Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Damage control. That’s all I have left. If she’s going to leave, I have to make sure it’s without a lawsuit or headline that will blow up our lives even more.
The way she stalks toward me with determination is a bad sign.
“You’re still mad,” I rush out. “I’m sorry, we didn’t?—”
Her arms shoot around my waist, her head drops to my chest, and she squeezes tight.
Stunned, I inhale sharply and pull her close.
My eyes slip closed as I let the strange warmth spread through me. I don’t even know the last time I’ve been hugged by someone without an ulterior motive.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask gently.
It doesn’t even matter what her answer is. She’s still here.
She burrows closer. “I want you to stay,” she says faintly. “No matter what happens, what he says or does, you need to stay. Please?”
She leans back to lift sad hazel eyes to me. Our gazes lock, and something shifts between us. I don’t know what any of it means, but all I can do is nod .
I’d do anything for her in this moment. The fact that what she’s asking is a desperate plea on behalf of all three of us is a testament to the person she is. Another small bud of hope curls up from the depths of my soul.
I can’t save Luke. Neither can she. But we can save each other from the abyss that will threaten us when we try.
She drags her gaze away and settles close again.
“I can’t help him alone, Casey. I know that now. He needs you. I need you too.”
I rest my cheek on her damp hair. She feels so small in my arms, yet strong at the same time.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
My tone may be soft, but my oath is not. I understand what I’m committing to better than she does.
“Promise?” She tilts her head toward me again.
I return a confident nod. “Promise.”
Her weak smile breaks my heart. It’s her compassion leaking out. Her genuine love for Luke and her sudden awareness of how close she is to losing him.
She turns trusting eyes to me, her hope and her rock. For me to be either, we have to lay it all out.
“He told you he wanted me gone, didn’t he,” I say on an exhale.
Her slight cringe doesn’t surprise me. Those words hurt even more the second time around.
“Yes, but not for the reasons you’d think. I actually think it’s because he believes he’s bad for you. I think he’s afraid he’ll drag you down with him.” She takes a quick breath. “He said ‘again.’ What does that mean?”
My stomach drops. Old trauma rallies with fresh fears. I don’t even know how to begin answering that question, but I’ll have to start if we want any chance at fixing this.
“Please, Casey, I’m tired of being involved in your lives and yet not knowing anything. I don’t know how to help, how to even act, when I’m around you two.”
She’s right. We’ll get nowhere if we keep avoiding the fundamental reason we’re here.
Like a good hypocrite, I check the hall to make sure Luke isn’t eavesdropping, then lead her to the couch. This beast of a story is a “sitting down” conversation.
I pull her to the cushion beside me, and we shift to face each other. But once her wide, expectant eyes are trained on me, my courage drains away.
I don’t even know where to start. What’s the beginning of this story? The middle? The end? It’s all just a mass of pain folding in on itself.
All I can do is pull at a thread and see where it goes.
“If you think things are bad now, you should have seen what happened after Elena,” I begin. A sharp twinge moves through my chest at the mention of my sister.
“Luke completely imploded,” I continue, fighting a swarm of memories threatening to surface. “I doubt he even remembers the first month. The band took a hiatus, everyone understood, and the publicity actually helped us. You know how tragedy goes… Well, as long as it’s not your fault.”
I study the weave pattern in the area rug as the words build into an avalanche. “And it wasn’t, and the media had a field day with it. Our Label didn’t help matters and sucked every last dollar and headline they could out of Luke’s devastation.”
Bitterness is creeping into my voice. I swallow it back down and turn off my heart as much as possible. It’s the only way I’ll be able to tell this story.
“The problem is, it kind of was his fault. Not in an obvious way, a criminal way. But the kind of way that tears you apart inside and turns compassion into poison. ”
“Stop asking how I am! Don’t you get it? I should be asking you! I’m the only person in this entire situation who doesn’t deserve that question. You want to ask something? Ask why the fuck you’re still here.”
I shiver through the vivid memory. The scent of soggy earth and cut flowers. The sting of ice cold pellets of rain. The fear that I’m going to die because he wanted to die.
“Everyone said he just needed time… and space,” I recall quietly. “Even the other guys let him go. They wouldn’t have known what to do with him anyway, but I couldn’t. I stuck by him.”
