CHAPTER 46
Don’t wait for the right moment to have the meaningful conversations with those you love.
For the next week, Goose watches my performances from the shadows of the club. He’s my specter, and my routine is elevated to another level when I know he’s there.
Some nights he only stays long enough to see me dance, others, he stays for the entire shift, but disappears into his office after I’m done. Raven even adjusts our schedule to push our group routine and my solo closer together to accommodate this.
Whether or not he stays, he’s always there at the end of the night to greet me at the back door to hold my hand, and walk me to my car.
He ensures I’m safely on my way before jumping on his bike and following me down the road, and it’s a feeling I could get addicted to—the kissing me senseless before I get into my car, and the comfort of seeing his headlight in my rearview.
As the days progress, my feelings for him start to scare me because I know that what I’m doing here will eventually drive a wedge between us.
Since I never got a chance to discuss his migraines or head injury with him the night after the waterfall, I decide to print out everything I researched online and leave the papers for him on his desk.
He’s fighting this struggle alone, or trying to, and hiding it from the rest of the world. What I don’t understand is why he thinks he needs to do so. While I stand at my locker and change into street clothes, I build up enough courage to approach the subject with him, and find out why.
The flower tonight is a white rose in full bloom.
When I take it from his hand, I prick my finger on one of the thorns and drop it as I reel back.
Instead of picking up the flower, Goose grabs my hand and inspects the wound.
A drop of blood wells up, and he wipes it away, only for another to rise up in its place.
“Hold on a sec.” He goes to his bike and comes back with a bandana and wraps up my finger, which is ridiculous because it’s bulky as all hell, but the gesture is sweet. He ties the end with a simple knot.
“It’s not going to win you any beauty pageants, but it’ll do for now.”
“Can you imagine? My mother would have a field…” The words just fly right the fuck out of my mouth, and when I register them, my entire body goes cold.
Goose, at least at first, doesn’t act like anything is out of the ordinary about my answer. He bends down, picks up the flower, and gently hands it to me.
Needing to change the subject and fast, I ask, “Did you see the papers I left on your desk?”
He pulls the folded papers from his back pocket. “Yeah, I’ll look them over tomorrow. Not in the right headspace for it tonight.”
“Did you get another migraine?”
He nods. “Yeah, just one of those days when it’s unrelenting.”
I let the question rip from me before I can second-guess myself. “Are you still taking the pain pills? I know you said the doctor gave you new medication, but does that mean you don’t need those anymore, or do you take those too?”
Tension instantly coils in his shoulders. “Does it change things if I am? How you feel about me?”
I clench my fist around the strap of my purse, using it as an anchor. I also want to make sure my inhaler’s close by in case this goes south. “Just humor me.”
He stops, huffs, and tilts his head down. His hands go to his hips as he shakes his head. “Humor you?”
“Yeah.”
His gaze, when it rises, is suddenly sharp and unreadable.
The muscle in his jaw ticks. There’s an edge to him—a side he rarely shows, one that appears when he’s angry or his control is about to unravel.
“I was taking them before because it was better to be numb and half-dead than watch you ruin yourself,” he says with conviction.
My head jerks back, “Ruin myself?”
“Yeah.”
The judgment in his tone instantly has my back up. Turning fully to face him, I cross my arms. “Excuse me? We may be doing”—I motion to him and then back to myself—“whatever this is. But that doesn’t give you the right to shame me for what I did when we weren’t together.”
His lips set in a firm line. “Ditto, babe.”
“No. It’s not the same. I wasn’t filling my body with garbage. Sleeping with men who aren’t you, that’s my prerogative because, guess what, it’s my fucking body.”
He throws up his hands and half-turns before facing me again. “Do you even hear yourself? How hypocritical is that?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Sex and drugs are not the same.”
“Yeah,” he huffs. “Keep telling yourself that.” His mouth twists in a sardonic grin.
“What? They’re not!”
He exhales and then groans, his frustration evidently boiling over.
His hand comes up and rubs at his forehead.
He breathes for a moment and tries to calm down.
Then his hand drops, and his features are pinched together as he stares at me.
In a gentler tone, he says, “Was it all to get back at me? Tell me that much at least? To punish me because, if so, you were fantastic at it.”
My stomach twists into a knot. “What?”
