"Sixteen days," I agree, petting a dog that shouldn't be here and carrying a decision I can't make
Sixteen days until I have no choice.
Chapter 44
I thought it was lonely inside Phoenix's cage at the back of the shelter . . . but in Mike's house, with his big couch and his big bed and all of his very-Mike things, it's so much lonelier. He's everywhere-in his soft bedsheets, in his oversized TV, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine he has sitting on his mantel (Michelangelo, of course). He's everywhere except really here.
I spend most of my time at his place, since I still haven't found anyone else to take Phoenix in (and if I'm being honest with myself, I haven't looked very hard), and every minute I spend in his house, with him on the other side of the world, makes the hole in my heart grow and grow and grow. After he leaves Malaysia, his schedule gets as hectic as he warned me it would. The texts become fewer and the calls grow further apart.
It's a mid-November Saturday, less than a week before Thanksgiving, when my brother says, "I miss Mike."
It's been over two days since I last spoke to him myself. We've tried, of course-with him calling me, or me calling him-but after forty-eight hours of phone tag, I'm beginning to feel less like I'm missing him and more like I'm mourning him. For the past five weeks, I've felt like the calls and the texts weren't enough-like I needed more, always more-but now that I'm not getting them, they feel like everything. Which leaves me with nothing.
"I finally find some time to play Deadzone with you," I admonish Luke as I sit on Mike's couch with a game controller in my hands, "and all you're going to do is complain about missing Mike?"
"You suck tonight," Luke counters, and as if on cue, my player gets shot in the head for the umpteenth time.
"Sorry," I sigh, knowing he's right. I'm distracted.
Mike will be home in eight days, and even though I miss him more than I've ever missed anything in my life-even though all I want in this world is to hug him and kiss him and feel his arms around me-it feels like too soon. I still haven't figured out a way to continue dating him without having school pulled out from under me, and the thought of losing either one of those things has kept me up at night. It's given me nightmares I can't remember when I wake up near tears in the morning. But I can feel it-the stress that roots in my muscles and sits there like a toxin as I sleep.
"Do you miss him too?" Luke asks, and I know he's still sneakily trying to push me into the relationship he has no idea I'm already in.
"Yes," I admit.
"Because you have a crush on him?"
"Because he doesn't talk as much when we play Deadzone," I quip, my player re-spawning as Luke laughs.
"Do you think he has groupies?" my little brother asks, and my throat dries.
"Yeah."
"Even in Asia and Australia?"
"Everywhere," I say, unable to deny how big the band is getting. Their new record label is promoting the hell out of them-I've heard them on the radio, I've overheard classmates talking about them at school, I've seen ads with the guys' faces on them posted in the campus coffee shop. Rowan has even complained about all of the people coming out of the woodwork, trying to be her friends simply because she's Adam Everest's girlfriend.
"That's so cool," Luke says as he dominates the game. He's racked up so many headshots, Mike would be proud. "I should get him to teach me to play the drums."
I smile sadly, remembering what a good teacher Mike was when he taught me in his garage. "Why, you want to be a rock star?"
"Hell yeah," Luke says as Phoenix makes herself comfortable on my bare toes. She's been doing really well since I brought her to Mike's house, eating plenty and making herself at home. She hasn't chewed or peed on any of his things-thank God-but I still have no idea what I'm going to do with her when he comes home next Sunday. "Who wouldn't want to have girls begging to be with them?"
"I thought you didn't like girls?" I ask, and my brother's tone makes it clear he thinks I'm an idiot.
"I'm twelve," he informs me with his signature preteen snark. "Someday I'll be Mike's age, and then all I'll want is to get laid."
I don't know which is worse-imagining my brother as a typical twenty-five-year-old male, or imagining my boyfriend as a typical twenty-five-year-old male. I make a face.
"I don't think Mike's like that . . ."
"Well, he should be," Luke argues, oblivious to the way he's making the stress under my skin thicken. "What's the point of being a rock star if you're not going to act like one?"
"I thought you wanted him to date me?"
"Would you?" Luke asks as we meet up in the map and begin scouting an enemy base. "If he asked you, would you go out with him?"
"He's Danica's ex . . ." I say, wishing I had never brought this up.
Luke sighs. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
"I am?"
"I do know the difference between right and wrong, Hailey," Luke complains. "I know that would be a messed-up thing to do."
My heart plummets to the floor, and my character dies five more stupid deaths before Luke and I finally call it quits. His words play over and over again in my head, and I have a sinking feeling he's right. About everything.
Mike should be enjoying his new fame, not spending all of his free time calling a hand-me-down farm girl back home, one who can't even afford pretty dresses or new boots. He could date singers or supermodels or actresses. He could date singers and supermodels and actresses.
And as for Danica . . . I know that me being with Mike is messed up. From the moment I saw him the night we waited outside his tour bus, I told myself to stay out of it. Out of her business. Away from her boyfriend. I know I'm the worst kind of person for letting myself fall for him, when he wasn't mine to fall for.
He was hers. He was my cousin's boyfriend.
And over the past five weeks, she's made it perfectly clear: she wants him back.
"Do you think she's prettier than me?" Danica asks the following afternoon while I try to help her study for a history exam she has coming up. It's necessary I keep up appearances at our apartment, but for the past hour, I've been the only person looking at her textbook since she's been too busy looking at her phone.
"Who?" I ask without glancing up, and Danica thrusts her screen in my face.
"Her."
My eyes refocus to see a picture of Mike, his hair a little longer than the last time I saw him in person. He's continued sending me a picture a day, but it's always a little shocking to see how much he's changing on tour-how his hair is getting messier and his face is becoming more chiseled. He has his arm around a pretty Asian girl with long black hair and rose-pink lips, and she's kissing his cheek as he smiles.
"Who is that?" I ask, my brows furrowed at Danica's screen.
"Some girl following Mike around the world," she says. "She's posted tons of pictures. Do you think she's pretty?"
"She's following him around the world?" I ask, bitterness stirring in the pit of my stomach as I notice how tightly she's pressed up against my boyfriend. Her lips are on his cheek, his hand is on her bare shoulder, and I'm sitting countless time zones away.
"Hailey," Danica snaps. "God, can you answer me? Do you think she's prettier than me or not?"
I stare up at my cousin, at the look of impatient concern on her face, and try to rein in my emotions. "I don't know. No?"
Danica huffs and pulls her phone away. "These girls are way too pretty," she complains, showing me another picture. This time Mike has his big arms stretched way out, and there are like five girls squeezed up close to him. They're all absolutely gorgeous, and if Danica told me they were all her best friends from high school cheer camp, I would believe her, if not for the look of supreme annoyance on her face.
She swipes to the right, and there's another girl with Mike, and another.
I feel like I'm swallowing rocks as I sit there trying not to let my emotions play out on my face. Sharp stones sink down my throat and sit heavy on my heart.
Danica sighs heavily as she pulls her phone back in front of her to continue swiping through pictures, and I gnaw on the inside of my lip as I turn my attention back to her textbook.
I knew there would be girls at the band's shows, but it was this abstract thing I could force myself not to think about. I didn't picture their perfect hair, or their perfect lips, or their perfect curves. Now I can see their faces-their ridiculously gorgeous faces-and my stomach roils in protest.