Shatter

Here went nothing. “You make my world, you make my world go round. You turn me up, you turn me upside-down. You make my world, you make my world go round. You get me off, you get me off the ground.”

I looked to Alec as he joined me. “You pick me up when I fall down. You pick me up when I fall down.” We alternated between the chorus, each of us singing. The crowd was loving it. I set my guitar down and started my little bridge. I was officially a white dude trying to rap and sing techno at the same time. God save us all from such a fate.

I went to the middle of the stage, and with as much enthusiasm as I could possess continued the song. Miley Cyrus’s chorus to be exact. “Girl, you like an elevator ‘cause you always pick me up. Girl, you like my doctor when I’m sick you always stitch me up. You could be my DJ, I’m your record. Come and mix me up, girl. Just be my lollipop.Llet me lick you up. Always on my membrane. I love you, so I give you up…” I looked to Alyssa. She winked and mouthed “sexy.” Okay, so maybe singing some Biebs and Wi-ll-i-am wasn’t going to make me less of a man. I jumped up and down with the crowd. Everyone was in perfect sync. Alec continued the chorus.

Nat and Alyssa were jumping in the crowd I could tell they were loving every second. Okay. Maybe I was having fun and it wasn’t so bad, and then the music changed as we planned, and we went right into OneDirection.

All of Nat’s favorites bands. Her current favorite songs. Songs that Alec had given her so much shit about.

And now the guy was so whipped he was doing covers of the songs for her. If singing OneDirection wasn’t love, I really didn’t know what was. We changed tempo and went right into the song Little Things. This was all Alec, because after this song, he was going into the song he’d written to Nat while she was in the hospital.

“Your hand fits into mine like it was made just for me…” He began, the crowd knew the words, so they joined in. Everyone except Nat. Tears streamed down her face as she watched Alec play.

Alec’s eyes closed. “I’m in love with you and all these little things.” His voice cracked with emotion during the chorus. And then the tempo changed again, we played directly into Alec’s song, Shatter.

“The best of it all is you’re still here, the sadness in my heart and earth-shaking fear — don’t leave. It’s as if a part of me is missing when you aren’t near, yet I hear, I hear your voice and I can’t keep myself from fading, fading into something I don’t recognize. How can you be both my poison and my savior? My lover and my rescuer?”

The song was haunting, not our normal style of music, but it had so much emotion behind it that I was finding it hard even singing background with Alyssa watching me. She wrapped her arms around Nat and swayed back and forth as Alec and I started the chorus.

“Shattered. I’m shattered without you. I can’t find the pieces, they’re broken and jagged and no longer have a reason to mend, but I want to know that you’ll try. I need to hear you say you’ll fix what’s been worn, put together what’s been torn. I may be shattered and scattered. I’m freaking bleeding and battered — torn, so torn. But if you’ll still have me. I’m yours.”

We finished the last verse without any instruments. Once the voices stopped, the crowd was deathly silent.

Crap. We were going to get booed off stage.

And then the clapping started — within seconds it was thunderous. Alec and I bowed, and Alec mouthed to Nat “I love you.” His plan wasn’t to put her in front of tons of people and get her to admit that they belonged together. His plan was to get her to remember why they were together in the first place.

Because they fit.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Alec

“How’s it going, Alec?” Mrs. Murray scribbled a few things on her notepad and looked up at me through her black-rimmed glasses.

Awful, horrible, miserable. “Great!”

“Don’t lie.”

“No, really. Everything’s—”

Mrs. Murray squinted and crossed her arms.

“Fine.” I swallowed. “I’m not sleeping. And frankly, I’m a little uncomfortable to be discussing such things with you, but since we’re all about honesty here in the trust room. I can’t freaking sleep without Nat in my arms. I wake up panicking, thinking something happened to her. Last night I fell off my bed because I was so freaked that she was passed out somewhere that I got tangled up in my own sheets and bruised my knee on the wood floor. Demetri asked if I was wrestling bears all night because I was so loud. Oh right, and there’s that, apparently I talk in my sleep.”

Her brows lifted. “Oh?”

Dear God, did all therapists say things like Oh? And how does that make you feel? “Yes, oh! I say her name! Over and over again. The thing is, I’m so damn sad that I can’t even feel embarrassed about it. Demetri even gave me a damn bear to sleep with.”

She nodded and scribbled a few more notes. “Good.”

I sighed into my hands but lifted my head when I heard her laugh.

“Something funny?”

“You’re absolutely miserable.”

“Um, question. Aren’t therapists supposed to make their clients feel better? Not laugh at their misfortune?”

“Oh, honey you brought this misfortune all on your own. The comical thing is, you still don’t realize it.”

“Pardon?” I leaned in, and squinted.