Chapter Sixteen
Nick
Leah’s half of our bed is empty the next morning. The sun shining directly into my eyes wakes me. Her side of the bed is made, indicating she’s gotten up for the day. I assume she’s gone in the kitchen to share breakfast with the other early birds. I smile at the thought. My beautiful Leah enjoying a bowl of Cheerios in the early morning.
Stretching and yawning in bed, I think back to last night. I've never been in love before. My only past relationship, Katie, was close to love. Pretty damn close, but it wasn’t the same. She used me, used our band, and used her friendship with Carrie to get ahead. She never looked into my eyes the way Leah does. She never melted into my touch or came apart in my arms. All she had done was inspire plenty of music, and that’s it.
As much as I want to lay in bed and wait around for Leah to come back so I can show her how much she means to me once again, I need to get up. We have to get back on the road in a few hours. Back to normalcy where we’ll have to be on the lookout for her psycho ex-boyfriend.
Weird that’s considered normal now.
I change my clothes and pack my bag alone, noticing the emptiness that surrounds me when Leah’s gone. I know she’s just in the other room, but I never noticed how much I’ve come to depend on her these last few weeks. She’s always there, attached at my hip, anticipating what I'll need before I even ask. She's just so amazing and perfect. Fear that our relationship is only temporary has seemed to disappear in the night, making me surer than ever we’re on the right track.
I don’t regret last night. I can’t. It sucks to find out her past is so dark and there’s so much more I still don’t know, but I want to protect her. She’s willing to sacrifice her happiness out of worry she'd be an inconvenience. She’s selfless and caring. Genuine and beautiful. I plan to show her every day how much I love her. I want to cherish her in ways no one else ever has. And I hope it’ll be enough.
I make my way into the kitchen, greeting members from other bands in the process. I find my baby sister sitting on a stool at the bar with Sean. She’s obviously annoying him as he eats his breakfast. He ignores her blabbering in his ear as he eats his cereal. She notices me with a bright smile. "Morning, bro, how's Leah doing?"
I shrug. "I thought she was out here with you guys."
She shakes her head. "Nope. Thought you two were still sleeping." Her eyebrows scrunch together. "You two did makeup last night, right? I assumed that's what happened when you never came back out."
Nodding, I swallow the lump developing in my throat. Is Leah still here? She has to be. "Yeah, we made up…” Is it okay to discuss what happened between us last night? Eh, screw it. "I told her I loved her."
My sister grins, punching me on the arm. "You stupid motherfucker. Did she say it back?"
I nod, grinning along with her. "Yeah. She said it back."
"Congrats," Sean says in his monotone voice with a small smile. "Where is she, though? Her stuff's not in the van. I just packed up our shit."
I blink. "No? Her stuff's not in the room either."
Carrie's eyes widen. "You don't think…”
"She ran off," Michael announces from behind me, making me jump.
My hand is at my heart as I turn around, glaring at him. "Don't scare people on crutches, man."
He shrugs noncommittally, crossing his arms and walking further into the kitchen. The other guests aren’t paying attention to the four of us. He takes the seat next to Sean then twists around to face us. "She's gone. I saw her load her shit into a taxi early this morning."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Carrie asks, her tone sharp.
My hands clench at my sides. She left? Why? She didn't leave a note. She didn't text or call. She didn't wake me to tell me. She has no family that I know of, so I doubt it was an emergency.
She’s running from us now. We made love, I poured my heart out to her, and she ran.
Michael doesn’t seem to give a shit as he shrugs again, grabbing an apple from the center of the island. "If she wants to go, let her go. I wasn't gonna chase her down and make her stay. She's an adult."
"Nick loves her, you idiot!" Carrie yells, making the kitchen stir now. The conversations surrounding us comes to a halt as everyone stops and stares. Tears fall from Carrie's eyes as she covers her mouth before rushing out of the room. Sean quickly follows behind her.
Michael continues to sit in the chair, unaffected. He glances at me then sighs. "Look, man, I'm sorry. Didn't know you loved her and all that, but she has a right to leave. After the fucked-up shit from last night, she might need to be alone. Figure her shit out. Jumping from an abusive ex to you… It's not healthy, man."
