Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
JUDE GRAVES
Micah’s snoring softly across the hotel room in Portland, one arm hanging off the side of the bed.
The blackout curtains are drawn, but a thin line of gray light leaks through the edge and cuts across the floorboards.
I’ve been staring at it for an hour. Maybe more.
My head’s pounding, and my chest feels almost…
empty. The high is gone, and all that’s left is the crash.
I can still smell Adriana’s sweet yet rotten scent on me. My skin crawls where she touched me. I want to fucking peel it off.
I turn my face toward the ceiling and try not to think. But I always end up back there—twenty years old, stupid, hungry for a shot. Nolan had said, “Welcome to your new life, kid.”
And that was it. The end of one life. The start of another.
Since then, I’ve done things I can’t say out loud. People I’ve taken out because Nolan snapped his fingers. I used to throw up afterward. Now I don’t feel a damn thing. Sometimes, when it’s bad...when I’m angry enough, I even like it. At least then I’m in control of something.
Adriana still uses me. Always has.
When I tell her no, Nolan makes me regret it. Locks me in a room and lets me go through hell without a fix. He’ll tell me how crazy I am for not fucking her since he loves to. I’ll sweat it out, writhe in pain, and want to die. It’s a pain I do everything I can to avoid. So I just fuck her.
I’ve wanted to run so many times. But where would I go?
Every dollar I’ve ever made runs through them.
Every stage I’ve stood on, every crowd that screamed my name—it’s all his.
Nolan built the cage around me, and I helped nail it shut when I let myself get hooked on the drugs and kill for him.
Now I just want it all to stop. I’m tired in ways sleep doesn’t fix.
I don’t care if I die. I probably should’ve already.
Emma slips into my mind again. The way she looked at me last night made me nauseous. She deserves the kind of life I can’t even remember wanting. Seven years is a long goddamn time to live in darkness.
Micah shifts in his sleep, mumbling something under his breath. I stare at the ceiling again, my heartbeat slow and heavy in my throat. This fucking heart that keeps trying to die but won’t.
The piece of shit.
Micah and I wander the streets of Seaside later that day, the Sunday quiet settling over the town.
I pull out my phone and search for her studio, fingers trembling slightly.
Last year, in a moment of weakness I’d never admit to anyone, I looked her up.
Dug around to see what she’d done with her life.
She’d started working at an art therapy studio, just like she said she wanted. I was so proud it made my chest hurt.
I...I had to see her again.
We round another corner in silence, the oxy keeping my body from getting sick.
I freeze when I see The Quiet Canvas. Her sanctuary.
My pulse spikes. It’s Sunday, so she’s probably not here, but I walk closer anyway.
Micah follows silently. My boots scuff the sidewalk, and music blares through the window, too muffled to recognize. And then I see her.
She’s inside, painting with her back to me. My body goes rigid. My heart slams into a thousand beats per minute. Then her head drops into her hands, shoulders shaking.
She’s...crying.
“Jude…” Micah’s voice is soft and careful. “That’s her?”
The words lodge in my throat. When I finally speak, my voice is hoarse. “Yeah. That’s her. The one from Portland the other night.”
He doesn’t say anything. He understands. He’s known me long enough to recognize the parts of me I tried to bury. I just watch her. She sets the brush down, curls into the chair, and more tears spill free. My chest tightens. A single drop slides down my cheek, and I don’t stop it.
What the fuck have I done?
I could have at least said something to her. Instead, I’d stared through her like a fucking asshole. I swallow hard as my eyes land on the painting she was working on.
A dock under a night sky. A guitar lying abandoned on the planks.
My throat closes. My stomach twists. Every ounce of pride, every memory of her, every year I lost to drugs and the mess I’ve made of my life—it all crashes down at once. She’s...she’s painting me. Or the absence of me. Seven years later.
My hands shake. I should turn away, leave before she sees me—before I ruin her any more than I already have. But I can’t. I’m rooted to the sidewalk, staring, broken. I clench my jaw so hard it could snap, wishing I could erase the years, the pain, the choices that led us here.
Should I go in? No. I can’t—
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Dude, are you okay?” Micah asks, catching my spiral.
I sigh, backing away, dragging a hand through my hair. “Yeah, man. I’m fine.”
