Whiskey Lullaby(42)

He walked away from me that day at my parents’ house. He never called or texted. We may as well have been strangers after that day. He didn’t love me!

I’d spent the better half of a year trying to convince myself he didn’t care. Replaying and rehashing every moment we shared that I could remember. I just didn’t want to believe I could have been so gullible.

I closed my eyes. I remembered what he felt like against me, how his big hands felt on my waist. The tickle of the stubble on his face against my thighs. But…how many girls knew what those things felt like too? Dear friends. I wasn’t just a friend, but I wasn’t his lover, I was something in-between.

Before I knew it, I allowed all the emotions I kept under lock and key to surface. First came the hurt, followed by the anger. The regret. The wish that I had kept myself guarded. But above all, the thing that absolutely devastated me was that I couldn’t let him go. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I told myself. I could dig up as many lies as I wanted. A hundred girls could tell me he said the exact same lines to them and it wouldn’t matter. There would always be a piece of me that held on to the belief that even if he’d told a hundred girls the same thing, he only meant them with me. I would never forget the bliss of having him inside me, that pull that existed between us. My heart bore scars from letting myself belong to someone I didn’t even know. But in my defense, for those few weeks, I believed he was my fate.

How could one person be so destructive without even trying?

My Messenger rang, the bubble picture of Meg’s pageant queen smile popped up on the screen, and I swallowed back the emotions, focusing on the whitecaps rushing to the shore. “Hey!” I tried so hard to sound upbeat.

“Shit, you looked, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to. I walked to the break room and a group of nurses had some video pulled up. They all stared at me like I had two heads.”

“Damn. So… what did you think?”

“I didn’t actually watch it, but one of the girls said he was looking for me.”

“Yep. Something like that.” The line fell silent. “You should watch it.”

“Nope! That ship has sailed.” I drew a line in the sand with my toe.

“Watch it, Hannah. I’m not gonna lie, I cried, and you know how I feel about the fuckface.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just don’t get why, after all this time, he would pull some crap like that.”

“Who knows, he’s a guy. They lack all sense of logic.”

“I don’t know…” I leaned over and wrote his name in the sand before swiping my hand over it. I dredged up the hate I’d taught myself to harbor against him, because there are some people in life you must learn to hate simply because it hurts too much not to. “It’s probably some dumb PR stunt.”

“At your expense?” She laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think he’s an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole.”

“We don’t even know who he is anymore.”

“This is true…” She yawned.

“Go to bed.”

“You promise you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.

“I miss you, Hannah Banana.”

I smiled. “I miss you, too.”



Somehow, I made it home without watching that video.

I laid down on my bed without reading one article, but I couldn’t fall asleep. The time ticked by. One AM. Two AM.

I paced my room.

I opened the doors to my balcony and listened to the tide rush in.

I watched the sunrise over the ocean, recalling how Noah told me we only had so many to see. And that’s when I realized, no matter how far I ran, I couldn’t escape the sunrise. I’d always have one thing that reminded me of how it felt when I believed he loved me.





40





Noah





People on the sidewalk stopped and snapped pictures as I passed by. I just kept walking with the phone pressed to my ear while Grandma berated me about the video I’d posted. “Boy, you done gone and lost your mind.”

I couldn’t help but laugh because she sounded a little like DMX. “I’m fine,” I promised as the glass doors with the Capstone Records logo slid open.

“I’d be ill as a hornet if I was her. Asking the entire intraweb to find her.”

“It’s the internet, Grandma.”

“Whatever web it is, I’d be angrier than a three-legged dog in heat.” I pressed the button to the elevator. “No privacy. Bless her soul, if you find her tell her I said to whack you upside the head for me, you hear?”

“I’ll be sure to do that, seeing as how I’m a masochist and all.”

“I don’t need to know about any of that devil stuff.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, I gotta go talk to Debra about some tour stuff, but I’ll check on you later, okay?”

“Well, alright. But you know, you should’ve just sent her some roses and chocolates. That’s real romance. Hunting her down like you’re dogblasted J. Edgar Hoover ain’t.”

“Alright, Grandma. Love you.”

“I love you too, you hoodlum.”

Within two hours of me posting that video three people that worked with her had sent me a message. I won’t lie, I smiled just a little when I found out she was in Australia of all places—the farthest away from Rockford you could get.

The elevator doors dinged open and I stepped out, following the dark hardwoods down to the office at the end. I tapped on the door and it pushed open an inch. Debra sat behind her massive mahogany desk with the phone pressed to her ear. She glanced up and waved me in before smoothing a hand over her gray dress suit.

“It’s fine, George. It’s fine. We’ll have the copyright department go over the rights and we’ll be in touch with the lawyers. Stop worrying!” She slammed the receiver down on the phone base and sighed. “Since when have men become such divas? What do you need.” She wasn’t even looking at me when she grabbed a stack of papers and started thumbing through them.

“I, uh...” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I need to take some time off.”

She laughed, still thumbing through the papers. “Funny. What do you need?”

“Three days off.”

Her eyes fluttered shut on an agitated groan. She slammed her hand over the papers before glancing up with one of her signature fake smiles. “You can have three days off when the tour is over in, oh…”—she checked her computer and squinted—“three months.”

“Debra, just three days.”

“You’re serious?” She glared at me without saying a word for a good two minutes, every once and a while drumming her manicured nails on the desk. “You’ve lost your mind.” She tossed her hands into the air. “That is the only thing I can think of.”

“I’m asking for three days!”

“In the middle of a tour.”

“Actually, it’s more like the tail end…”

Her nostrils flared like a bull and her entire body shook. “You can’t just…”—she frantically waved her hands around—“flit off whenever you want.”

I sunk down into the chair and groaned. “It’s an emergency.”

She arched a brow. “No, it’s not.”

“It fucking is!”

“Noah, everyone in the free world has seen your video…” She pointed at me. “Amazing PR move by the way, sales have skyrocketed—but that’s beside the point, you have shows. Sold out shows. You can’t leave to go find her.” She grabbed a piece of paper from the edge of her desk and scribbled something on it. “She’ll be wherever she is when you get through touring.”

“Jesus.” I pushed up from the chair. “You don’t own me.”

“No, I don’t. The label does. Congratulations on being famous, sweet cheeks.” She held the piece of paper out. “Here, go fill this and just relax for the next three months.”

I walked to the desk, snatched the piece of paper from her hand, and stared down at the little blue prescription form.

“What the hell is this?”

“Xanax. You need some.”

“You aren’t even a doctor.”

She rolled a shoulder and smirked. “I am as far as Capstone Records is concerned.”

I balled it up and tossed it at her. “I don’t need that load of shit.” Then I left the office, fuming all the way down the elevator and into the lobby.

“Hey, Noah,” some girl said as I stormed toward the exit.

I grunted and shoved the doors open, walking in an angry daze to the parking lot. “I just want three days. Three days. One day to get there. One day to see her. One day to bring her back,” I mumbled to myself before climbing into my car and driving off.

_





“Now boarding priority for Delta flight 248 bound for Perth, Australia.”

“Tell me I can’t have three fucking days,” I mumbled as I pushed away from the wall. I pulled my ball cap down when I stepped up to the attendant desk and scanned the ticket on my phone.

“Enjoy your flight Mr.…” there was the pause, the moment a fan tried to maintain their professionalism. “Mr. Greyson.”