fuck have you been anyway if not dead in a fucking ditch?”
He flinches, but I don’t care. I’m furious with him. Relieved, yes, but mostly furious.
“Look, I had to do something,” he says softly. “I couldn’t just sit around and wait for shit to hit the fan.”
“Shit already hit the fan, you asshole!”
“Will you just fucking listen to me?”
“No,” I say, blood pounding in my ears. “We needed you here. I had to sit across from Logan in that fucking lawyer’s office and listen to him lie about you. Say that you wrote those songs with him.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then help me prove him wrong! He had the songs written on paper with both your signatures on them! Please tell me you have something .”
Key closes his eyes and sighs. “Joel, look, I’ll tell you everything, okay? I?—”
A shuffling noise from the living room draws his attention.
“Wait, is . . . is someone here?” he asks.
Fuck, I forgot about Dusty. “Uh, yeah, actually . . . wait?—”
“Who is it?”
Shit . . . I was hoping this conversation would come at a better time, but I can’t avoid it now. “It’s my girlfriend.”
He blinks at me and the muscles in his face spasm. “Your?—?”
“My girlfriend,” I repeat. “I didn’t tell you because . . . because you were so adamant on us staying single. Then everything else started to fall apart, you left . . . then she happened and, well?—”
“I know, Joel.” He taps at the wonky cupboard door with his shoe, looking everywhere but at me. “I-I overheard you on the phone,” he says, and I’m relieved at least by the flags of color on his cheeks. “When you were talking to your mom on the phone, I was—fuck, I was listening, okay?”
My mouth drops open. “What the hell, man?”
“It was an accident!” he insists. “Those reporters were calling morning and night and I picked up the phone to tell them to fuck off but it was your mom and . . . look, I’m sorry. And,” he continues, “I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to hide it from me.”
He looks hurt, and my insides twist. “I was going to tell you. I was just waiting for the right time. Then you left, and I’ve been so worried?—”
“Guess you weren’t that worried about me,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You still had time to get your cock wet.”
“Watch it, man,” I say, pointing my finger at his chest. “You left us to deal with this shit storm. It’s been hell. Plus, you listen to my private conversations then insult my girlfriend the moment you’re back?” I shake my head. “And, this is not just some girl, okay?” I admit. “I have real feelings for her.”
“ Feelings ?”
“I . . . I love her.”
I can’t believe I just said that. But now it’s out there, and it’s the truth. That I love that fiery redhead. My heart has been sprinting ahead while my brain was lagging behind and they only just now decided to catch up to each other.
“Wow.” Key places his hands on his hips and looks down at the floor. “I’m sorry, man. Seriously. I—I don’t know why I said that.” He grabs a fistful of his hair, his brows pinching together. “I feel like I’m going crazy lately, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t expect it to happen,” I say truthfully. “It just . . . kind of did.”
Key nods but says nothing. He doesn’t look at me, and I suspect he needs a few minutes to process the information. We stand together in silence until finally he looks up, sniffs loudly and says, “Okay, well, you going to introduce me to your . . . girlfriend?”
“Key,” I start.
He raises his hands in surrender. “Just introduce me, will you?”
He offers the barest of smiles, and right there, I know the worst of it is over. That it’ll take some getting used to, but that ultimately my best friend is happy for me, so I smile back. “Fine, but we have a lot more to talk about and I’m not the only one who deserves an explanation and an apology. Not while she’s here, though.”
Key nods. “Okay.”
“Come on,” I say. “She’s in the living room.”
I grab the cup of juice for Dusty, and Key follows behind as we walk down the hall and turn into the living room.
Something’s wrong.
Dusty is standing in the middle of the room, her hands clasped around that framed picture of the four of us. Her knuckles are white and her face is pale and streaked with tears. What the fuck?
“Dusty?”
I cross the room and place my hands on her shoulders when something uncomfortable clunks into place. It wasn’t me who said her name. I look back over my shoulder where Key is standing—his face wrought with a dozen different emotions—and something knocks around in my brain like a loose puzzle piece. No . . . it can’t be. That’s impossible.
They know each other.
An eternity seems to pass as the three of us stand around looking at one another. No one seems to want to speak first. Perhaps no one can. I certainly can’t, even though there’s a million questions circulating in my head. Finally, Key takes a step forward.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” he asks bitterly.
I see Dusty shudder, her skin pebbling beneath my shirt. She looks terrified.
“Key, this is Dusty,” I get out. “My girlfriend.”
Her eyes flick to me, wide and horrified.
“No,” Key says. “No. Absolutely not. I’m fucking hallucinating. Tell me that isn’t Dusty Connors.”
“Key,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
But he shakes his head. “No, no?—”
“Will someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?” I say.
“Are you here to hurt me again?” Key yells across the room. “You couldn’t stomp on my heart enough, huh?”
She shakes her head, tears trickling down her cheeks.
It’s as if I’m watching a tennis match. My head whips back and forth, not daring to miss a thing. “Someone please?—”
Key steps forward until he’s only feet away. “In all the years I knew you”—his voice is calm, lethal—“I never thought you were a vindictive bitch. But this? This is fucking next level.”
My palms make contact with his chest and he stumbles back. He looks at me, his eyes stunned. “Don’t call her that!” I yell.
