Six Years Earlier
SIX YEARS EARLIER
BONNIE
There’s a flicker of daylight seeping through the red curtains to my right. I squint as it invades my dark cubby, and a groan leaves me.
My fucking head is throbbing .
God, what day is it? What time is it?
And what the hell happened last night?
I’m on my stomach. I check to make sure I actually have clothes on, and thank fuck, I do.
Did Mads go to jail last night?
Shit, I need to wake up and see what’s going on.
I sit up on my elbows and grab my phone, almost immediately regretting the decision when I see the texts across the screen. A couple from Zeb. One from Reed. And finally, two from my dad.
DAD
Bonnie. Call me.
It’s urgent.
I slam my face into the pillow again, grunting at the weight of life trying to invade my little bubble of bliss. Why now? Why does this have to be happening now?
My head smacks into a rough corner of something beneath the pillow, and I reach under it to find a small red box with a yellow bow wrapped around it. What the hell?
I hesitantly tug on the ribbon, letting it fall around it as I reach for the lid, and when I open it, I see a note on top.
Watch your drinks.
The next person who tries it won’t be this lucky.
The smiley face symbol on the paper makes me want to hurl. She was there. She was at the club last night. Why didn’t I—
Fingernails.
Fingernails .
There are fingernails in the fucking box.
I shove it off of my bed so quickly that it flies out of my bunk and smacks Reed on his head as he’s walking by.
“What the—oh fucking— gross! Dude! Are these—”
I scramble out of the bed and grapple for the box and the bloody nails scattered on the carpet. “Shut up!” I hiss, hoping to fuck Zeb isn’t in earshot.
“What the hell, Bon?” Reed asks as he crouches down to help me. “Whose nails am I picking up right now? This is really fucking gross—”
“I don’t know,” I say fast. “I don’t know, I don’t remember shit about last night. Well—besides Mads going to jail.”
“Yeah, I think everyone remembers that— Who sent you this? Why is someone in our bus putting a box of fingernails in your bed?! Wait. Was it her? Was she there last night?”
He peers at me with wide eyes as we stand together.
He’s the only one who knows about my stalker so far.
“I don’t…” The note is clenched in my fist, and I quickly stuff it into the box. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s from her,” I admit.
“Was that a note? What did it say?”
“Yeah,” I answer solemnly. “It just says ‘if someone else touches your pussy, I’ll put their fingernails in a box, too,’” I lie about what the note says.
Though, I don’t know why I’m lying.
“Oh shit. That’s pretty fucking hardcore,” he says, sitting down on the couch and grabbing his pipe. “I didn’t think you came home with anyone though.”
“I have no fucking clue,” I say tiredly.
And it bothers the hell out of me that I genuinely can’t remember.
Watch your drinks.
I scratch my forehead and stare at the ground for a beat as he starts packing his bowl.
The dizziness… the quick way my body seemed to fall… I’ve blacked out drunk enough times before to know the difference between that and what happened to me last night.
Something is off.
“Dude, I think I was roofied last night,” I eventually say to him.
“What? When?” Reed balks.
“I don’t…” I wrack my brain, the heels of my palms pressing into my eye sockets. “I don’t remember? I chatted with that one girl—”
“You don’t think she drugged you, do you?” he asks.
“Which one?” I ask.
“Your stalker? Or, shit, the brunette? Really?”
“I mean, maybe? Do you know who brought me back last night?”
“Not a fucking clue,” he says. “I was trying to find Zeb for like an hour. When we got here, you were passed out in the bunk. I did keep checking on you, though. Thought you were dead at one point.”
“I kinda feel like I was dead at one point.” I reach for the pink skull tumbler and unscrew the cap, then tip what’s left of the drink into my mouth. The warm vodka lingers on my plaque-plagued teeth like water on a fuzzy blanket before burning my already raw throat, and I flinch as it goes down.
“My bunk has to be covered in puke. That or I stuck a fire iron down my throat last night,” I say as I uncap the vodka bottle to make another drink. “Have you heard from Mads? Or Avie?”
God, I hope this drink dulls my brain.
“Ah, Avie was going to get him out of jail earlier. They should be back soon.” He lights the bowl and inhales a long hit, then holds it in his lungs for a second before releasing a plume of sweet smelling smoke. “Need this?”
“Maybe later.” I wave him off and pour the vodka into the bottom of my cup with a couple of pieces of ice, adding coconut water and orange on top.
“Look at you getting your vitamins in,” Reed teases me.
“Cheers.” I knock my cup against his pipe, and he takes another hit as I chug half of the drink.
“Hey, Bon—”
Mads’ voice rings through the tour bus as he jumps on and leans around the corner.
“Speak of the fucking Devil!” Reed lifts his arms and grins at his best friend. “What’s up? Did anyone try to piss on you?”
Mads shakes his head. “Just another night,” he says before jerking his chin my way. “Hey, there’s someone here to see you. I think it’s your dad?”
Fuck .
Reed’s brows lift my way. “Why fuck? I want to meet your dad,” he says.
“I didn’t realize I said that out loud,” I say, mildly panicking. “Ah… Okay. I’ll…” I glance down at my clothes. Shit. “I need to shower. There are chunks in my hair.”
