Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Roderick
Kit shakes her head as if trying to wipe away everything my confession dredged up. Like she’s exorcising me from her bloodstream—scraping me from her ribs, her throat, her memory.
“No.” Her voice cracks through the room like a match striking. “You’re not allowed to go there.” She looks at me, her mouth trembling even as she holds her spine straight. “We’re over. You . . . you destroyed me. You can’t come and say you fucking crave me—like you own me.”
I close my eyes and squeeze them shut, jaw tightening. I drag a breath through my nose like it might hold me together. It doesn’t.
“You did the one thing I—” Her voice rises, louder now, but splintered. “You swore you wouldn’t be like them. Was that the only time? I bet it wasn’t.”
Her words cut deeper than she probably intends them to. Because they’re nothing but the truth. And because I fucking deserve them.
Had there been other times? That question unravels like a thread I don’t want her pulling on.
The answer isn’t clear, and I doubt she’d believe anything I said now.
Fuck, I’m not sure I believe myself anymore.
She’s right—I broke that promise. It doesn’t matter how I got there, in the end, I became exactly like them.
Like our parents, who used to chant that bullshit mantra: What happens on tour stays on tour. If we’re not in the same state, I can fuck whoever I want because I have needs. As if that makes it fine. As if betrayal’s less lethal when zipped into a suitcase and dragged across a state line.
“Once you’re an artist, you give yourself to the public,” they’d said. Become who your fans want.
Be who they crave. That was Connor’s philosophy. And I followed it—blind, hungry, and stupid.
This moment—it reminds me of those emails I recently exchanged about exes. Kit doesn’t need this. She doesn’t need me, standing here like a fucking ghost who refuses to die. I look at her and she’s . . . a grown-up with her shit together, unlike me.
She’s thriving. She’s moved on. And I’m the itch she already scratched off her skin.
But I’m still here. Because maybe this is my last shot at saying what I never said right. The last shot at having a career—a life.
“I’ve . . .” My throat closes up. I can’t lie, not now. I can’t say I’ve changed. It hasn’t even been that long since I was bullshitting everyone just to sneak a few lines before soundcheck.
I scrub a hand down my face. Try again. “I’m trying to change. I don’t know who the fuck I am yet, but—how can I become anyone if no one gives me a chance?”
It’s probably the most honest thing I’ve said outside a therapist’s office or rehab. And it lands like a naked confession dropped into the middle of traffic.
Kit’s voice softens. “Listen.” She crosses her arms, but it’s not defensive anymore. It’s protective. “I understand this is an illness. You’re a recovering addict. You’ll carry that forever. I admire your resilience. I do.”
I brace for the hit. It comes.
“But I honestly don’t think playing is in your best interest. Do you?”
The room crushes in. Her words flatten something inside me I didn’t realize was still breathing. My lungs constrict, breath coming too fast. The space between us shrinks and warps and spins. I can’t hold on to anything.
My fingers curl into the edge of the table. Everything tilts to the side. The floor feels like it drops beneath me, and I’m gasping like I’ve been sucker-punched.
“Rod?”
Her voice cuts through the haze.
Fuck. Fuck.
My throat closes. My pulse throbs in my ears. I can’t breathe. Not really. I’m trying, but it’s like dragging air through concrete.
Suddenly, she’s out of her chair and kneeling in front of me, hands raised but not yet touching. Her voice low, urgent, not pitying, not placating—real.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I do. Or try to. Her eyes are locked on mine.
“Rod, focus. Inhale through your nose. Slow. Count with me.”
Then she touches me—hand sliding over mine, palm warm and sure, her grip pressing into my skin like she’s tethering me to right now.
“Five seconds in,” she says, her breath fanning against my cheek. “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five. Now hold. And release.”
I match her rhythm because I have no choice.
Her voice is a metronome. Her body is inches from mine.
Her knees touch mine, everything in me short-circuiting.
All I can feel is her skin, her breath, and her perfume—dark, sweet, the smell of late nights and something I don’t have a name for but once made a home in.
She leans closer, her forehead almost brushing mine. “I’m here,” she whispers. “Just breathe. You’re okay.”
And the way she says it—low and rough and close—does something dangerous to me.