I shake my head, knowing he’s not saying anything I don’t already know. Should have already known.
I let out a heavy sigh as I slump into the seat beside him. My hand runs over my face before going through my hair. "I thought I convinced her to stay," I finally manage to mumble.
"Ah," he observes. "See? She did want to leave.” He pats my shoulder. “If she really loves you, man, she'll come back. She's from Austin, right? She knows where you live. She's got your number. She knows the goddamn tour schedule. She'll show back up when she's ready."
"How can you be so sure?"
He shrugs, taking the last bite of his apple before tossing it across the room into the trash. "I’m not."
I blink again, my shoulders slumping at the realization she might actually be gone for good. It’s like my heart has been ripped out of my chest then simply thrown away. How could she do this to me? After everything we shared.
"Don't worry so much, man," Michael says, clapping a hand on my back, bringing me back from my thoughts. "You'll find her. I just know it." He gives me an encouraging smile for the first time since I’ve known him.
I don’t want to believe it’s true, but I have to trust him. There isn’t much else I can do. She’s gone, and I don’t know where she went. All I can do is finish this tour.
✵ ✵ ✵
Our first day back on the road is depressing.
Carrie drove herself crazy with worry over Leah the first few minutes. "What if she went back to that guy?" my sister asked, voicing my exact fears. What if she did? She'd been with the man for God-only-knows how long, and it was possible she could have gone back. "What if he convinced her?"
"We can't control other people, Car," Michael had said from the front seat, his version of comforting. "She's gone, and there's nothing any of us can do about it. We just gotta get through this tour and get back home in one piece. We still got each other."
Listen to that. The voice of reason. Michael is a cold S.O.B., but I guess that makes him helpful for situations like this. Sean stays quiet, as usual, but Carrie and I are falling apart. We’re way too attached to some girl we only met a month ago. I know most of Carrie's hurt is because she knows I’m hurting, but it’s still just so hard to see her this way.
My hand finds her shoulder and squeezes. Her sad eyes find mine, then she puts her hand over mine. Sean puts on one of her favorite playlists, and it takes a few minutes before she eventually starts singing along, her mood drastically improving when I still feel like absolute shit. My sister has three modes: despair, rage, and annoying.
The last is the least worrisome of the three.
Our next show is in Atlanta in a few days. There’s a festival going on where we could camp out for free until we were up to perform. Then we’ll be traveling be down into Florida where anything could happen. I’m not looking forward to Alligator Alley.
The six-hour drive dragged on for so long without Leah by my side. I texted her a few times, asking where she went, seeing if she was okay, but she never responded. That bothered me the most. It wasn't just the fact that she left, because I could live with that. She needed space? She needed time? Sure, baby, have all the time in the world, and I'll be right here when you’re ready.
No, it was the fact that she didn't say a single word about it. She didn't contact me a single time, so I'd at least know she was okay. She could be with that ex-boyfriend of hers—whoever he was and whatever the fuck he was capable of. It made me afraid for her. So scared it had me shaking sometimes.
Alcohol helped. Michael and Sean kept us boozed most of the night. At some point, Sean and Carrie made out in front of everyone, so there was that. Michael went off with some girl, and I was alone. A few girls passed by, pouting as they mentioned my leg, offering to make it all better. Even if I weren't in love with Leah I'd say no, but the pain in my chest made me vulnerable.
I didn't have sex with any of those girls, but I let them sit close to me. I let one girl kiss on my neck and rub her hand over my crotch before I told her I was too drunk. She quickly moved on to another guy who pulled her into his tent without reservation. She deserved that. Not some weird pity/rebound fuck with some dude who has a broken leg.
I was almost too drunk to recognize Leah’s ex. He stood at the edge of the field, scanning the area with another guy, equally menacing, standing behind him. Leaning on my elbows to get a good look, the bastard notices me.
The guy has these unruly eyes and a scrunched-up face. He’s jacked, with shaggy blonde hair and tanned skin. He looks like a model for bodybuilding as he stalks over to our tent. The idea of her getting thrown around by that monster of a man makes my stomach turn. It made complete sense that she'd had nowhere to run. The dude is terrifying, but I have to stand my ground.
