Chapter 52
chapter
fifty-two
“Letting the memory of you go didn’t shatter me—it set me free.” – Cyrus
CYRUS
I don’t know how to start.
We’ve eaten breakfast, smiled, laughed, and teased one another. But now, sitting on the deck in the late morning sun…I’m exposed.
That’s the sick joke of it. I’ve written a thousand songs about pain.
I bleed it into notebooks, into microphones, onto stages lit so brightly they make me feel holy for five minutes at a time.
I make strangers cry with words I can’t say when they matter.
But sitting here with Haven beside me, close enough that I can hear her breathing, I don’t know how to say the one thing that has been rotting inside me for years.
A bird sings in the trees, while a soft breeze rustles the leaves but the normally sweet sounds feels dangerous. It’s the kind of peace and quiet you see in a movie before everything explodes.
I turn in the wooden chair and stare at Haven as she sips her coffee. She looks softer somehow. Not weak. She could never look weak. But the last few days have taken a knife to both of us and left us trying to pretend we aren’t bleeding.
“I blamed you,” I say finally, and my voice is rough. “For years, I blamed you.”
Haven doesn’t speak. She just looks at me, and my heart races.
Fuck, I wish I could take that back.
I turn away because telling her the whole truth risks everything we’ve pieced together so far. But it is nothing more than a house of cards, just waiting to collapse. I drag a hand over my mouth and laugh once, but there’s nothing funny.
“Christ, I don’t know why I thought this wasn’t going to be hard to say. It should be hard. I should choke on it.”
“Cy—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Don’t make this easier for me. I don’t deserve easy. You asked me to open up, to let you in, to show you the whole truth.”
My words hang there like a knife swinging between us and threatening to cut us both.
I force myself to look at her then, and God, that’s a mistake, because Haven’s eyes have always been too honest, too green, and too fucking clear. They make me want to tell the truth even when I’d rather peel my own skin off.
“It was the birthday party,” I say. “Patrick’s eighteenth. At the beach house. You remember?”
Her throat moves when she swallows.
“Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night.”
Of course, she remembers. It’s in her journal. Stupid fucking question. I can add it to the list of all the other stupid shit I’ve done. I’m a fucking prick.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, hands clasped so tight my knuckles ache.
“After you left… Patrick confronted me.”
Haven gives nothing away. She just waits for me to continue.
“We’d argued about how I treated you before but this was different.
He was furious. I’d never seen him look at me like that.
Not really. Not like he wanted nothing to do with me.
He’d been angry at me before, but this…this was different.
We started yelling. He said he was sick of my shit. Sick of what I kept doing to you.”
My chest tightens just saying it. Even now, even after everything, I can hear Patrick’s voice clear as a bell. Anger in every word. Hurt in his eyes. Done.
“I hated that you two were so close. I called you a loser with no friends, but I was the loser. I wanted to crush every bit of joy you had and the two of you shared.” I close my eyes for half a second, but it doesn’t help.
“It was comforting to see you as miserable as I felt inside. I know it’s fucked up. ”
My hand trembles as I finish off my cup of coffee and gather my thoughts. Haven hasn’t moved. She sits still as a statue while her gaze pierces my chest and silently calls me a fucking asshole.
“Patrick said that I spent years treating you like garbage, and he stood there letting it happen, because he wanted me to be his friend. Because he liked writing with me. Because he got caught up in all the stupid dreams we had about music and getting out and becoming something bigger than where we came from.” I swallow hard.
“And then he said he was done. That was the last straw. He didn’t want to be my friend anymore. ”
Haven’s mouth parts slightly, and I can see the shock.
“I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. Telling you meant acknowledging that it was my fault,” I say. “I let you believe whatever the hell you wanted to believe, because the truth…” I laugh again, the sound broken. “The truth hurt too much.”
The silence stretches.
“He turned to leave.” My voice drops lower now. “I should’ve followed him. I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve apologized. I should’ve done about a thousand things that weren’t standing there like some arrogant piece of shit, too proud to admit that I’d gone too far.”
Haven is watching me, but I can’t look at her.
“What about our songs?” My throat closes around the memory. “That’s what I said as he walked away. Can you believe that? I didn’t tell him not to go. I never said, “Let’s fix this.” I’m sorry never even entered my mind. I asked him about our fucking songs.”
Tears I’ve never let fall fill my eyes as I finally turn to my judge, jury, and executioner. Pain moves across Haven’s face so fast I almost miss it.
“He told me to keep them. He said he didn’t want them. And you know what?” I pause and swallow the bile creeping up the back of my throat. “I was relieved. Fucking relieved.”
My chest aches, and I know that if I keep pushing words out, I’ll choke on them.
Haven’s voice is gentle when she says my name.
“Cyrus…”
“I let him leave angry,” I say over her, because I have to get this out before I can’t. “I let him get in that car drunk, furious, and alone. And then he died.”
There it is.
The thing.
The wound under every other wound.
I lock eyes with Haven, and I don’t try to hide any of it. Not the grief, the self-hatred, or the part of me that has been bleeding out for years behind wild parties, expensive sunglasses and stage lights.
“I killed him. It’s my fault that Patrick is dead. Our friend died because…you’re right…I do everything in excess. And that night, the one night I should’ve tackled him to the ground and taken his keys…I let him leave.”
Haven’s whole face changes.
“No,” she says immediately, shaking her head. “Cy, no.”
“Yes.”
“It was an accident.”
I burst from my seat.
“Don’t Haven. You can’t protect me from this.” A bitter laugh bubbles up as I run my hand through my hair. “I’ve been hiding behind the drugs, the drinking, the rehab, the rockstar image, and now...”
The words come out harsher than I mean them to, but once they’re out, I can’t take them back.