But I can’t fucking breathe.
My body’s caught between fight and flight, and both are losing. I can’t look away from the way her shoulders move when she sobs. There’s a fragility now to the woman I loved. She seems so much smaller than she used to, curled in on herself.
And I...I fucking did that.
Micah murmurs, “I think she still loves you.”
I nod, barely. My throat feels raw.
“Jesus, man,” he says softly. “You really loved her.”
Still do. But the words stay locked behind my teeth.
The song inside is muffled by the window, but the melody twists through anyway, breaking me open.
I know that fucking song. The memory hits, and it’s cruel and tender all at once.
The first time she told me she loved me, this song was playing.
My hand curls into a fist. I take a step forward. Then stop.
What the hell would I even say?
Hey. Sorry for disappearing. Sorry for the years you spent trying to forget me. Sorry for being the reason you learned what heartbreak feels like.
Micah’s hand settles on my shoulder. “Jude...if you’re gonna go in, go. But if you’re not, don’t torture yourself.”
My fingers twitch toward the door handle, then fall away.
I don’t know if I want to run or collapse.
I press my fist to my mouth to choke back the sound trying to escape.
Another hot tear slips free. I want to rush inside—to tell her I never meant to break her, to fall to my knees and beg her to hate me less.
But I can’t.
Because if I walk through that door, I’ll never be able to leave again. Who I am now isn’t right for her.
Micah squeezes my shoulder. “Come on.”
I nod, though every step away from that window feels like something is being torn out of my chest. The music fades behind us. I glance back one last time, and for a second, I swear I feel her sadness reach through the glass and find mine.
And I turn away.
Micah keeps glancing at me, probably waiting for me to say something. But what could I even say? That I just saw the only person I’ve ever really loved crying over a ghost? Because the man she loved doesn’t exist anymore.
He’s fucking dead.
We end up in a quiet café. I order a coffee I won’t drink and stare at the steam curling off the surface of it. My hands won’t stop shaking, the damn things.
Micah leans back, studying me for a long moment. “You wanna talk about it?”
For a second, I almost tell him no. That it’s none of his business or that it won’t change anything. But I don’t bother. I’m too tired. I’ve been tired for years.
I drag a hand over my face and take a breath that feels like swallowing glass. “You know how the first night I met Nolan and Adriana, I…” I lower my voice, “killed someone?”
Micah doesn’t flinch. He nods once, waiting.
“I was twenty,” I say quietly. “Nolan said they wanted to introduce me to people. Industry contacts. I thought it was about music, and maybe making it big.” A bitter laugh slips out. “Emma was so fucking proud. She believed in me more than I ever believed in myself.”
I pause, the air in my chest suddenly dense as hell. “But I drank. I did drugs for the first time. I don’t remember much. Just flashes. Music. A hotel suite. Then…” My voice falters. “Blood. On my hands. On my clothes. Fucking everywhere.”
My throat tightens. “They told me I’d spend the rest of my life in prison if it got out.
Nolan said he could make it all go away, and that my talent couldn’t just be wasted.
” I swallow hard. “I was scared, so I listened. I fucking listened like a dumbass kid who thought fear disguised as loyalty would save him. I felt like I owed Nolan for saving my stupid ass. I used to have anger issues when I was younger. My parents made me go through anger management and all that. So, when I realized what I’d done.
..I agreed. I was just too fucking scared.
If I walked away, then I would have likely gone to prison. All because of this rage inside me.”
Micah swears under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck. Cups clink, and voices murmur all around us, but it all sounds distant, muffled, like I’m underwater.
“I thought I could still hold on to something good,” I whisper.
“To her. But every time I looked at Emma, all I could see was what I’d done.
What I was becoming in their world. I couldn’t drag her into that hell, so I left.
I let her hate me, thinking I abandoned her for my career.
” My chest tightens. “It was easier than watching her try to love someone who didn’t deserve her anymore. ”
A shaky breath escapes me. “She would’ve told me I was wrong.
That I still deserved good things. That I wasn’t beyond saving.
” I stare down at the table, my voice barely holding together.
“Emma has this way of seeing the light in people—even when they’ve already burned it out themselves.
But I knew it would destroy her, having to dig through every layer of my darkness just to keep track of that dying light inside me. ”