I swallow. Hard. My hand still trembles under hers, but it’s slowing now. Calming.
Her breath is warm. Her lips are right there. So fucking close I could tilt forward and taste her.
And I want to. God, I want to.
Even though she hates me. Even though I ruined her. Even though I’m barely standing upright inside my own body.
Every nerve in me is reaching for her.
And I don’t know if I’m breathing better because she’s calming me down—or because the rush of need between us just tore through the panic like a goddamn wildfire.
And I do.
Not because I believe it. But because she’s touching me.
Because Kit fucking Dempsey is kneeling on the floor, helping me breathe through the urge to fall apart.
And somehow, against all odds, I don’t feel shame this time.
I feel seen.
And, fuck, that’s so much more dangerous.
When I finally manage to take in a full breath, it still tastes like glass and regret. But I’m here. I’m back in my body instead of hovering above it like a glitching projection.
My hands remain clenched in my lap, blood pulsing beneath skin that feels too tight, too real. Her palm stays on top of my knee—heat radiates straight to my spine, impossible to ignore.
When I look at her, she’s already watching me.
Not like before—not like she’s just waiting for me to self-destruct again. There’s something new in her expression now. Like she’s letting me see what she’s tried to bury—unguarded and quietly wrecked.
Something that hurts in a different way.
“Thank you,” I rasp. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged through gravel.
Kit doesn’t move. Her voice is calm, too calm, like I didn’t just unravel in front of her—like she didn’t just witness every fragile piece of me collapse.
“You’re not weak for struggling, Rod. You’re not broken.”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
It’s laughable, isn’t it? That the person who knew me best can’t see that I’m just splintered glass in human form, taped together with shame and cocaine residue.
“Unlike my father, I’m not here to coddle you and promise you a shiny new record and tour,” she says, straightening slowly, her body unfolding like a warning. She stays close, like she’s daring me to breathe her in. “But I’m not here to ruin you either.”
I study her face.
She’s so fucking beautiful it scrapes at something deep in my soul. Unreachable and luminous and still somehow standing right in front of me, tethered to this moment with her knees brushing mine and her scent threading through every molecule of air between us.
Then she does the unexpected.
“Maybe we can find a way to help you.”
“You’re going to help me? How?” I ask, voice wrecked. My throat feels torn up, punched raw by too many nights spent screaming lyrics to a crowd—lyrics about broken hearts and forgiveness, aimed at the void but never at her.
I’ve relived our relationship onstage more times than I can count, dressed the pain in perfect verses, convinced myself that counted for something. But now? Now I see they were never the words she needed. Never what I meant to say.
“Kit—” I want to say so much but cut myself off because I don’t even know where to start or if I deserve to say anything.
Kit stands. There’s a moment where her fingers hover near my shoulder, like she’s considering touching me again, before she pulls back and starts pacing. Just once. Twice. Then she stops in front of me, her hands sliding to her hips.
“We need to take this slow,” she says, and it’s not a suggestion—it’s a command she knows I won’t argue with.
“If you’re serious about rebuilding, then you need a new foundation.
Not the same stage, not the same people whispering promises they won’t keep.
No more vultures trying to squeeze one more hit out of you before you combust.”
That’s the only way this could work. And still, I want to ask what she wants me to do. What she expects. But I don’t. I can’t. My throat burns again, and all I do is nod. As if saying, “Okay, you’re in charge.”
“You’re a musician,” she says more softly now, and that softness? It almost undoes me. “That doesn’t stop just because you stepped out of the spotlight. But maybe it’s time you figure out a new way to channel your gift.”
Gift.
That word lands with a thud in the chest. Ethel used to say that. She said my music lived in my marrow, stitched into every bone, and that it wasn’t meant to be used up by other people’s greed.
I blink, about to ask Kit what she’s doing with hers—how she channels it now, if she’s not on stage—when she looks down at me as if she’s seeing something buried beneath all the dirt and damage.
“You could start by composing. That’s step one.” She holds up a finger, as if she’s not just giving me an idea—she’s giving me a way back to myself. “Then writing, collaborating. We could even find you a gig scoring someone’s film.”
She lights up as she talks. Her eyes sparkle as if she’s cracked open a vault she didn’t know was still inside her.
