Chapter 32
Cal
I woke up on a couch that wasn’t mine, mouth tasting like ash and regret, head pounding so hard it felt like someone was hammering nails into my skull from the inside.
The room was dim, curtains drawn tight against the afternoon sun, and it smelled like stale whiskey, weed, and the faint chemical tang of whatever pills I’d chased last night.
Not the mansion. Not home. Some sterile Airbnb in the hills I’d booked on autopilot after storming out, the kind of place that looked expensive but felt empty the second you closed the door.
Please just tell me you’re alive. I’m scared.
I stared at it until my vision blurred, then flipped the phone face-down.
Couldn’t look. Couldn’t answer. Every time I thought about typing back, rage surged up again, hot, blinding, familiar.
She’d let Kei kiss her. In our kitchen. While I was out buying fucking roses like some pathetic idiot trying to fix what I’d broken.
I dragged myself to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, avoided the mirror. When I finally looked, the guy staring back was a wreck: eyes bloodshot, skin gray, stubble turning into a beard. I looked like my dad on the bad nights, the ones Mom pretended not to notice.
Back in the living room, I found the half-empty bottle of Jack on the floor beside the couch. I picked it up, took a long pull straight from the neck. The burn grounded me for a second, sharp enough to cut through the fog. Then the door buzzed.
I froze.
It buzzed again.
I opened it.
Sydney stood there in oversized sunglasses and a hoodie, holding two paper bags. She didn’t wait for an invitation, just slipped past me like she belonged.
“You look like shit,” she said, setting the bags on the counter. One smelled like coffee; the other like grease—burgers, probably.
I shut the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Kei told me you weren’t answering. Holland’s losing his mind about rehearsal tomorrow. Someone had to check you weren’t dead in a ditch.” She pulled out two coffees, handed me one. “Black. No sugar. The way you pretend you like it when you’re punishing yourself.”
I took it but didn’t drink. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” She studied me, head tilted. “You’re spiraling, Cal. And you’re doing it alone. That’s never worked for you.”
I laughed, short, bitter. “Alone’s better than surrounded by liars.”
She stepped closer, voice dropping. “She lied to you.”
My stomach twisted. “She said she pushed him away.”
“And you believe her?” Syd’s laugh was soft, almost pitying. “She kept him close for months. Late-night texts. Deep conversations. The way she looked at him like he was the only one who really saw her. You saw it too. You just didn’t want to admit it.”
I swallowed hard. The coffee burned my tongue. “She said....”
“She says a lot of things.” Syd reached out, brushed my hair back from my forehead like I was a kid again. “Fragile little Hadley. Always the victim. Always the one who needs protecting. But who protects you, Cal? Who protects the guy who’s been bleeding out since Mexico?”
I flinched at the name. Couldn’t help it.
She noticed. “Exactly. We survived that hell together. All of us. And now she waltzes in, plays house, and the second you start to feel something real; she lets your best friend put his mouth on hers. That’s not an accident. That’s a test. And you failed it by caring.”
I set the coffee down too hard. Liquid sloshed over the rim. “I hit him.”
“Good.” Her eyes flashed. “He deserved it. He crossed a line. And she let him.”
“She said she didn’t want it.”
Syd’s smile was small, sad. “She says that now. After you caught them. Convenient, right?”
I paced to the window, stared at nothing. My chest felt caved in. “I was trying. Therapy. Nursery. Flying her friend in. I was fucking trying.”
“I know.” Syd came up behind me, rested her chin on my shoulder. Her voice was velvet and venom. “And she rewarded you by letting Kei get that close. You opened up, first time in years, and she repaid you with betrayal. That’s what people do when you show weakness. They take.”
I closed my eyes. “I called her a whore.”
Silence stretched.
Then Syd whispered, “You were honest.”
I laughed again, ugly, broken. “I’m losing my mind.”
“No.” She turned me gently to face her. “You’re waking up. You’re seeing what she really is.”
She reached into her hoodie pocket, pulled out a small baggie, white pills, familiar shape. The ones we used to take on tour to keep going when the crashes hit too hard.
“Take one,” she said softly. “Just one. It’ll quiet the noise. Give you clarity.”
I stared at the pills. My hand shook when I took the bag.
“I don’t want to go back to that,” I muttered.
“You’re not going back.” She cupped my face. “You’re surviving. There’s a difference.”
I dry-swallowed two.
The relief was almost instant, chemical warmth spreading through my veins, dulling the edges. Not gone. Just… quieter.
Syd smiled like she’d won something. “Better?”
I nodded once.
She stayed for hours. We talked, mostly her talking, me listening. She replayed every moment I’d missed: Hadley laughing too easily with Kei, the way she’d defend him when I got jealous, how she’d pull away from me but lean into him. Every word twisted the knife deeper.
“You deserve someone who chooses you,” she said at one point, curled on the couch beside me. “Not someone who keeps backups.”
I didn’t argue.
My phone buzzed again, Kei this time.
I ignored it.
Another buzz. Text preview:
We need to talk. Rehearsal’s tomorrow. Don’t do this alone.
I turned the phone off completely.
Night fell. Syd left around ten, kissing my cheek like we were still kids sharing secrets. “Call me if it gets bad,” she said. “I’m always here.”
Alone again, I opened the minibar. Drank until the room tilted. Then I opened my phone, just to look.
Hadley’s last text:
I’m not leaving. But I need you to come home. Please.
Something cracked inside my chest, sharp, painful. For a second I almost replied.
Then I remembered her lips on his.
I threw the phone across the room again. It hit the wall, screen shattering further.
The next day was worse.
I didn’t eat. Barely slept. The high from the pills wore off into a jittery, paranoid haze. Every time I closed my eyes I saw them, Kei’s hands on her face, her not pushing away fast enough. I replayed it until it felt like truth.
Holland called. I let it go to voicemail.
“Hey man. We’re worried. Kei’s a mess. Says you won’t talk to him. Concert’s in three days. We need you. Call me back.”
I didn’t.
Kei texted again:
I fucked up. I know. But don’t shut us all out. The band’s falling apart. You’re falling apart.
I stared at the message until my eyes burned.
Then deleted it.
That night Syd came back. Brought more pills. We sat on the floor, backs against the couch, passing a bottle.
“She’s texting Kei now,” Syd said casually. “Trying to warn him you’re spiraling. Like she cares.”
My jaw clenched. “How do you know?”
“Jake saw the messages. She’s playing concerned wife while she’s plotting her exit.”
“She wouldn’t,”
“She already is.” Syd leaned her head on my shoulder. “She told Zariah she’s leaving after the baby’s born. Did she tell you that?”
The room spun.
“No.”
“She did.” Syd’s voice was gentle poison. “She’s just waiting for the kid to come so she can take half your money and run.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to alone.” She squeezed my hand. “I’ve got you.”
The pills hit harder this time. Everything blurred, anger, guilt, love, hate, all melting into one throbbing ache.
I missed her.
God, I missed her so much it hurt to breathe.
But every time I thought about going home, I saw Kei’s mouth on hers.
I couldn’t go back.
Not yet.
The concert was in two days.
I told Syd I’d show up.
High.
Erratic.
Ready to break.
Because if I was going down, I wanted her to see it.
I wanted her to feel what I felt.
I stared at my cracked phone on the floor. Her last message still glowed through the fractures.
I’m not leaving.
I laughed, hollow, wrecked.
Liar.
I didn’t answer.
I just sat there in the dark, pills dissolving on my tongue, waiting for the numbness to take me under.