Key’s face twists. “So you found me here and decided to trick my best friend into loving you to get back at me. Is that it?”
She flinches as he shouts, stepping back, and I instinctively step in front of her. Key looks crazed, and it worries me.
“What more could you possibly take from me?” he shouts at her.
“N-nothing,” she whispers.
But Key is crying now too, and I’m reminded of that day all those years ago at Samson Academy.
“All I ever did was love you,” he chokes out, and my stomach swoops violently. “All I did was love you too much.”
Everything suddenly makes sense. And my world that was just moments ago full of bright lights and music, is now dark and silent.
“The songs,” I whisper. “They’re about you.”
She’s sobbing now. “I didn’t—I didn’t know you were . . . friends. I s-swear.”
My ears are ringing. “You loved her,” I say, the truth of it like a tidal wave.
“She was my entire fucking world!” Key cries, suddenly turning and walking away. “We were supposed to run away together,” he continues. “We were going to get married. Have a baby.”
My breath halts in my chest. “What?”
“Then when the time came?” he spits venomously. “She left. She left me at a bus station. Gave me back my ring and disappeared from my life. She didn’t want a life with me. Is she making you the same promises? Well, you should run far away, Joel, because she’s a liar .”
Dusty wraps her arms around herself and sobs.
“And all that bullshit you told me in Vegas,” Key mutters. “How all I ever wanted was to save you. Be the big hero. Well, news flash for you, Dusty. You needed fucking saving !”
She closes her eyes and trembles. So do I.
“You were being abused. Getting into trouble. You got pregnant at seventeen because we were too fucking stupid to know any better.”
Key takes a long breath, his face wet with tears.
“I never wanted to change you. I just wanted to be with you wherever you were. Whatever you were doing. I was ready to spend forever with you, but you couldn’t even wait an hour for me? Did you even show up at all?”
I can hardly breathe. Key loved her. Loved her so much he was going to marry her. Loves her still.
“The ring,” I whisper.
Key and Dusty both turn to look at me. “The ring you wear on that necklace. You told me once it was a reminder of someone special. You didn’t tell me it was an engagement ring.”
“Joel . . .”
“And a baby? You were?—”
“She was,” Key says with disgust. “But she didn’t want that either. She got rid of it.”
“No!” she screams. “I didn’t get rid of it.” Her face looks haunted, her chest rising and falling at an alarming speed, cheeks turning pink. “I didn’t get rid of it,” she repeats.
Key’s expression loses its hardness. Its anger. “You—you didn’t . . .”
She tries to take several deep breaths. Then her face turns a deep red, and there’s rage and fire in those blue eyes.
“I waited for you! I waited and you didn’t come!” she yells. “How do you think it felt? Standing at that bus station, pregnant, knowing I was completely alone. That the one person who said he loved me more than anything wasn’t there? Then when your dad told me you weren’t coming—that you’d changed your mind?—”
“What?” he asks.
“It confirmed what I had worried about for weeks. That it wasn’t really me you wanted. It was everything else.”
Key’s face looks like it’s aged years. His eyes are weary as he steps closer, his chin wobbling. “Dusty. No . How could you believe him? He lied!”
“He had my necklace. Told me you wanted to give it back. That’s when I knew I lost you.” She cries and covers her face with her hands. “I lost it, Key. I lost our baby.”
He moves, and for the briefest of seconds, I panic, thinking I might have to hurt my best friend. But he wraps his arms around her and she dissolves into horrible, wrenching sobs. My heart aches from the sound of it. From the terrible tragedy of it all.
I look between the two of them. How she fits so perfectly in his arms. How his head rests naturally on top of hers. How they move in such a way— god. They’re so familiar with one another. They were going to be a family .
And with a horrible, nauseating realization, I see it. I’m the odd one out. They have history. They were always meant to be, but the timing wasn’t right. Me? I’m just the placeholder. The one to bring them back together.
She’s not mine.
“I need to get the fuck out of here.”
“Wait, Joel!” Dusty rushes out of Key’s grip and grabs my arm, her eyes pleading. “This doesn’t change the way I feel about you,” she says. “Please believe me. I-I still have those feelings for you, just like I said.”
The first tears leak from the corners of my eyes. “But you’ll always be his, won’t you?”
Her eyes flit over my face, her cheeks shining in the low light. And that moment of hesitation is all I need, so I turn and go. I can hear them both following after me as I grab my keys off the counter where Key left them.
“Joel, wait,” Key says.
The rage begins to bubble up again. Not at her, but at him. “You lied to me,” I say, heart aching. “All these years, and you never told me about her? I told you everything about myself,” I yell. “All these secrets. Did I ever really know you?”
I’m yanking open the door, not waiting to hear his pathetic response, and walking down the stone path toward the driveway. They’re calling after me but I can’t stay. I won’t. They don’t want me. They have each other now, and the band has gone to shit. Here I was worried Key would be the one left behind—who knew I would be so wrong? Who knew it would be me?
The engine roars to life and I back out of the driveway. I don’t even know where I’m going. All I want to do is drive. At least it’s something to do. I don’t know how long I’m on the road for but finally my tears dry, and as I wipe my face, I almost don’t notice the red light before slamming on the brakes.
“Shit,” I curse, bouncing back against the headrest.
A car horn blasts on my right, jolting me further, and I watch two gigantic headlights barrel toward me.