“What do you want me to tell him?” Mads asks.
I can’t let him go back out and talk to my dad.
I don’t want them to know how much pain my mom is in. I can’t let him talk to them. What if he says something and they think I should go home? I’m not ready to go home. I can’t. I won’t—
“Bon?”
Reed’s voice makes me blink out of my stare. “Yeah?”
“We can chat with him,” Reed says. “Go shower. We’ll tell him good stories about the road—”
“No,” I cut him off. “No, I’ll… I’ll talk to him.” I grab someone’s hoodie from the couch and shove it over my head, then quickly twist my hair into a ponytail. My sunglasses are sitting on the table, and I push them on before trudging past Mads and out into the parking lot.
The sun nearly blinds me when I walk out. I hold my hand up and squint around the lot, looking for my dad, only to find him with his hands in his pockets the next row over, staring out at the water fountain between the lot and the busy road.
I shove my hands in my pockets as I cross the space toward him.
“Hey, Dad.”
He turns, and my heart drops at how tired he looks. His blond hair is so much more grey than it was the last time I saw him, his skin seeming to sag off of him from the amount of weight he’s lost due to the stress.
I wonder when he last went home.
I wonder when he last saw the ocean he loves so much.
“Hey, kid.” He holds his arms out. “Do you think you can spare your old man a hug?”
“I’m pretty disgusting,” I say, even if it kills me not to hug him. “We had our album release party last night. I haven’t had a chance to wash the sweat off.”
“Oh. Okay.” He drops his arms and stares at the ground, and as silence throbs between us, I feel a lump grow in my throat.
Why is he here?
“So… Is everything okay? How… how’s Mom?” I tentatively ask.
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “Bonnie, you know the answer to that,” he says tiredly. “She’s not good.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that. But how bad? I can’t drop everything. We just signed this deal. This is huge for the band.”
His eyes narrow. “Bonnie, she’s your mother.”
“I know.”
Shit, this hurts.
“Is she…”
I can’t even bring myself to ask anything else.
“She’s in a long-term facility. For now. They’re better equipped to help her with the chemo sickness. You should come see her while she’s there. She has good days.”
“Why hasn’t she called?” I ask, deflecting. “If she has good days, why can’t she call me?”
“Bonnie…”
“I’m her daughter,” I snap. “If she wants me to come home so bad, why can’t she call me herself? Why can’t she ask me? Why is it always you?”
“She is sick—”
“No, no. You just said she has good days. You said she has good days, so she… She can call me. You can tell her if she wants me to come home, she needs to call me herself,” I finally manage.
Why are you yelling?
Why can’t I stop yelling?
There’s a beat of quiet. I can hardly bring myself to look up at him, and I start backing away as everything begins to cave in.
“Bonnie? What’s going on with you?” he asks hesitantly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine—what, do you need to see my arms? To make sure I’m not cutting myself again? Would you like to make sure I’m not using any needles—”
“Kid, calm down.”
“I’m not a kid anymore!”
Why can’t I breathe?
Why am I yelling at him?
I can’t stand out here like this. The guys are going to hear me. I’m going to hurt him, and I don’t want to hurt him.
I don’t want to hurt him.
“Bonnie, will you just… Can we talk?” he asks slowly.
“No,” I say, swallowing. “No, I can’t. We have to go. The bus is pulling out to the next city. This is my life now, my friends, the band, the music. This is what I have to think about. Tell her… Tell her she can call me if she wants me to come home.”
“Bonnie!”
“Goodbye, Dad.”
Because I have to go before I say something I’ll regret more than this.
I turn on my heel and head back toward the bus, though not before I feel his hand on my arm.
“Bonnie, wait—”
I snatch out of his arms so quickly that he stumbles. His eyes are lined with tears when he gets his balance and meets my gaze. Fuck . There’s nothing except pain, regret, and absolute sadness there.
And I’m trembling when I whisper, “Bye, Dad.”
He doesn’t bother coming after me this time.
I’m holding in my tears when my feet hit the bus steps, and by the time I reach my drink, I’m holding my breath. I don’t bother going for my ready-made tumbler drink and instead reach for the nearly empty vodka handle.
“Whoa, Bon—”
The empty bottle lands with a hollow thud on the floor seconds later, and I grab the next one.
“Ah… easy, Bon,” Mads says. “It’s barely ten A.M.”
“Shut the fuck up unless you have something stronger,” I snap.
Mads’ brows raise and I realize I’ve never spoken to him like that.
Shit.
Shit. Shit .
“Bon? Everything okay?”
It’s Zeb’s voice that catches my attention this time.
I tip the bottle back, peering between them. “So? Do you have anything stronger?” I ask.
Reed and Zeb exchange a look, and I pause to look them over after taking another swig, the drink sitting in my mouth for a beat before I swallow and wipe my chin with my wrist.
“What do you have?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Mads says, and the way he says it makes me glare his way.
“Okay. If you fuckers don’t have anything, I’m sure Foster does.” I spin the top back onto the bottle and push my sunglasses on again. “I’ll catch the bus with New Dawn,” I say about the band we’re touring with. “See you at the venue.”
“Bonnie, wait—”
But I’m out of the door and heading across the parking lot to New Dawn’s bus before the three of them can stop me.