"Where's Leah?" he asks once he’s close enough for me to hear. His friend's eyes glare into mine, and I’m totally fucked. I’m decent in a fight when all my limbs are working properly, but it’s two against one, and one of them looks like he ate a man for breakfast.
"Don't know," I respond.
He glances around our little camp spot. I hadn't realized the rest of my bandmates joined me at some point. Carrie offers her arm to help me stand straight so I can look the scary fucker right in the eye. One thing is for sure, Leah hasn’t gone back to him. If that isn’t some sort of victory, I don’t know what is.
Her ex is impatient as he steps forward, bulging arms crossed over his chest. Michael stands front and center, placing his hand on the dude's chest. "Back up, man. She’s not here. We don't know where she went."
“Even if we did,” Carrie adds, standing tall right next to Michael, “we wouldn’t tell you. She’s none of your business.”
The dude laughs in that kind of evil way they do in the movies. All maniacal and creepy. "She's still my business. She'll always be my business." He glances at me and chuckles. "What, man? You think you're the first guy she ran off with? She'll be back. She always comes back to me, because she knows I'll find her and drag her back if I need to. She owes me."
"She doesn't owe you shit," Michael borderline hisses. My friend has much bigger balls than I thought. "Either way, she's not with us. She ran off."
The guy's eyes sparkle at that news. He smiles in a way that gives me the chills. He looks right at me. "Just so you know, she felt sorry for you, man." He points to my cast. "I’m the one who gave you that. Ran you right off the road while she sucked my cock. I knew I should have dragged her back to my truck, but she'd already called an ambulance. If I'd known she'd run off with a sorry fuck like you, I wouldn't have let her stay." He shrugs. "Guess that's what I get for being nice."
“You fucking liar!” Carrie practically screams, launching herself at him before Sean and Michael pull her back again. And I’m frozen. Everything becomes surreal, like an out of body experience, as I watch arms aggressively move from one another until the fight is broken up by other campers and two cops on duty.
The guy smirks as finally agrees to go. His eyes find mine one last time. "Stay away from Leah and you won't have to deal with me again, understood?"
Everyone looks at me, but I still can’t speak. I don’t say a damn thing as the guy and his buddy turn away and stalk off into the darkness from which they came.
Carrie throws herself in my arms. "Are you okay?” she asks, her voice shaking. She pulls back enough to look up into my eyes. She’s searching for something. I don’t know what. “Why didn't you lay into that guy? Why didn’t you say anything?"
I shrug, not sure who I am or what I believe. Carrie and the rest brushed his comment off as if it were a lie, but was it? Leah never explained how she found me. She always kept anything that had to do with him secret. Always protecting him. Always looking out for his best interest. Maybe he was right about her. I was a sorry fuck she used to create some drama.
"Whatever,” I finally scoff, my eyes stinging at the gravity of it all. I don’t want to be on this tour anymore. I don’t even want to be awake to live through it right now. “If she always goes back to him, then she'll go back to him."
All three blink at me. "Okay, you've had too much to drink," Sean claims. "There's no way she'd go back to that creep. He scares her. She told me before we even left on this tour."
I stare at him. “You knew?”
"We both did," Carrie joins in, putting her hand on my chest as an attempt to calm me. It isn’t working. "Don’t be mad."
I shrug again, this time shoving Carrie away from me. “I can’t trust anyone, can I?”
“Nick, no,” Carrie pleads, trying to grab my arm again as I collect my crutches and push her away again.
“She made us promise not to say anything,” Sean adds, as if that would fix anything.
I shake my head at them both. “Just leave me alone.”
I go back to our tent alone, then duck inside, wishing I was somewhere else, living someone else’s life. Was that asshole telling the truth about my leg? Was that how Leah found me? She felt guilty because her shitty boyfriend put someone else's life in danger.
She took pity on me then used me to get away from him. She used me the way Katie had to get money and connections. Leah used us to escape. Why do I have to wear my heart on my sleeve? I do the same shit to myself time and time again. I let pretty girls use me, but this will be the last time I play hero. Fool me once. Fool me twice. I won’t be fooled again.