Chapter Fourteen
ELIAS
I fell to my knees, the pain in my head overwhelming the pain in my heart when Lena ran. I pressed my palms against my temples, and a strangled noise escaped my chest as the headache pierced my skull, the pain of my failed song punishing. And it would only get worse.
The compulsion to run after her and sing again, to ensnare her and never let her go, had me crawling on my hands and knees toward the dunes.
Tears formed in my eyes from the searing pain.
Nausea rippled through my body in waves.
I forced myself to fall to my side, holding my head until the worst of the initial shock dissipated.
My stomach emptied itself onto the sand, over and over, each retch sending a white-hot spear into my already splitting skull.
Minutes morphed into hours, my body shaking and heaving through the worst of the rejection, holding on for reprieve.
Finally, the backlash ended, leaving behind a dull throb and vertigo that kept the world spinning. The pain would return, each subsequent surge worse than the last until my song was answered or my body gave out.
I rolled onto my back and blinked open my swollen eyes. I wiped the crusted remnants of my stomach from my mouth with the back of my sleeve. A thin sliver of light peeked over the horizon. Dawn.
What had I been thinking? I hadn’t been thinking; I’d been desperate. When Niko told me she’d seen me at South Beach flirting with another woman, I panicked. I ran to the parking lot, but she’d already left.
Texts, calls—I’d tried everything, even knocking on her door, but she wouldn’t respond. The idea that I’d hurt her, that I’d lost my chance with her and relegated myself to a life without her, terrified me.
Niko was right; I’d been such an idiot. I thought I’d been protecting my freedom, but I’d been living in a prison of my own making.
I’d convinced myself that the steady flow of adoration—one audience to the next, one woman to the next—meant I was set for life.
There’d never be a shortage of devotion, however empty.
Better than the alternative of opening my heart and tying myself to someone only to have them lose interest or be horrified by my true nature.
For all the bullshit I talked about adventure, I’d never been willing to take the risk.
And what good was freedom if I couldn’t share it with Lena?
Without her, I’d never find freedom from the what-ifs and regret.
I’d refused to look past my selfish need for independence and consider the possibility that life with Lena might be its own adventure, and instead of holding me back, she’d swim along with me.
The realizations were more than my rational mind could handle, and I became frantic to reach her. My siren’s compulsion held an answer, and I’d eagerly—and thoughtlessly—followed its instinct.
I sat up, and the world spun around me. I swallowed back what would have been a dry heave and struggled to my hands and knees.
I had to make it back to the house before the next surge of backlash attacked my already weakened body.
With the little strength I had left, I hoisted myself to standing and stumbled forward, each step twisting a hot knife behind my eyes, the pain nothing more than I deserved.