Chapter 11
Tristan settles me on his lap as everyone else finds seats around the living room.
I have to admit this is better than the bedroom as far as being able to see them all, but at the same time, I miss being squished between Keaton and Dare.
That’s not to say I don’t enjoy having Tristan’s arms wrapped around me…
My emotions are tender right now, my heart ripped to shreds finding out what happened to us at Napalm Delight’s hands. Changing his contact information in my phone to one of their numbers? Who even thought of such a thing?
What would’ve been if that never happened? What would our lives look like now?
I know deep down I’m not over the hurt Tristan has caused.
It might not be his fault that we lost contact—in fact, it was maliciously ripped away from us—but that doesn’t change the way he treated me from the moment he came back into my life.
Ripping his shirt from my body, the cutting words he threw in my face, the way he twisted our lyrics to cause me the most pain… That was all him.
But right now everything in me wants to have him close, to believe in the small amount of healing we’ve had today.
I want to believe in it and nurture it like you would a sick plant that you’re trying to coax back to life.
Tristan has always had my heart, why wouldn’t I want our relationship to blossom once more?
The movement of drumsticks twirling between Keaton’s fingers catches my attention.
Something about the flow seems agitated, which puts me on edge immediately.
I don’t like it. Keaton has used those sticks to express his emotions for as long as I’ve known him, I can only imagine how much longer it’s been before that.
He even encouraged me to break one to release the anger building in me after I found out Carmen stole my song.
So what is it that has him in such a state where the graceful, normally calm tumble of his sticks has turned into something that’s jerky and off cadence?
My mouth opens, the words on the tip of my tongue, but they don’t leave.
There’s so much left unspoken piling up between us.
It’s as if they’ve been tattooed there the moment they slide past, permanent, forever plastered there, never able to fly free on the air.
You wouldn’t think imaginary phrases would weigh so much, but the more I’m unable to speak, the heavier they get. I’m choking on them, and pretty soon I won’t be able to breathe all over again.
Phantom hands wrap around my throat, squeezing, suffocating me. My breath hitches and my body suddenly loses the memory of how to drag oxygen into my lungs.
Tristan shifts under me, and my ass suddenly plunges into the space between his body and the side of the armchair he’s sitting on. His protective arm holds onto me, urging me to snuggle into his body as the massive cushioning of the couch forms to my body.
Before I’m even able to process anything else happening around me, a warm blanket drapes across my lap, and Nash tucks the edges around me, leaving a searing kiss on my forehead.
My hand instinctively moves to the spot, my fingertips pressing against the lingering sensation. It feels like it’s been a lifetime since I’ve allowed myself to enjoy one of them doting on me. Any attention at all, for that matter.
Without even realizing it, it’s like I’m suddenly slammed back into my body. Reality rushing back, the world shifting from black and white into color. Smells and sensations become stronger.
Breathing in, I get a whiff of myself. I know I’ve showered since I’ve been home, but I can’t… I can’t honestly remember when that was. How long has it been? If I’m anything to go by, it’s been several days. That is… unless someone just cut an onion open. No? I didn’t think so.
Glancing down, I find one of the T-shirts Tristan mailed me after I left home. Apparently, it was sent before those scum-eating bastards cut me off from my life. There are stains on it, some I can’t even identify.
Fuck me. I’m a mess. I run a hand through my hair and screw up my face in disgust with the greasy heaviness clinging to the strands. This keeps getting worse.
A heavy sigh falls from Keaton’s lips, drawing my attention away from myself and onto him. A much better view than I present. It’s a wonder none of them carried me down to the ocean and threw me in.
“Close the blinds if you’re so worried about it,” Blake says, running a hand through his blond strands. I narrow my eyes, slightly jealous of how lightly the strands flow back into place. “No need to obsess over it.”
“Our privacy is worth obsessing over though, don’t you think?” Nash counters his best friend.
“There is no privacy for the rich and famous. You should’ve been more careful what you wished for,” Dare quips, crossing his ankles and resting his feet on the ottoman in front of him.
“I’ve come to terms with it,” Tristan adds, resting his chin on my shoulder. Honestly, how can he stand to be this close to me? “Let them spy on us. They’ll learn what a family looks like. The true sight of love. Passion. Groveling. Forgiveness?”
His last word is more a question, the vulnerability from earlier peeking its head back up. At least he knows there’s still work to be done between us.
“Says the man whose videos are trending basically everywhere.” Blake scoffs.
I whip my head to the side and smack right into Tristan’s face. With a whimper, I hold a hand to my nose as he hisses and does the same thing. “Ouch, babe! Don’t look at me like that. Everything I post is for you.”
How is he doing that? Making it feel like we’ve never spent any time apart. Like his betrayal never stung me like a hornet’s nest. Slipping in a sweet term of endearment like it won’t make my heart go all gooey. Damn him.
A warm hand on my knee snaps me out of my thoughts, and I focus once more on Keaton. Somehow it makes me feel like a space cadet, my head full of air, unable to concentrate on a single thing.
He holds both sticks in his other hand and stares at me so earnestly it takes my breath away. At least this time it’s the good kind.
