Steal(Seaside Pictures Book 3)(37)

Murderous rage seeped into my soul. “You talk to Andrew about this?”

“At least he’s around to listen to me!” she yelled. “What did you expect? When you send your bandmates to make sure I’m okay? It’s nice, but it’s not you, it’s like you don’t even have time for me anymore, for us.”

Frustrated, I gripped the side of the doorframe, “Ang, that’s not true, things are crazy now, yes, ask me to give it up.”

She balked.

“Seriously, I’ll walk right out that door right now. I’ll book us a flight wherever you want to go, but that means you give it up too, that means we start our life like I’ve been wanting to do for the past year, that means you agree to marry me that means everything changes.”

“I’m nineteen.”

“Exactly, you’re nineteen, you shouldn’t be in the bathroom doing drugs, thinking your career is over. It’s not over, Ang, it’s just beginning. But if this isn’t what you want, I can support—”

“God! There you go again! What if that’s not what I want? What if I want to support myself? What if I want what you have?”

Her eyes betrayed her. She’d never wanted fame. She’d been forced into it, so what kept her?

Fear flashed before she looked down.

And that’s when I saw the track marks on her arm.

And stumbled backward. My vision blurring. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is?”

She gasped and tugged the sleeve of her dress down.

“Ang,” I was ready to puke all over the floor. “Tell me. Now.”

She shoved past me.

And ran directly into his arms.

He grinned at me over her head and handed her a drink.

And I knew.

I knew what neither of them was telling me.

He’d fed her poison.

And because she had no identity outside of what she did.

She drank it.

And asked for more.



“Hey.” I knocked on the wall nearest where the door would be trying to shake the horrible memory from my mind. It was no use, because whenever I saw her, I remembered that choking fear that there was finally something I couldn’t save her from.

Herself.

Ang didn’t look at me, she was sitting on her bed cross-legged staring out the open window. “You okay?”

She blinked.

It was the only way I knew she was alive, breathing.

And because I was a bastard when I walked in and she still looked comatose, I ran my hands down her arms, looking for evidence that she’d relapsed.

She let me examine every inch of each arm.

No track marks. Thank God.

I searched her nightstand.

Nothing.

And when I faced her again, tears streamed down her face. She was still staring out at the ocean.

“Angelica.” I gripped her face. “Look at me. Do you need a doctor? Are you okay? Can you at least blink?”

She blinked, more tears fell, and then she was pulling away from me and running out of the room, out of the house. I chased after her, yelling her name.

She stumbled toward the beach, then detoured to the pool in the back of the house, she jumped in with all of her clothes on.

“Shit.” I chased. Was that all I’d ever do?

I dove in after her.

She was sitting on the bottom, holding her breath, her eyes stared me down, basically saying “Leave me alone.”

At least she was finally showing something other than an emotionless state.

I gripped her by the arm and pulled her to the surface.

“I’m not high!” she yelled. “But I wish I was!”

“Okay, okay.” I pushed her against the wall of the pool. “What’s going on? I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

“I’m not a child!” She shoved me. “I don’t need help! And I hate feeling this way, this sick twisted way about myself, nobody should feel that way about themselves! Nobody should be forced to face their demons in front of millions of judging people!” She splashed her hands against the water. “Why? Why did I say yes to this?”

“Money?” I offered cruelly. “You tell me?”

She shoved my chest, then pounded her fists against it over and over until she sank below the surface again only to come back up for air, more calm.

“Why did you take the job? Why did you come to me, Ang. The truth.” I asked, petrified of the answer almost as much as I was about her confession of wanting drugs to numb herself all over again.

“Because—” She sobbed. “When I started doing counseling, when I left rehab, I realized I had nobody, nothing. I had money. I didn’t really have a mother. I had my brother but he’d suddenly grown up, turned into this adult, and I was left behind, and all I kept thinking was where was I the happiest? When was I the happiest?”