“You can teach,” she says, practically breathless now. “You could start a new genre. You can rebuild without it costing you your sanity or your soul.”
There’s a pause. Her gaze drops—just briefly—to my mouth.
And that moment?
That one second where she lets herself look at me like that?
I feel it in every inch of my body.
“And if you realize that the stage is still your calling,” she continues, voice husky now. “If performing is what keeps your heart beating . . .”
She swallows. Her throat moves.
God, I want to taste her again.
“Cleo can help you. Maybe even Julian—if you ask the right way.” Her mouth curls up slightly, but her voice stays serious. “There’s Barret.”
She’s listing off the people who hate me. And she’s still offering them like a lifeline.
“You’ll have to convince them you really want this.”
It’s everything I didn’t know I needed to hear. Not permission. Not pity. Just truth—clear and undeniable, laid out between us like a blueprint of what could be.
“We’ll start slowly,” she adds. “Maybe one of them can take you to the studio. We’ll see what you can do this week.”
“I haven’t been able to play,” I admit. It slips out. Raw and too close to a confession.
“And you came to demand your career back?” She rolls her eyes.
“You arrogant, infuriating man.” But there’s no venom in her voice.
Just heat. “I hope you’re going to therapy.
I hope you start realizing the world doesn’t revolve around Roderick Wilder.
People don’t exist to cater to your needs because of your last name. ”
She exhales, sharp and fast. “I also hope you understand we can’t work together. I’ll help you find someone who can. Someone who’ll show you how the real world works—the one that doesn’t hand-feed you adoration and enable your self-destruction.”
That’s what I want. That’s what I came here for, my career. To earn it. To survive it. To start over.
“I don’t deserve that,” I whisper. My voice breaks, thick and uneven. “I don’t deserve you doing that.”
Kit stares at me. Her expression unreadable.
“No. Maybe you don’t,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it. It’s what Mom would’ve wanted. I . . . just stay away, okay?”
We stay like that—too close, too still, the space between us pulsing with something volatile.
My pulse climbs into my throat, fast—unrelenting. Her eyes don’t move from mine. Her body doesn’t move either. She’s right fucking there—close enough that the heat between us coils around my skin, like her breath could rewrite mine if I just leaned forward.
And, fuck, I want to kiss her.
I want to kiss her as if we had never stopped.
Like every year apart was just a dress rehearsal for this moment—this one impossible, aching second where she’s within reach.
I want her lips crushed to mine, want the sound she makes when she breaks apart in my mouth, want her hands fisting my shirt, dragging me closer until she forgets why she ever told me it was over in the first place.
I want her gasping, trembling, pressed against me like she’s trying to erase every inch of space we ever allowed between us.
I want her.
Right here. Right now.
But I don’t move.
I don’t even breathe.
Because if I move forward—if I exhale too hard—I might lose everything, and I can’t afford that.
My need for her is a live wire humming under my skin. It’s frantic. It’s begging. It’s clawing at my restraint, whispering to just take the moment and fucking claim her.
But I’m not that reckless anymore. I’m not the boy who thought desire was enough.
So I repeat her words in my head. Just stay away.
I force myself to walk toward the door. Her eyes don’t flinch, but I sense her breath catch. I feel her—every part of her—even as I start to pull away.
“I know what I did was shitty,” I say, my voice low and raw. “There’s a lot behind it—more than I’ve ever said out loud—but I don’t expect you to care. I don’t deserve your attention. I already fucked it up.”
She says nothing. Just watches me like she’s waiting to see if I’ll keep breaking or if I’ll finally say what I should’ve said all those years ago.
“I honestly don’t know where we’ll end up. Maybe nowhere. Maybe this was it. But I do know this—” My voice almost cracks, but I keep going. “I loved you then. I never stopped.”
Her breath hitches, just slightly.
“I still belong to you,” I say. “Even if you’ll never want to have me again. Even then. I still do.”
I look at her one last time, memorizing every piece of her—her mouth, the line of her jaw, the way her fingers twitch as if she’s about to reach for me but then thinks better of it.
Then I leave.
Because if I stay another second, I won’t survive it.
And if I kiss her, I won’t be able to let go and she deserves better.