Chapter 38
Stella
I ’m a nervous mess as I start packing my things for the concert. I’ve been planning this for a long time, even delayed it for a few weeks, hoping Scarlett would get better.
But she hasn’t and I know that this opportunity will slip through my fingers if I let it pass me by. Besides, I will only be gone for forty-eight hours. Nothing too bad can happen in the meantime.
I wanted to cancel it, but Adrian talked me out of it every single night the thought came. Plus, I want to see Derek and my parents after spending so many weeks away.
A gentle knocking on my door drags me out of my thoughts and I’m shocked to find Hazel, teary-eyed, behind it.
“Hazel?” I murmur. She practically jumps in my arms and I hold her. What happened? Please tell me Scarlett didn’t . . . “Hey, what’s going on?” I ask as gently as I can, closing the door behind us.
“I’m so sorry, Stella,” she whispers, pulling away to pace in the room.
“Sorry for what?”
Her eyes meet mine and my heart cracks when I see them filled with so much guilt. “I can’t leave. I can’t go to your concert. I thought I could go, but I—I thought—Why can’t I leave all of this behind!?”
My best friend is close to having a full-on meltdown in front of me and I feel powerless.
I take in a deep breath. “First of all, you don’t have to feel guilty for not being able to come see me.
It’s my first concert, but I’ll make sure it isn’t my last. You can come to the next one.
Second, I’m not mad at you. You don’t have to carry any guilt about it, Hazel.
Third . . . I want you to be able to talk to me about your feelings.
I hate seeing you struggle alone and want you to share your feelings with me.
It isn’t bothering me, and it isn’t making me less excited about my concert. I want to be here for you, please.”
Hazel sighs heavily. “I was really young when our parents passed. I always knew I wasn’t hit as strongly by grief as my other siblings. That I wasn’t as afraid of loss as they were.”
She sniffles. “I know Scarlett will get back on her feet. The healers told us she wasn’t in a critical state and that she’d wake up again soon.
But she . . . Stella, she was always there.
She was with us through everything when our parents died.
Adrian and Isabella never let her help as much as she clearly wanted to, but she was a steady figure in my life.
The thought of losing her . . . It makes me anxious. Really anxious. Terrified.”
We stay in silence for a bit, until she admits, “Layla and I have spent every night over the last few weeks in that room with her. None of us have gotten much sleep, but we’re just that worried. I just can’t think of leav—”
“Hazel,” I interrupt, my own eyes tearing up. “I understand. I really, really understand. Please don’t feel guilty anymore, it breaks my heart.”
She laughs lightly and I smile. “I can try.”
She pulls away and helps me finish packing.
Half an hour later, we zip my suitcase. Hazel looks at me and sighs.
“You know, it always annoyed me to see my siblings stuck in their grief—to see their pain control their lives. I was young when I decided I never wanted the pain of my past to dictate my future and what I could hope for. I worked so damn much on my healing, Stella, even when my siblings didn’t do the work for themselves.
Now I just . . . I thought I left all this grief behind me and it’s coming back so strongly. ”
I can’t relate to her grief in the sense of losing someone I care about, but I relate to it in the sense of losing the life you thought you’d live for the rest of your life.
Having to watch something you once loved so deeply fade away into oblivion, knowing you won’t ever get back the parts of it you once fell in love with.
It’s a different kind of loss, but it’s a loss nonetheless.
“Hazel . . .” I say quietly. “Grief has ups and downs. It’s something that doesn’t ever fully leave you.
The emotions attached to it come and go and it’s okay to be hit harder by them from time to time.
I’m proud of you for working on yourself and moving forward.
” I smile proudly. “It truly shows and I can guarantee you it wasn’t for nothing.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes, things are tough and it’s okay.
Healing isn’t linear and just because you have days that are harder doesn’t mean all your progress is gone. ”
Hazel wraps me up in a hug, gentle and grateful, not frantic and desperate like earlier. I exhale a little in relief, knowing she let her emotions out.
“Thank you, Stella. I needed to hear that.”
I smile. “I’ll repeat it anytime you need to hear it.”
Later that evening, Adrian and I leave for the city. We borrow one of the cars from their town. It surprises me that it functions so well, since I know everyone in town gets around by foot.
I let him drive since he knows how their car works, but it’s mostly because I know how much he’d insist on letting him drive.
Adrian Westwood is a caretaker at heart and, while I want him to keep taking care of himself too, I don’t want him to lose that part of himself. Ever.