I dare another look at her and wince from the concern echoing on her face.
I still don’t understand how she can care so much, but it feels good to finally let some of this poison seep out.
I spent plenty of time in therapy trying to sort through it, but no therapist ever looked at me the way she is now.
They’re paid to keep walls between you, not tear them down.
I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to share my pain— live it with me—until this moment.
Luke’s was the hardest kind to carry. The kind you had to fight for.
“Leave me alone.”
“No.”
“Casey! Get the hell out.”
“So you can fuck yourself up? No.”
Doors slamming. Fists flying.
Insincere words carving honest wounds.
I was never going to let go. He knew that better than I did.
I release a harsh laugh at the memory. “Oh, he hated me for it, believe me, and made nothing easy, but he was my brother, and I couldn’t just abandon him and take advantage of his pain like everyone else.”
I sink back against the cushion, lost in another flashback. They’re flooding in now. Mila Taylor’s scathing public attacks. Lawyers. Threats. Flaming pitchforks and violent condemnation.
All the brutal screens are back to light up my skull.
“You know, at one point the Label almost cut me because I refused to be part of some major cable ‘special’ about the whole thing. I don’t know why Sweeny and Eli did it, but they did.
I guess the Label realized Night Shifts Black couldn’t afford to lose both Luke and me, so they agreed to let me sit out the interview, if I agreed to participate in another tour.
We had canceled the rest of the current one after what happened. ”
I feel her probing stare, but can’t meet it this time.
“And Luke blames himself for almost getting you kicked out of the band?” she asks.
Two paralyzed bodies sinking into the mud.
“No, Luke blames himself for almost getting me killed.”
She flinches, and I divert my gaze to the carpet again. It’s a lot safer than her compassionate patience.
“I’m not an expert at grief, and I certainly wasn’t then.
I didn’t know what to do with Luke, how to take care of him.
I was full of my own pain too. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to abandon him like everyone else.
But I’ll admit, in the beginning, I made the mistake of thinking ‘being there for him’ meant ‘joining him.’”
The shadows are closing in again. Cold sensory memories creep through my limbs and freeze around my heart.
I flinch when warmth floods into my hand.
It happens so fast, so seamlessly. Her fingers lace with mine, and I hold on as the memories claw at my soul in a desperate attempt to drag me back .
“I tried to be the responsible one, but failed more times than not. One night…” The hazy nightmare gets caught on my tongue, and I swallow it back down. That moment will always belong to Luke and me alone.
“Anyway, we both ended up in the hospital, along with a ton of headlines the Label was not happy about. Unfortunately, since I’m not Luke Craven, I didn’t get the grace Luke did.
They basically gave me a choice at that point—distance myself from Luke and rejoin the band, or they’d drop me.
So I had to make a choice. Career or friend. ”
“And you chose career.”
I bark a laugh. “No, of course not. I chose Luke, but he wouldn’t let me. We fought about it for days, and then suddenly, he just disappeared. Abandoned his house, his accounts, everything, and stopped answering his phone. No one knew where he went, including me.”
That’s not entirely a lie. Only the timeline. She doesn’t need to know the arguments during “those days” led to the spiral that landed us in the hospital. In fact, the more I talk, the more I realize a lot of this story will have to be edited for public consumption.
And they want me to write an entire book?
“To this day, I don’t know if he ran for my sake or his…
” Okay, that one’s a blatant lie. “But the result was the same. I had no other choice at that point. If I couldn’t help him, I had to go back.
So I did. Cleaned myself up, got back on track, and was thrilled when our manager called to say he’d finally heard from Luke.
That he was here. I came as soon as I could, which was during our quick break before the Calisto Festival. ”
“The day you came to breakfast club.” Light returns to her eyes. It’s frightening and freeing how much I want to keep it there. What would it be like to chase the sun instead of where I’ve been for the last year?
“Believe me, I was in shock he not only let me in when I showed up, but let me stay the night. It was a short honeymoon, as you saw, but at least we started talking again.”
I smirk when I think about his text.
Come back. I need you too.
I still can’t sort out what that meant, given what I found when I got here.
“He invited me to his party, right?” I manage to keep the irony out of my tone.
“He loves you.” She squeezes my hand as if trying to convince me. “He does, he just hates himself too much to let anyone love him back.”