"I love you, Hailey."
"And remember to send me a picture."
"I love you, Hailey."
"And hug a koala for me sometime before you come home."
Mike chuckles. "I love you, Hailey."
"I love you too," I say, a soft smile touching my lips even as I flip off the still-honking asshole behind me.
"Ten days," he says, and my smile slips away.
"Ten days," I say, putting my car in reverse.
Chapter 46
On Mike's tear-stained pillow, sleep doesn't come easy. After we got off the phone, I worked a two-hour shift at the animal shelter, had a quiet dinner with Phoenix, and crawled into his bed, where I finally let go of the emotion I'd been holding in. It's not an ugly cry, full of convulsions and sobbing-it's a hopeless cry, one where hot tears escape the corners of my eyes to slide over my cheeks and onto a cold pillowcase. I fall asleep and wake up over and over again, until I'm not sure if I'm in a dream or in reality, and both feel like a nightmare.
Mike gave me five extra days-days I didn't want-to figure out how to fix things, how to keep him and school. But the problem is, there is no way to fix this, and there never was. I want to choose happiness, but happiness is two pieces of my heart that are pulling in different directions.
When the sun forms a dim outline around Mike's blackout curtains, I finally give up on sleep and make a pot of coffee. I take Phoenix out to let her use the bathroom before opening my laptop on Mike's kitchen table. And then, coffee forgotten on his counter, I look up Mike Madden.
I find all the pictures Danica showed me-and more, and more, and more. Not just pictures of him with girls, but pictures of him with guys, other bands, famous people I recognize. There are pictures of Adam, Shawn, Joel, and Kit too . . . performance pictures and promotional pictures and pictures with fans. The sheer volume is overwhelming-because there is my boyfriend, smiling in hundreds, thousands of pictures.
I sit there for so long that my laptop idles and my screen goes black, and then I see my reflection: wild hair, big eyes, an unguarded frown on my face.
I swipe my fingers across the touchpad to get it to go away, and then I look Mike up on YouTube. The most recent video is from a few days ago, and I click it.
"Are you excited?" a female voice with an Australian accent asks a bunch of girls standing outside of an enormous city building. The sky is bright blue, and all of the girls are gorgeous. Different shades of sunshine-yellow hair, white smiles, pretty makeup.
"I'm freaking out!" a girl with rose highlights says with a laugh.
"What about you, Amy? Are you excited?"
"I'm dying," Amy says, pulling the camera in close. "Dying."
"Who are you excited to see?"
"All of them," she says with a devastatingly beautiful smile.
"Pick one. Say you get to go home with one. Who do you pick?"
Another girl's hand shoots up into the air. "Adam! I call Adam!"
"You can't call Adam," the camera girl scolds. "Adam is mine."
"Bitch, I will cut you," the Adam fan says, and the girls all laugh.
"Shawn or Mike," Amy finally decides, and my stomach drops to my feet. "Probably Mike."
"Why Mike?"
"Uh, have you seen him?" Amy asks, and the camera girl giggles.
"You think he's hotter than Adam?"
"Way hotter than Adam," she says, taunting Adam Fan, who launches onto her back. They're all joking around when one of the other girls suddenly gasps.
"Oh my God. Is that them?"
The camera swings wildly around, and a chorus of screams erupts from a long line of people as Adam, Joel, Kit, Shawn, and Mike walk down the line, talking to people as they do.
Camera Girl spins the camera around so we can see her wide blue eyes. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"
"Hey," Adam says when he gets to the girls, and Adam Fan suddenly becomes absolutely speechless.
"We're making a YouTube video," Camera Girl announces, and the corner of Adam's mouth tips up as he looks into the camera.
"Oh yeah?" He reaches out and takes the phone from her, turning it around to capture her blushing cheeks. "Have you gotten this huge line of people?" he asks, and Camera Girl nods as Adam backs up further to capture the true scope of the line, which stretches as far as I can see and then wraps behind the building. "How's everyone doing tonight!" Adam yells, and the line cheers wildly. "Are you excited for the show?"
More screams, and then Adam winks into the camera before turning it on Shawn.
"What about you? You excited?"
Shawn pushes the camera away so we can see more than just his green eyeball, and Adam laughs as he turns the camera on Kit. "Excited?"
"This show is going to be sick," Kit says as she ties back her long black hair, and Joel slides in front of her.
"Joel, you excited?" Adam asks, and Joel smiles brightly into the camera.
"I'm hungry."
Adam's braceleted hand reaches out to push Joel out of the way, and then the camera lands on Mike, who's busy checking his phone. "Mike, how much do you love Australia?"
"Huh?" Mike says, lifting his eyes and pocketing his phone.
"Australia. Thoughts?"
"The toilets don't actually flush counter-clockwise, so I'm pretty bummed."
Adam is laughing when he turns the phone around again. "There you have it, folks. Pretty bummed."
"They have good steak though!" Mike amends as the band goes inside and Adam stays outside interviewing people in line about toilets. Eventually, he mumbles, "Whose phone is this?" and the video cuts to black before Camera Girl's face reappears on my laptop screen.
"Adam Everest just touched my phone," she squeals, panning to the shell-shocked faces of her friends. "He hugged you!" she tells Adam Fan, whose face is burning bright red.
"I can't believe he hugged me."
"You're never showering again, are you?"
Adam Fan shakes her head furiously, and Amy laughs.
"I still say Mike is the hottest."
The girl beside her nods. "And he smelled so good."
"He did smell pretty amazing," Camera Girl agrees. She spins the camera around to tell viewers, "Guys, I know you can't smell this video. But trust us on this. Mike Madden smells fucking amazing." She closes her eyes and sighs. "I can't believe we just met The Last Ones to Know."
"And they were all really awesome," Amy says, and the rest of the girls agree.
They talk about the band some more before the doors open and the video ends, but all I can think about is Mike on his phone. I know he was looking to see if I texted or called him-I know it in my bones-but he should have been enjoying the sight of all his fans. He shouldn't have been oblivious to the girls swooning over him. He should have been there, instead of a million miles away.
I'm letting him waste his days in hotel rooms and his nights on the phone, but for what? When he comes home, I won't be able to give him the relationship he wants. He won't be able to pick me up for dates, or kiss me on my porch, or even sit at the same table with me in restaurants-because Danica will always be watching. I know Mike wants to find "the one," and maybe he will-maybe she'll have blonde hair, maybe she'll have an accent. But she won't be me, because I'm his ex-girlfriend's cousin. I can't give him what he deserves, and I never should have pretended I could.
When I summon the strength to call Mike at eight o'clock (morning for me, night for him), the aching in my heart has grown sharp, like the tip of a blade that's slowly plunging deeper. I listen to his phone ring once, twice, three times, four times-
"This is Mike. Leave a message."
"Hey, Mike," I say, my voice cracking with emotion. There are ten days left before he comes home, but that's ten days too many. I've already wasted enough of his time, and the longer I pretend that things could ever work between us, the harder it's going to be to accept that they never, ever could. "It's Hailey . . . Listen, I-"
Another call interrupts my voice mail, and I answer Mike on the other line.
"Hey," he says. "Sorry, it's loud as hell in here."
"Where are you?" I ask, because I'm weak and I need to hear his voice.
"Some record store party in London. The place is called, uh-"
As Mike tries to remember the name, someone starts talking to him. A few someones, if the multiple female voices are anything to go off of. I hear laughing.