Chapter Thirteen
Lennon
“I gotta tell you, Len, I never thought you had it in you.”
I continue clearing our gear off the stage after rehearsal, refusing to acknowledge Cash and wishing, for the millionth time in my life, that there was a way to mute my older brother.
He bumps my shoulder with his. “I mean, really, dude. She’s pretty hot.”
“She is quite attractive,” Daltrey adds, joining us by the amps to help us roll some cords. “What’s she doing hanging out with you?”
“She’s also a lot cooler than you. I mean, she’s a proper rock star. Adventurous. Fun. Not some lame-o book-reading dork.”
“Do you try to sound like a Neanderthal, or does it happen naturally?”
Cash snickers, and I finally give in to the urge to glare at him. “Hey now.” He holds up his hands as if in self-defense. “Give us a little leeway here, Len. You never tell us about the girls you’re into.”
“He’s right,” Daltrey says. “We never get the chance to mess with you about this shit. We’re overdue.”
“Which is why I never tell you about the girls I’m into,” I say.
“Hmm.” Cash rubs his chin. “Good point. But it’s too late now. I saw the two of you sucking face in the elevator last night.”
“Not to mention how you spent all your time in the museum alone together.” Daltrey waggles his eyebrows at me. “Doing God knows what upstairs where no one could see you.”
“This is a banner day for you, Dalt,” I say as I stand, finished with the cords. “I actually want to punch your face more than Cash’s.”
He grins. “I’m honored.”
“What’s going on?” Levi asks, joining us. “Why am I loading all your instruments for you?”
“Because it’s your job?” Cash earns himself a jab in the ribs from our tour manager for that.
“We’re just giving Lennon a hard time,” Daltrey says. “You know. Because he has a girlfriend.” He uses an exaggerated whisper on the last word.
“Because they’re so mature,” I add.
“I don’t know, Len,” Levi says, resting his elbow on Cash’s shoulder as he appraises me. “You never really give us a chance to mess with you about this stuff.”
“That’s exactly what I said!” Cash agrees excitedly.
“So maybe it’s kind of your turn.”
As annoying as they all are, the truth is, I’m having trouble making myself care too much. It’s hard to get worked up about people teasing me for the thing that’s making me happier than I’ve been in ages.
“You too, Levi?” I ask, shaking my head in disappointment. “I expected more.”
“Daltrey!” Reed barks from the other side of the stage. “What the hell is your guitar doing on my stand?”
Dalt rolls his eyes at us. “You think he’s ever going to get the stick out of his ass?”
“What are you guys doing?” Reed yells. “Why is no one working?”
“I doubt it,” Cash says to Daltrey. “Come on, better get the rest of this cleared before he loses his shit.” They cross the stage to help Reed while I bend to put my bass back in its case.
“You okay with that?” Levi asks, kneeling next to me. He answers my questioning look by gesturing at the retreating backs of my brothers. “The teasing, I mean. I know they can be kind of annoying—”
“They? You’re leaving yourself out of this?”
He shrugs sheepishly. “I just kind of figured it was better than them worrying, you know? Treating you like normal.”
“Messing with each other is pretty normal Ransom behavior,” I agree. “You have a point. I would take that crap over the incessant worrying any day.”
“You about done here?” Reed asks, coming up behind us.
“Just about.” I stand and dust off the knees of my jeans. “We heading back to the hotel?”
Levi glances at his watch. “You guys have two interviews this afternoon,” he says. “The reporters are coming here.”
I groan. The last thing I feel like doing today is sitting in a room with my brothers answering questions. We only have three more days in Paris, and I want to spend them out in the city. Preferably with Haylee.
Her face flashes through my mind, the way she looked when I left her room this morning. She was laughing as I went in for one last kiss before the door closed, dressed in nothing but one of my old band shirts, her hair loose around her face. On second thought, maybe we didn’t need to spend time out in the city after all. Her room would suffice. Or mine.
“Sorry,” Levi says sympathetically. “We’ll try to get them out of here pretty quick. And I’ll order some lunch so you’re not starving while you wait.”
“Thanks, Levi.” He pulls out his phone and walks away, presumably arranging our meal, leaving me standing with Reed on the side of the stage.
“How’s it going?” he asks, voice careful.
I suppress a sigh. “It’s going really good, Reed. How about you?”
He doesn’t answer, his eyes on my face. “I heard about you and Haylee.”
“Yeah?” If he detects the warning in my voice, he ignores it.
“Yeah. You, uh, sure that’s what you want to be doing right now?”
“I’m sure it’s none of your business.”
He sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I’m just—”
“Worried? How shocking.”
“Lennon, come on.”
“No, Reed. I’m so fucking tired of this.” I realize that I’m clenching my fists, and I force myself to relax. “I’m happier about this than I’ve been about anything in a really long time. If you think that’s a problem, something to worry about, well, you can keep it to yourself, okay?”
“Lennon—”
Rescue comes from an unlikely place. “I think that’s enough, Reed,” my dad says, coming up behind us. “Why don’t you head back to the dressing room. I want to talk to your brother.”
Awesome. So now he’ll lecture me instead of Reed. But, to my surprise, he smiles once Reed has left the stage. “You look good, son. You’ve been getting some rest?”
Caught off guard, I nod. “Yeah. The schedule has been pretty great. Especially this week. Uh, thanks for that.”
He waves his hands dismissively. “I want you boys to enjoy this experience. Besides, what’s the point of all that hard work all these years if we never get to enjoy the fruits of our labor?”
Wow, is this really my dad? I study his face, noticing that he seems better rested as well. The worry lines, so prominent since my accident, have faded a bit, the dark circles under his eyes gone.
“So. Haylee Hunt.”
I don’t think I’ve ever discussed girls, any girl, with my dad before. He’s avoided any hint of emotional stuff for as long as I can remember. “Uh, yeah,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting. “She’s, you know. Pretty great.”
“I’m sure she is.” His slightly strained voice betrays his words a bit. He’s never been very good at letting women into our circle, though he’s done a better job at hiding his displeasure since Daisy and Paige decided to stick around. “Does she… does she know what happened?”
I can’t meet his eyes. “Yeah. I told her.”
He nods. “I’m glad. That you can talk to her, I mean. I think that’s important.”
My head snaps up to look at him, but he’s looking away now. “Yeah?”
“I do,” he says. “I don’t want you to bottle things up so much. And I know your brothers aren’t always the easiest to talk to.”
I can’t help sniggering at that, and he grins, the awkwardness disappearing. “None of us has ever done emotional maturity very well,” he says wryly. “I’m sure you have me to thank for that.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. We could always get better.”
The grin slips from his face as his expression becomes more serious. He watches me for a long moment before nodding. “Yeah. We could definitely get better.” He shakes his head, and I can tell he’s uncomfortable with the double meaning of his words. Emotional maturity indeed. “All right, you should get back there. I’ll be in for the first interview.”
“Thanks, Dad.” But as I turn to go, he reaches out and grasps my shoulder.
“Lennon… you know you can talk to me too, right?”
I turn back to face him. “Sure, Dad.”
“I mean that. I know I might not seem like the best person to confide in—”
“You’re fine, Dad. You’ve always been fine.” I take a deep breath. “I mean, that’s why I asked you for help before, right? Because I knew I could trust you.”
He draws in a ragged breath, and I realize, not for the first time, how much it must have hurt him, to have my brothers turn on him so fiercely. He’s been keeping a low profile on this tour, barely around when we hang out in the venues or out in the cities. I assumed he was trying to make it easier for them. But maybe it’s easier for him too.
He swallows a few times, and I get the distinct impression he’s finding it difficult to talk.
“I’m gonna head back,” I tell him, my voice soft. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
He nods, eyes on the floor. If we were different people, I would hug him. But when it comes to family stuff, my emotional maturity is about as stunted as my brothers’. Luckily my phone rings, saving both of us from any more embarrassing displays of emotion. “Gotta get this,” I say quickly. “See you.”
“See you,” he says, his voice a lot more steady now as I head to the wings.
A quick glance at the screen tells me it’s Haylee. I’m grinning when I bring the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Just the slightly raspy sound of her voice makes my heart rate pick up. “Whatcha doing?”
“Heading to a lame interview,” I say. “Which means hanging out with my brothers for the foreseeable future. Aren’t I lucky?”
“Damn,” she says. “I was hoping you’d be free. We just finished our rehearsal.”
Something about her calling me right after rehearsal makes me grin like an idiot, and I lean against the wall, feeling stupid and happy at the same time. “I’ll definitely try to hurry,” I say. “We still on for dinner?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “But that’s ages away.”
If I thought I was grinning like a fool before…
“I’ll get out of here as soon as I can,” I say. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”
“Okay. Talk to you soon.”
I slip my phone back into my pocket and turn in the direction of the dressing room, practically jumping out of my skin when I see Cash leaning against the same wall just a few feet away. “Oh, man, it’s worse than I thought,” he says, shaking his head. “You should see the soppy look on your face right now.”
“Whatever,” I say, way too happy to care.