“You heard me.”
My hands drop to my side. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
He runs his hand over his mouth and he eyes me critically.
His brow hitches up. “Are you sure about that?” His voice is dark, mocking.
“Because it sure as hell feels like you wanted me to suffer. And I did. I suffered through it for as long as I could. More than you’ll ever know.
But it became too much, okay? The pain in here”—he palms his chest, and puts two fingers to his temple—“and here.”
My fingernails dig into the skin of my palms. When I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say, he lets out a long breath.
“Tell me this, Lil’. Why them and not me?”
“Just… I don’t know, and I don’t have to justify it to you.”
“That’s your answer?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
He grinds his molars and his jaw flexes. “If I was no one and nothing to you, then why do you care so goddamn much what I do, huh? Why the fuck do I care so much about what you do? What the fuck does any of it matter, Lily? I think you know, but it’s not like you’ll finally come clean.”
The tension pulls taut in the air between us. “What do you mean?”
He scoffs. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t. Why don’t you spell it the fuck out for me?”
He throws his arms out as if baring his soul to me.
“You make me remember , and remembering fucking hurts .” He hurls those words at me.
“That’s why I was getting more and more flashbacks, all because of you.
I don’t remember all of it, but I remember enough, and the rest I’ve figured out on my own. ”
I freeze in place. “Remember what?”
His studies my features. “I remember the girl I met before my tour of duty. The one standing right the fuck in front of me. Yeah, it feels like another lifetime. I don’t know all the details, but I see it, Lil’.
When I close my eyes.” He palms his forehead.
“When I dream, when the fuckin’ migraines work overtime to split my brain in half.
There’s another life there that I had with you, where we meant a whole hell of a lot to each other. ”
“I-I don’t. . .” Panic. Absolute panic overtakes me. The easy lies won’t come and taper off. I try again, and it comes out the same. My body is going haywire, my nerves jumping, and my heart racing like it’s on steroids.
I take a few measured breaths and pull the lie from somewhere deep inside of myself. They’re not the words I want to say, but the ones he needs to hear. “That girl, whoever she was, isn’t me.”
Without warning, he strides closer, grabs my arm, pulls me closer, and the heat of his body melts into mine. My body reacts to his proximity, softening, giving my head no time to catch up.
“No?” he challenges. He palms my cheek and leans forward. For a long time, he just stares me down with his penetrating blue gaze as he analyzes my face.
“No.”
His face touches mine, and his lips brush against my ear. Dropping his voice to a dangerous whisper, which sends a shiver down my spine, he says, “You can keep telling them, but I’m not buying these pretty little lies anymore, Lil’. I can read your tells. I see beyond what you’re trying to hide.”
I push at his chest, try to pry myself away, but his hold tightens.
“I see you,” he says. “The real you. I see the act. The unhappiness. The way you force yourself to do things you hate. I see the parts you play when other people are around. The mask you let slip when they’re not.
I see it all and I know there’s a version of you that knows who the fuck I am to you.
That you’ve known me for a long damn time. ”
He lets me go, and I stumble back. He lifts his hand. “Go ahead, make me feel like I’m the crazy one here. Like it’s all in my head.”
A rock lodges itself in my throat, and fireflies take flight in my stomach. “I’m not saying that.”
“Tell me you didn’t already know who I was the minute you arrived here. Go ahead. Fucking nuts, right?”
“I didn’t say you’re crazy!” I snap at him. “I said, I’m not that fucking girl!” Not anymore.
He points at my face. “That right fucking there. That split second when your mouth moves but your eyes tell a different story. They don’t match, babe.” He comes forward, but I push him off me. He proceeds to eliminate the space and tries again. “I want the truth.”
I stare up at him. I can’t. He’s not ready to hear it, and I’m not ready to relive it. Shaking my head, I glare right back at him. He reaches out to grab my hand. I slap it away and snap, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
I turn my back on him and march to my car. His footsteps follow.
“Why is that so hard to do?” His laugh comes out bitter and sharp. “Huh?”
I wave a hand behind me. “Believe what you want.”
“Everything in me tells me that’s who you are. That all those fucking pieces, all those feathers, they’re you. It’s the only thing that makes what you did, what you’re still doing to me, make sense, Little Bird.”