“You’re also a self-proclaimed liar,” I felt my lower lip trembling like a leaf.

“I’m not lying to you now. I promise.”

“You let her get away with murder.” My voice pitched high, too high, and I became dizzy again. He scooted toward me, and I slapped his hand away when he tried to take mine. “No.”

“I would’ve never let her get away with it had I really known. I didn’t know. I just suspected, but half the fucking time I was seeing and feeling things that weren’t there. I was paranoid. And shit-faced. No matter how bad it looked, I chose to overlook it and buy what she was telling me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to take the next breath. I missed Mom. I missed Dad. I missed normalcy, and Saturday dinners, and Christmases, and even the dreaded Sunday mass. I missed the opportunity and promise of being normal, whole; I missed my big brother and how he took care of me. I even missed the great father Craig could have been to Ziggy, had Alex picked up the phone and called 911 when Fallon came home that night.

Then, maybe, my mother would have survived.

Then, maybe, I wouldn’t be on this tour, my heart shattering into a million pieces as I tried to hold it together, feeling like my pain was bursting at the seams, my whole existence gathered together with pins and needles stapled by my old sewing machine.

“Consider this my official resignation,” I said, eyes still closed.

“No,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“I wouldn’t push me, Alex. You’ve done enough. Respect my wishes and let me go.” I opened my eyes now, staring at him, at everything that he was. A traitor I’d opened the door to and willingly let into my life. It had taken him mere weeks to slip from the hallway and into my domain. He’d conquered every single inch of me and used it against me, unbeknownst to him. I didn’t see his beauty, his sex appeal, or his dazzling bone structure. I didn’t see the funny, complex, tortured guy I wanted so badly to fix. All I saw was a broken prince with pleading eyes who was on the verge of tears. Man tears. Not angry or exasperated or annoyed. But real and sad and deep.

All broken princes die. Hadn’t he said that? Maybe he was right. The scariest part was that, at that moment, I wanted him to be right.

I smiled, surprising myself. I didn’t know I had a mean streak, but I guess Alex had dug it out from deep within me and dumped it onto the morgue table along with my heart. I knew that once he’d find my poem—the one I’d written after our night in his childhood bedroom—he’d see why this was over. Why we could never be together.

“If you leave me,” he said, “you take my soul with you.”

“It’s always been my soul,” I said, my tone quiet and defiant. “You don’t have a soul. Not for a very long time. You proved it by turning a blind eye all those years ago when you could have saved my mom. You don’t need me. You need you . Time for you to pack a bag and travel the different planets. Find your soul, Alex. You’ll never truly be happy without it.”

S he left me a note.

On a sheet of paper.

From a notepad.

My notepad.

The notepad I’d used to write songs. Songs she’d inspired. Songs that were meant for her, and maybe even to her, and held her legacy, each word pregnant with so much more than its meaning. It was a cross between a poem and a letter. About us. About me. About the fucked-up thing that we were. Then, underneath it, underlined and in red, something else. More recent. The ink pressed so hard against the paper, it had torn around the letters.

You’re beautiful, Alex, but you’re empty. No one could die for you. And no one should have died because of you. –Indie

She’d quoted The Little Prince , and somehow, that hurt even more. The Little Prince was ours. I’d written her a song about him—and she’d twisted it against me. It dawned on me, in a Parisian hotel that looked exactly like all the rest, but also very different, that I’d finally found her. The girl who was worth all these songs I’d written. Then I’d lost her. The girl whose life I’d helped ruin.

There was a light at the end of the cold, dark tunnel of my existence: even I knew I couldn’t cancel the remainder of “Letters from the Dead” tour. Jenna was going to rip me a new one and stuff it with dynamite if I even mentioned such possibility. The insurance company was on my case, my record company breathed its rancid, corporate breath down my neck, and I was actually making a decent comeback and building a buzz around my next untitled album. Besides, my mates relied on me. Mates who, as much as I wanted to kill, I owed, too. Our relationship was messy and abnormal and completely off the rails. They constantly betrayed me in a bid to bring me back to life. And it had worked.

Until now.

I made a promise to myself that no matter how this shit was going to pan out, I was going to make sure Fallon did the right thing by Stardust and her family.

I stood by the kitchen island of my hotel suite, clutching her note until my fingers almost snapped. The scent of Indie was still in my nostrils and on my pillow and inside my fucking guts, when the door behind me opened. I’d been trying to get high off of bath salts unsuccessfully for twenty minutes when Lucas walked in and shut the door behind him.

Yeah, I was using again. Or at least trying. Shit, I wasn’t even good at being a drug addict. How embarrassing was that?

“Don’t even think about it.” I sniffed, trying to light up the little rocks of salt. How the fuck could you get high on them? I needed new mates. New, young, loser mates who’d teach me how to get high on pathetic things. And it hadn’t even been a full four hours since she’d left. I dreaded to think how I’d fare a week from now. Heroine? Crack? Riverdale ? I’d die if I became the very thing I loathed.

“Don’t think about what?” I heard Lucas moving behind me, but didn’t turn around.

“Everything. My answer is no, no matter what. Don’t talk to me. Don’t apologize. Don’t offer your condolences. For the last time—I shagged Laura long before you’d met her. There was no need to shit on my only serious relationships, twice in a row.” I dumped the salts onto the counter in frustration, essentially walking right into a conversation with him. Idiot. I was an idiot. A part of me—albeit a small and insignificant and muted by the general bullshit swarming in my head part—realized I deserved it. Everything that had happened to me. Indie leaving. Fallon acting like a crazy bitch. My mates and agent babying me, lying to me, micromanaging every single breath I took, from my love interest to my records, deals, interviews, and general wellbeing. Lucas appeared by my side and wiped the marble counter with his arm, throwing the half-baked salts to the floor.