He grins back. “Why don’t you get out of here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just go. Hang out with your girl. We can handle a couple interviews without you.”
“I don’t think—”
“Dude, you’re just the bass player.” He smirks. “No one gives a shit about the bass player.”
“Thanks,” I say, but I’m laughing.
“I mean it. You should go see Haylee.”
It’s tempting, definitely tempting. But I’m also not really in the mood to deal with Reed right now. “What do you think our drummer would have to say about this plan?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ll handle Reed. I’ll tell him you’re sick or something.”
“You know, now that you mention it, my head has been bugging me.”
He laughs. “Which is totally understandable, considering you’ve been listening to all of our shit today, right?”
“Right.”
He takes a step toward me. “Seriously, Len. Just go. What I said about her being more adventurous than you?”
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s really good for you, to be with someone like that. I think she’s good for you. So go have fun.” He shakes his head. “God knows you deserve it.”
Wow. I’m actually a little touched by that. “And you’ll take the heat for me?”
He shrugs. “I figure I owe you one.”
“For what?”
He thinks for a moment before grinning. “I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ve bailed me out more than once.”
“When you put it like that, I’m sure you owe me several.”
He laughs, pushing my shoulders. “We’ll start with this one. Go have fun. Enjoy your day. And tell Haylee I said hi.” Then he turns to go, leaving me still grinning like a fool, this time for totally different reasons.
“Thanks, Cash!” I call after him, and he responds by flipping me off over his shoulder. Typical. I’m still laughing when I pull out my phone to call Haylee back.
***
“Isn’t this illegal?” Haylee asks many hours later as we sit on the embankment next to the river.
“What?” I ask, and she holds up our bottle of wine.
“They don’t have open container rules over here?”
“I actually have no idea.” I grab the bottle from her and take a swig. “But I’m willing to risk it.”
She grins, reaching for the wine. “Look at you, Mister Reckless Behavior.”
I laugh, leaning back on my elbows to look up at the stars, dim in the light of the city around us. “I just figure you can’t have bread and cheese by the Seine in Paris without wine.”
“It does add to the experience,” she says, mimicking my pose. Her fingers are close enough to reach over and touch, so I do, loving the barely audible sigh that escapes her lips at the contact. I wonder if that will ever get old, our physical reaction to each other. It’s hard to imagine.
“This was a good day,” she says quietly. “Remind me to thank Cash.”
“Oh, he’ll remind you. It’s not that he never does anything nice for someone else, but when he does, he thinks he should brag about it for months. Years, sometimes.”
She laughs softly. “I’ll be happy to thank him for this. It was perfect.”
Since my premature escape from band responsibilities, we’d enjoyed a few hours of catching up in my hotel room before embarking on an afternoon of lazy wandering around the city. We’d been to Notre Dame, walking through the nearly silent cathedral, the soaring ceilings and gorgeous stained glass stretching far overhead. After that we’d wandered through the maze-like bookshelves in the English-language Shakespeare and Company bookstore, Haylee humoring me for a good twenty minutes before declaring herself too bored to breathe.
By then it was getting dark, so we grabbed a nighttime cruise down the Seine, where we could see the city all lit up around us. The views of the Eiffel tower from the boat were pretty perfect, and I kissed her as we passed underneath. She called me cheesy and romantic, but she smiled while she said it, and that was good enough for me.
She sighs, the sound drawing me from my thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Just thinking about how close we are to the end of the tour.”
I frown, not wanting to think about that. After we finish in Paris, we’ll head to Amsterdam and Berlin before going to London for four shows. And that will be it. We’ll be heading home so Daisy can be near her doctors as she heads into the last weeks of her pregnancy. And Haylee will…
“Let’s not think about that yet,” I say. “We still have two weeks.”
“True. And I am really excited for London. Think we’ll go to Abbey Road?”
I sling an arm around her shoulder. “I think we’ll do whatever you want.”
She nestles her head against my chest a little. “I like the sound of that.” We sit like that for a few minutes, watching the water rippling in the light from a streetlamp above. “We’ve done so much since we got to Stockholm,” she says. “I kind of can’t believe I’ve been to all these places.”
“Just imagine how much better you’ll be at Never Have I Ever.”
She sits up straight and turns to me, her eyes glittering. “What about you, buddy? You haven’t upped your Never Have I Ever abilities at all.”
“What does that mean?”
She waves her hands as if to encompass Paris around us. “You’ve already been here. You’ve been to all these places! You haven’t added any brand new experiences since you left the States.”
I let my gaze run down her body. “I’ve added a few new experiences.”
