Chapter Sixteen
landon
April 19
Checking on you. Haven’t heard from you. Please let me know that you’re okay. I worry when you disappear for too long.
My chest squeezed while I read the text from my mother and placed my cell on the bedside table without responding.
To ease the inevitable tightness when dealing with my parents, I stared out the large window, breathing slowly in and out. The trees and shrubbery served a dual purpose, as shade from the sun and by preventing nosy neighbors from seeing in. Birds chirped loudly outside my window, alerting me that a new day had begun. My body began to settle as I admired the view and focused on our performance last night. We had officially smashed our first Hollow Bones and Janae show.
I’d loved the intimacy of the stage and that Janae was always within a few feet of me as she sang or danced beside me. She’d been a dynamic entertainer in the large arena in Houston. On the small stage, she’d been everyone’s sister, embracing her audience with her genuine warmth, charisma, and talent. Janae had all of us captured in her enchanted web. My chest swelled with pride that she seemed at peace and in complete command of the stage without using anything, as she had in Houston.
“Is it hard for you to perform every time?” she asked quietly from the other side. We were in my bed in New Orleans and would need to get up soon to travel to Atlanta on the tour bus.
The guys and the glam squad had decided to spend their last night partying in the French Quarter. Janae had insisted on returning to the mansion with me, and after we showered separately, she’d joined me in my bed, wearing a T-shirt and short shorts. She’d wrapped herself around me and promptly fallen asleep on my bare chest. Sleep for me was a long time coming, with such an alluring vixen clinging to me.
This morning, a clear-eyed Janae interlocked our hands as we rested on our backs. “I watched you last night, and you refused to look at the audience. You kept your head down the entire time, but your hands never trembled or shook until we exited the stage and had to take photos and sign autographs.”
I asked with a slight smile, “How did you end up in my bed again, asking me difficult questions early in the morning?”
“I can’t stay away, and I want to know more about you. That’s the plain truth, like I expect from you. Now answer my question,” she replied.
I stared at her, searching for any sign that she truly wanted my truth. She looked back at me, waiting for me to answer. I admitted, “I’m anxious and stressed from the moment I wake up the day of a performance until I hit the stage. Sometimes I need to isolate myself from everyone to get through my nerves that threaten to cripple me at any moment. Then, for some reason, once I’m on the stage, all I can see and feel is the music. Can’t really explain how I can perform when everything in me wants to hide in the audience.” I flipped on my side, still holding her hand. “Now, answer me . I’ve watched you perform flawlessly twice without taking anything, so why do you ever want to use?”
“How do you know I haven’t?” She averted her gaze to our hands. “I could’ve popped a pill and gone on that stage.”
“I know,” I replied.
“How?” Her voice quivered.
Hesitantly, I reached out to touch her cheek. “I watch you, and I don’t mean in a stalkerish way. I can’t seem to look away anytime you’re in my presence. That night at the gala, I saw you outside and how nervous you were. You were so unsure and shaky, pacing, and I could tell you were talking to yourself. I recognized you because I saw me, or at least the part that’s afraid I’m not enough. Then there’s the part of you that’s not like me. You’re always moving. A chair doesn’t know your name.
“You’re flirty, charming, smiling, laughing, always talking fast, dancing to the smallest beat you hear, and so restless that sleep has to hunt you down. You used to keep me on the phone until the crack of dawn with the same energy in your voice as when you started.” I dragged my finger softly under her eyes. “And when you think no one is looking, the sadness lurks, ready to show itself if you give it a sliver of a chance. When you use, the sadness may be gone, but there’s nothing in its place. I noticed it in your old performances, too. That’s how I know you didn’t last night. It’s all in your eyes.”
Janae stared at me for what seemed like forever before she broke out into a loud sob and covered her face. “Sorry. Sorry.”
My pulse raced as I pushed her hands down, trying to replay my words in my head again. “Did I go too far? I told you my mind doesn’t always filter what I should say or not say.”
She started rocking back and forth and wouldn’t look at me. Her face was mottled red and scrunched up again. She fought to free her hands.
I wouldn’t release them. “Please. Why are you crying?”
“No reason. You can let my hands go. I’m fine.”
I dropped her hands, and Janae continued to rock in place, her hands scratching her arms like she itched. She blinked rapidly, and her voice shook. “Keep talking… so you only get nervous off the stage… dealing with the people?”
“Janae, that’s not important right now.” I shook my head, refusing to talk about me when she was clearly upset. “I’m being honest like you asked, and you won’t tell me why you’re crying. If it’s something I said, please tell me. The last thing I want to do is hurt you when I can tell you’ve been hurt before.”
Janae screamed, “Why can’t you just leave it alone? Why can’t you let me change the conversation when I asked you what’s wrong with you first?” She shoved my chest. “Read the room, Landon. It’s everything you said.”
Janae’s taunting words about the lack of social awareness I’d heard so often pricked my thin skin, and I punched the air between us. “You want to know what’s wrong with me? I don’t get women. I don’t always know how to read the room, and I don’t play the games that other men do. I only know how to say what I think and what I feel, if she even gives a damn about my opinion.”
Her eyes were wild, and her hands curled into fists like she wanted to fight me.
“I try to stay away from you because you invade my every waking thought. I haven’t been able to sleep knowing you are under the same roof as I am. It messes with me that all I have to do is knock on your door, and you’ll let me have you. I also know you’ll break my damn heart, and I don’t know if I’ll ever recover. That’s my truth. Like right now, you’re crying and pissed with me because I answered your question. I know you’re not using because your eyes are not dead. If you can’t handle my truth, don’t ask.”
Her face crumpled before she scrambled out of bed. “You’re right. I can’t handle it. And you don’t have to worry about my breaking your heart. I finally know when to walk away from a man first.”
“Janae,” I said, and she shut the door firmly behind her.
I ran my hand down over my face. I’d messed up, and for the life of me, I had no idea what I’d said or done.