For the few hours it takes to drive, we talk about anything and everything. As the sun sets while we drive, I’m grinning so hard my cheeks hurt and the moment feels perfect.
I practically leap from my seat when I see my parents and Derek waiting for me outside the building where the concert will take place in a few hours. Adrian chuckles as he turns off the car.
I run to meet the people I’ve missed so dearly and hug my parents first, the joy and excitement wrapping so tightly around my heart that I almost forget how to breathe.
Then I walk over to Derek and wrap him in a hug. It’s the first time we’ve ever hugged and I can tell he realizes it too as his hold on me tightens.
We let go of each other and he looks at me with a bright smile. “Happy looks good on you, Stella.”
I grin. “It feels pretty good too.”
Out of the corner of my eyes I notice my dad tearing up. I walk over to him to hug him again. “Come on, Dad. Don’t start crying because then I’ll start crying too.”
His arms wrap around me and I realize how much I’d forgotten how good his hugs always felt. Warm and gentle and so comfortable.
We pull away and my mom looks at me, emotions written across her face. “Stella, I’m so proud of you. You don’t realize just how inspiring it is to see you get your spark back.”
As I look at my parents, at the pride in their eyes, the hope across their face, it hits me with brutal force just what I misunderstood for all those years.
I’d always prided myself on ending my family’s cycle with their financial struggles, giving them the chance to live like they’d been deprived of for so long.
But now I realize I never ended the cycle, but allowed it to take another form. While I hadn’t been surviving when I was competing, I hadn’t been living either. I’d been going through the motions.
I can still remember with clarity the emptiness I felt every day, as if I was just watching time pass by. Sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. Each day would blend into the next, and nothing seemed to move or change in any direction because I wasn’t changing.
I’d see others moving on, growing, evolving, and wonder why I was where I was.
Emotion tugs at my heart because I know now that this is the end—I won’t let myself or my family fall into the same pattern ever again.
I never want to go through life again, I want to experience it to the fullest .
The joy in the mundane things, the peace of being with people who love you as you are, the fulfillment of doing what you love, seeing the beauty in the small things that would otherwise pass you by.
I never want to miss another moment, whether big or small, that could make life a little brighter.
With a smile on my face and happy tears in my eyes, we all head inside to prepare for the concert. When we get inside, the crew all beam up at me, each of them trying and failing to keep their curiosity at bay. Smiling, I answer each of their questions about what I’ve been up to.
I meet Adrian’s eyes across the room and . . . Gosh, how can his eyes get even more beautiful? They’re sparkling with pride, making the deep green in his eyes glitter and I can’t look away.
Until something Derek says grabs my attention. “. . . Yeah, the storm from earlier was crazy.”
I try to keep my voice steady as I turn my head his way and ask my friend, “What storm?”
The hair stylist puts my head back in its place and I chuckle, but it sounds all wrong.
Derek’s eyes meet mine through the mirror.
“Yeah. There was a tournament earlier today. The girl was a force to be reckoned with and her powers got out of control and escaped the temple, quickly spreading across the city. It was the biggest storm we’ve ever seen.
We almost cancelled your show because we all had to keep ourselves locked in buildings. ”
My blood turns cold. “Wow that’s . . . That’s awful. I can’t imagine what it was like . . .”
I quickly glance at Adrian while Derek continues, making sure he didn’t hear this conversation. I don’t want him to get triggered or to be worried, especially since it’s his first time back in the city.
“It took hours for the storm to calm. It was over for about an hour when you two arrived, but it was quite intense.”
My heart practically swells in relief. It’s over. It’s all good.
The next few hours of preparation go by quickly, and the next thing I know, I’m getting into my dress for the concert and nervously rehearsing my songs, even though I know them by heart. I meant every word I wrote and they’re ingrained in my brain. Some have been there for a decade.
I get out of the changing rooms, caught in my head with my songs. I meet Adrian’s eyes as he looks at me, his gaze soft.
He meets my eyes and grins, before he walks over to me, grabs my hand, and twirls me around. I can’t help the giggle that escapes my lips.
Heat slips beneath my skin and the air whooshes from my lungs.
Every moment with this man seems to last forever and makes me feel so alive.
“I love you,” the words slip out of me before I can hold them in.
Adrian smiles and it’s blinding. “I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone.”
Butterflies break free and I grin.
This night will be one of the best nights of my life.
Not only because it’s the start of a new chapter, but because Adrian Westwood is with me to cheer me on.