She rolls her eyes, smacking my arm. “I highly doubt sleeping with Haylee Hunt is going to be a question. You need to have new universal experiences.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really. And what did you have in mind?”
She thinks for a moment, and then a grin stretches across her face. Her eyes travel from my face to the water and back again. “I recall you not taking candy for the skinny-dipping question.”
“We’re not skinny-dipping here.”
“Why not?” She waggles her eyebrows. “Scared?”
“Of swimming in this river? Yes, I am, actually. It’s deep, and it’s dark, and I have no idea what kind of current there is. And there are boats to maul us with their motors.”
Her face falls. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Plus, we could get arrested.”
“There’s that…” She watches the water for a bit before her face lights up. “But we could still go skinny-dipping.”
“What about—”
“Not here.” She jumps up and grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet.
“Where are we going?” I’m a little nervous. I shouldn’t have brought up that damn game.
“We’re going back to the hotel.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. “So we can go skinny-dipping in the shower?”
She laughs, the sound more than a little wicked, and my relief fades a little. Maybe this whole hanging out with someone more adventurous than me wasn’t such a positive thing after all. “No. In the pool.”
***
After a perfect day with Haylee—including skinny-dipping in the hotel pool, which we miraculously didn’t get caught doing—we fall asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.
And that night, I dream of my mother.
The dream is familiar to me, one I’ve had a hundred times before. As soon as I see where I’m standing—the middle of our living room back in California, the green carpet scratchy beneath my feet—I know what this dream will entail. It’s always the same.
I’m in the living room, playing with one of those ball and paddle toys, the kind where the rubber ball is attached with a string and you have to keep it bouncing on the top of the paddle. It’s Cash’s toy, and I know he’ll be mad at me if he sees me playing with it, but he’s out in the woods behind our house with the other boys. I was going to go with them, but I knew Cash would want to catch frogs in the creek, and I hate catching frogs. Not because they’re gross or scary—I actually really like frogs. Besides, I’m big now, and only babies are scared of stuff like that. But I hate catching them, hate taking them from their cozy homes, hate scaring them. I know my brothers would never hurt a frog—they don’t do things like that. But whenever I look down at their little faces, their eyes wide and blinking, their chests moving so fast, I just know that they’re scared. And it makes my tummy hurt.
Besides, Mom is in a good mood today, and I thought if I stayed with her we might get to do something fun. Maybe she would take me on one of her errands, to the bank or the grocery store or some other boring adult place. But it wouldn’t be boring because I’d be with Mom. I’m the only one she ever takes with her on her errands. The other boys are too loud—I’m the only one who can be quiet.
She comes out into the living room, her purse in her hand, and I stand, excited. She looks over at me, and she’s not smiling. Her eyes are kind of wide, her hair coming out of its ponytail. Her hands are shaking. For a minute I think I should sit back down, play with Cash’s toy. Or maybe run out to the woods and find my brothers. Because I don’t really like how sad Mom looks right now. And I don’t like how she’s not saying anything.
But then she holds out her hand to me, and I go right to her. No matter how many times I have this dream, I always go right to her. Even as my stomach tightens in fear, even as my conscious brain argues that I do not want to go, I do not want to get in that car, still I go with her. Every time.
I jerk awake, my heart pounding, my body drenched in sweat. It’s dark in the room, and for a moment I can’t breathe.
“Lennon?”
I jerk again at the sound of Haylee’s voice. I’ve forgotten all about her, have forgotten she stayed with me. I try to focus on what happened here in this bed only a few short hours ago, try to focus on the happiness I felt, on how right it was. Anything to escape from the dark, terrified something that seems to claw at my chest, wanting to get out.
“Lennon?” She’s more awake now, sitting up in the dark, reaching for me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I manage, but my voice is strained. Shaking.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Haylee leans over me, brushing hair from my face, and I can see her eyes in the darkness. They’re wide, a little afraid. “You’re freezing cold.”
Funny, I felt so hot.
But then, I always feel hot in that dream. Not just warm, not just uncomfortable. I feel hot—burning hot.
“Lennon?”
“I’m fine,” I say again, my voice a little more normal. “Nightmare.”
“I thought so.” She kisses my forehead, brushes my hair back some more. I love her so much at night, in the darkness. All the hard, rock-chick walls come down and reveal something softer. Something sweeter. She kisses my head again, her long fingers rubbing lightly across my shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”
What would I even say? How could I explain to her the way the dream filled me with such terror when absolutely nothing had happened? My mom had offered to take me out on her errands. Real scary. “No, it’s fine.”