“He got behind that wheel because of me. Because I pushed, and pushed, and pushed until he hit his limit. That’s what I do, Haven. I take, and I push, and I keep going until there’s nothing left but damage. I destroy everything and everyone around me. It’s who I am.”
“Cy, you can’t take it all on yourself. That’s not fair—”
“Fair? You want fair? Fair would’ve been me losing everything back then, not you, not Patrick, me.
” I point at my chest. “I should’ve died that night, not him.
He was…” The tears can’t be held back, and I don’t bother trying to stop them.
“He was a good person. A good friend to me. He never would’ve let me leave drunk.
Why did I let him? Why was it more important that he gave me his music?
I’m a fucking piece of shit, Haven. I should’ve died, that’s the truth. ”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t cry. Haven has always been stronger than anyone else I know, and I hate that I helped build that strength with cruelty.
“I became the thing I hated most,” I say, quieter now. “That’s the part that I can’t outrun.”
She goes still, and I can tell she knows where this is going before I say it.
“My mother caused my father’s death,” I say.
“Maybe not with her own hands, maybe not in a way anyone could prosecute, but she did. Her affair, her lies, all of it…it broke him. And then she blamed me for it, because that’s what she does.
She twists facts and puts someone else’s name on the ugly truth. ”
My hands shake, and I look down at them with disgust.
“And I did the same fucking thing.”
Haven’s breath catches.
“I blamed you for Patrick,” I whisper and then dare to look the woman I have no business loving in the eyes.
“I didn’t do it out loud. Not in some clear, direct way.
But in my head? In the way I treated you after?
In every look, every word, every sick little thing I did to make you hurt even more because I was hurting?
Yeah. I did that. I made you carry something that was never yours. ”
Despite being outside, I feel like walls are closing in on me. I’m too hot. There isn’t enough air left on this planet for both of us, and I deserve to suffocate.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say, and the words crack coming out.
Gripping the deck railing, I suck in a deep breath and force myself to continue.
“Not my dad. Not the way I treated you. Not Patrick. Not my addiction. None of it was ever yours, Haven. But I put it on you anyway because I couldn’t stand to look at myself and admit what I’d done and who I’d become. ”
She stares at me as if I’ve knocked the world sideways. Maybe I have because it feels like the world is tilting under my feet.
Crossing my arms to try and stem the trembling, I lock eyes with Haven.
“I always went too far. That night at the party. The years before it. All of it. I kept telling myself that I was just messing with you and wasn’t really doing any harm. But I knew better. I’ve always known. I loved how much I hurt you because it made me feel better.”
My voice drops, and I barely recognize it.
“I loved you then. I love you now. I have since I was fifteen years old, and I will until the day I die.”
Haven doesn’t move.
“And fuck…I hated you for it. I hated what you pulled out of me, and that you saw things in me I didn’t want seen.
More than anything, I hated that Patrick loved you too, not like I do, but enough to choose you over me.
” My chest caves in around the truth. “And when he made his final choice…I let him walk away, and we both lost our best friend.”
A tear slides down Haven’s cheek. She doesn’t wipe it.
I almost go to her, but don’t.
“I had to lose both of you to understand what kind of man I was. Patrick died. You left. I stood there in the wreckage of what I created like some fucking idiot, blaming everyone but myself for everything I touched turning to ash. But deep down…I’ve spent every day hating myself.”
The words come easier now, as if all I had to do was cut deep enough to let the venom bleed out.
“I’m no better than my mother,” I say, and there’s no drama in my words. “I did the same thing she did. I hurt the people I loved most, then found a way to make someone else wear the guilt.”
Haven shakes her head immediately.
“No. Don’t do that. Don’t put yourself in the same box as her.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re here admitting it.” Haven slowly stands, her voice trembling, but it doesn’t break. “Because you’re taking responsibility.”
“That doesn’t bring him back. It doesn’t make what I did to you right.”
“No,” she says softly. “It doesn’t.”
The quiet between us aches in my chest. My heart hurts just like the rest of my body. The throbbing is sweet agony for all I’ve done.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and this time it isn’t one apology.
It’s all of them. “For every horrible word. For every bruise I left where nobody could see. For every time I laughed and watched something inside you shut down. For every ounce of guilt I was too cowardly to face until now. I’m so fucking sorry, Haven. ”
Her tears flow freely now, but she still somehow seems stronger than I’ll ever be.
Haven looks down at her hands.
“Patrick really said all that?”
“Yeah.”
A sad little smile touches her mouth and then vanishes.
“That sounds like him. The him that I grew up with.”
“It does.”
It’s agonizing watching Haven, and I have to turn away.
“I miss him every day,” I say.
“I know. So do I.”
She does know, she always has.
For once, I don’t look away from what I am. A coward. A bully. A grieving asshole who loved too violently and too late.
But Haven is still here with me, still listening.
“I can’t change what I did. You told me to tell you everything, and I meant it when I said that I want you to marry me. But you needed to hear the truth. Patrick’s death is on me. And I’m done putting my guilt where it doesn’t belong.”
Haven’s eyes hold mine as she steps up beside me and lays her hand on mine.
“I want to be angry with you. I want to hate you…but I can’t, and I think we’ve done enough of that. I genuinely think that after everything, if Patrick were still here, he wouldn’t want us at each other’s throats. I need a few minutes alone. I’m going for a walk.”
I grab her wrist before she can turn away as panic burns up my throat.
She doesn’t say anything, and it takes all my strength to release her and watch her walk down the steps to the sandy path that runs beside the water.
I keep my eyes on her until she disappears, and then I stumble over to the chair and collapse.
Pain sears through my body as years of pent-up emotions tear free. I hold out my hands, and they shake uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the wind.