“I was seven,” he starts, and my heart skips a beat. Keaton and I have never needed many words between us, we’ve communicated perfectly fine without them, but his childhood isn’t something you can learn that way.
He suddenly glances down at his sticks, like he can’t bear to stare into my eyes when he reveals whatever is on his heart.
“I was seven,” he repeats, like he’s having to force the words out. “And I knew better.”
Several beats of silence pass, his thumb rubbing along the sides of his sticks as he holds them between his hands, one fist on either side. I feel like I’m sitting on pins and needles, waiting for what comes next.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one. “Knew better than what?” Nash voices the words I can’t.
He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.
His curiosity shines from his eyes like Keaton is telling him the story, and it’s not solely directed at me.
Which might actually be the truth. Something tells me this is something we all need to hear to know our bandmate better than we ever have.
“It had been raining all day, the last day of school before Christmas break which meant we spent the day making ornaments to bring home. Our class had a party, so I was hyped up on too much sugar, which I’m sure our teacher regretted to no end.
” He cuts off with a frown. “It was her first year. Probably learned her lesson with that one.”
He shakes his head like he’s refocusing his thoughts. “She had wet tracks running down her cheeks when she picked me up, and I just thought she got caught in the rain. My little mind didn’t realize she was crying.
“My mom did her best to hide it from me, though. She wiped her face, asked about my day, and her voice was so sincere when she responded to all my nonsensical ramblings.”
Those chocolate brown eyes of his that I love so much flick up again, but they don’t focus on me. He gazes out the window, lost in the rolling waves.
I get that.
But at the same time, I yearn to comfort him—even if it’s simply passed through my own gaze.
Eyes are the window to the soul after all.
His story is dripping with pain, every word somehow edged with a razor-sharp point that cuts without you realizing.
By the end, I worry we’ll all be sliced to ribbons.
“It started to snow, but I barely noticed. I knew better than to distract her from the road, but I needed her to look at the ornament I made. We had a plastic bulb that opened into two pieces. Inside was some fake snow, a tiny sprig of pine, red berries, and a miniature present. But the best part of all was my school picture. I knew she’d be so proud of it, and I wanted to hear how she couldn’t wait to hang it on the tree when we got home. ”
The longer his story continues, the tighter my throat becomes, emotion accumulating in preparation to explode. I know this isn’t heading toward a happy ending. Keaton is full of pain over this memory, and I want to take it all away before he relives it, but I know I can’t.
“Mom! Look! Look at what I made!” Keaton adds enthusiasm to his voice, and I know he’s recreating the way he said it back then. “I repeated it over and over until she turned her head to look at me in the back seat.”
He stops and stares into space, reaching unseeing for my hand and wrapping his fingers around my palm. Tears cloud his eyes, his grip tightening around mine. “That’s when we hit the black ice,” he murmurs, voice barely audible over the stillness that blankets the group.
In an instant, the room is so thick with emotion you could almost choke on it.
Tristan’s arms tighten around me, a mix of protective and something achingly tender.
Nash leans back, his face strained as if he’s fighting his own memories that might mirror Keaton’s pain.
Blake, ever the observer, averts his gaze to his hands, perhaps uncomfortable with the raw honesty slicing through the air.
The weight of Keaton’s admission hangs between us like a dark cloud ready to burst. “I remember suddenly jerking to the side before the sound of glass cracking,” Keaton continues, voice breaking as he fights for composure. “The world spun so wildly, and then… nothing but darkness and cold.”
The weight of his revelation seeps into every crack and crevice of the room, filling it with a sorrowful chill. Dare shifts uncomfortably, clearly out of his element. He’s so new to the group, I’m sure he’s questioning whether he should even be here.
I squeeze Keaton’s hand back, wishing I could erase that moment for him, knowing full well that some pasts were etched too deeply to ever be fully smoothed over. Little did I know his story didn’t end there.
“But you survived,” Nash finally says, trying to put a positive spin on the heartbreak working its way through each of us.
“I might have, but the force of the car jerking sent my mom’s head into the glass…
she never woke up. I screamed her name for hours.
I had to unclip myself from my car seat and crawl into the passenger seat to try and wake her up.
Nothing worked, and as time passed, it got colder and colder.
We were on a stretch of road leading out of town that’s rarely used, and it took a day for them to find us. I was hypothermic and in shock.”
He rubs his thumb across my knuckles, scooting closer.
“I tell you this because I understand not wanting to speak. It took me years of therapy to realize that calling for my mother to look at my ornament isn’t what killed her.
It wasn’t my desire for her to pay attention to what I wanted to tell her.
Even if she had been focused on the road, we probably still would’ve crashed.
“Music therapy changed my life. I used my drumming as a way to communicate. My sticks became my voice, I channeled all my emotions into the beats I could create, it’s how I spoke for years.
“It’s still obviously difficult for me to want to use words. Spending so much time silent is a hard habit to break.” He brings my hand to his lips, brushing them softly against my skin. “I don’t want that for you. Learn from my mistakes.”
He presses his sticks into my palm and reaches for my face, cradling it between his hands to wipe away my tears with his thumbs.
“Your voice is precious to me. I need it in my life.” He must read my thoughts on my face because he says, “Even if it’s permanently damaged. I’ll always love the sound of you.”