Her fingers move up to my head now, the motion comforting. Almost maternal. “You’re okay now.”
You’re okay now. Her words hit me with all the force of a freight train, and I’m sitting up straight in bed, hardly noticing that I’ve pushed her away. There’s no air left in this room, and my skin feels so hot again, as hot as if it’s burning, and I can’t breathe.
Because for the first time in my life I remember more of that dream. It didn’t end when I took my mom’s hand and left the house.
And I’m pretty sure it isn’t just a dream.
“Lennon?” Haylee sounds scared now, terrified really, and I feel her hands at my back, reaching for me. There’s a terrible gasping noise in the room, and it takes me a minute to realize that it’s coming from me. Haylee jumps from the bed, and a few seconds later I hear the unmistakable sound of the window opening, and then there’s a sudden gust of cool air, right across my face.
I breathe in as deeply as I can, the air like water to a dying man. But it’s not enough. I stumble from the bed, tangled in the sheets, and go straight to the window, sucking in the fresh air.
“Lennon.” Haylee’s voice is still scared, but there’s something else there too, some note of authority. “Do your breathing exercises.”
Funny, I had no idea she knew about my exercises. I try to remember what Daisy told me, how she managed her panic attacks. In through the nose, hold. Out, slowly. Repeat. It seems impossible to take slow, even breaths when I am sure I am suffocating. Then Haylee’s hand is on my back again, her fingers cold against my burning skin, and I find I can focus a little better. In through the nose, hold. Out, slowly. Repeat.
I don’t know how long I stand there, trying to get my breathing under control. I know that when I finally step away from the window, far from being hot, I’m shivering. Then I look up and see Haylee, still standing inches from me, dressed only in my T-shirt. Her entire body is shaking.
“Shit,” I mutter, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her to the bed. I fling the quilt around her, rubbing her arms through the thick material. “You shouldn’t have stayed by the window like that.”
“As if I was going to leave you,” she says, her teeth chattering.
A sick wave of shame rushes through me. I did this to her. Because that’s what you do, a voice in my head whispers, quiet and dangerous. You make things worse for people.
“I’m sorry,” I say, determined to ignore those words. It’s a common enough refrain in my head, and certainly nothing good has ever come from indulging it.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says, and she seems to be warming up because she’s no longer visibly shaking. “Lennon, what just happened?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I had a nightmare.”
“But you freaked out after you woke up.”
“I know.” I have no idea how to explain what I just experienced. What I was pretty sure I remembered about that day my brothers went to catch frogs. Because it didn’t make any sense. Why would my mother taking me to run an errand end that way? Me in a hospital bed, my dad crying and saying the same words over and over. You’re okay now.
I was never in the hospital as a little kid. Never had my tonsils out or broke a bone or any of the other dumb kid stuff that happened to my brothers. I’ve spent my fair share of nights in a hospital bed in the last few years, the product of my own stupid decisions, but never as a kid.
Right?
“Lennon?” Haylee asks, shaking my shoulder a little. “I’m scared. Should I call Reed—?”
“No.”
“Your dad? I mean, has this ever happened before?”
Has it happened before? Have little bits and pieces of dreams come back to me in those few suspended moments between sleep and waking? Is that what I was feeling all those times something seemed to be fighting to break loose in my brain? Were those memories?
“That dream really shook me up,” I say, forcing my voice to be calm. Because if I let myself get upset right now, if I let myself think about this, I’m going to lose it.
If those are memories trying to break through, I know only one thing—I don’t want to remember.
“I think I wasn’t really awake yet,” I say. “So it made me jumpy.”
“That was more than jumpy.”
“Can we just lie down?” I ask, and it occurs to me that I’m not meeting her eyes. “I just want to go back to sleep.”
“Lennon—”
“Please, Haylee.”
She sighs, and it’s a long moment before she relents. “Okay.”
I collapse back into my pillow, pulling the sheets smooth over my legs. Haylee unwraps the quilt from around her shoulders and spreads it over us both, resuming her place in my arms. For the first time since we met, I’m barely aware of the fact that I’m touching her.
I feel numb.
“I wish you would tell me what you dreamed about,” she says in the darkness.
“I’d rather not think about it. Maybe some other time. I really just want to sleep now.”
She presses a kiss into my shoulder, her hand warm on my chest. I can feel its pressure, but that’s all. There’s no warmth, no spark. Nothing.
“Then sleep well.”
“You too.”
I don’t know how much time passes before her breathing evens out and I can be sure she’s asleep. I only know that I’m awake for it, just like I’m awake for the sun rising a few hours later. In fact, I don’t sleep again all night.