“I do!” Eric threw back his head and looked up at the ceiling in helpless disbelief.
Tessa avoided his eyes. She addressed her words to the tabletop, her forehead resting against her hand. “No, but like, I thought someone was going to come in here and be my boyfriend now. Someone normal. I didn’t even care what he looked like. Just someone…just someone nice who could love me and talk to me and be with me. That’s all I wanted. But instead everyone left. Everyone just bailed on me again. Even Dr. Regan—”
Eric turned back toward her. “What? What do you mean, she bailed on you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I slapped you, OK?” Tessa pushed back her chair from the table. “I really just want to go home now.”
Eric’s shoulders slumped. There was no use trying to argue with her further. He’d had his answer from the moment her heavy palm made contact with his cheek.
“OK,” he said dully, rising from his chair. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”
“No.”
“My Ferrari’s right out front.”
“The police will take me.”
“I’ll take you,” he insisted. He shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her. “Wear this. It’s cold outside.”
She shook her head, but she clutched the jacket tightly around her shoulders. They met eyes for a long moment, his own heartache reflected back in the misery he saw on her face.
So this is it, he thought. The night he’d been anticipating for so long now. Of all the times he’d played it out in his head, he’d never imagined it quite like this. Total rejection. Complete and utter disappointment. He’d been living in some kind of dream world apparently. Some fantasy land, where Tessa would fall into his arms, be his girl for one magical night, and then go back to talking him to sleep over Twitter every night afterward.
But that was his fantasy, not hers. She didn’t want Eric Thorn. Not in real life. Not for anything outside of music videos and fanfics.
He couldn’t say he blamed her. She wanted something normal. How many times had he wanted the same thing? A normal job. Normal friends. Normal house. Normal bills to pay. A normal girl to take out on normal dates. Someday, a normal wife. Maybe a few normal kids to drive around in their normal minivan. He could have had all of that if he hadn’t been so dead set on fame. Maybe he could have had Tessa.
“I’ll just drop you off,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I won’t even get out of the car. I’ll let you go, OK? You can say good-bye, and walk away, and unfollow me, and go about your life. Forget I ever existed. That’s fine, if that’s what you really want. But, Tessa, please—”
He paused and swallowed hard against the lump inside his throat.
“Please, just this once. Just let me be the guy that takes you home.”
30
A COLD NIGHT IN HELL
Eric hunkered down behind the steering wheel of his parked car and wrapped his arms around himself for warmth. How cold was it tonight, anyway? It must have dipped below freezing outside, judging by the way he could see his own breath.
A violent shiver overtook him, and he looked longingly at the Ferrari’s red push-button ignition. Maybe he should idle the engine for a few minutes. His fingers twitched, but he resisted the temptation. Not yet. He only had a quarter tank of gas left, and he needed to make it last all night.
Eric glanced at his phone to check the time. Just past eleven thirty now. He assumed he’d still be sitting here at midnight, counting down the New Year all alone. An hour had passed since that silent car ride back to Tessa’s house. She hadn’t uttered a single word until he pulled into her driveway, but he’d stopped her with a question before she got out.
“What time is your mom coming home?”
She had her face turned away from him, but he saw her shoulders draw upward at the sound of his voice. “What do you care about my mom?”
“You shouldn’t be alone in there,” he said. “Not tonight.”
She’d cracked the car door open. “Thanks for the ride.”
“I’m not leaving,” he’d called after her.
“If you think I’m inviting you into my house—”
“I’ll just sit out here in the driveway,” he’d interrupted, striving to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Just in case. I’ll keep an eye on things until your mom comes back.”
“Well, that should be around nine tomorrow morning.”
“Then I guess I’m sleeping in my car tonight.”
She’d exited without another word.
Now he trembled against the cold and swore under his breath. Damn, it was frigid. He’d thought it was bad outside the concert venue earlier, but the temperature must have dropped another twenty degrees in the hours since. He expelled a steaming breath, fiddling with his phone to distract himself from the impending hypothermia, and his thumb landed on its usual destination.
Twitter.
The police had frozen his second account—they needed it for evidence—but they’d left his @EricThorn account untouched. Eric stared down at his profile. He’d told Tessa in the police station that she should unfollow him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d done it. Had she blocked him too? Deactivated her account? He couldn’t bring himself to check.
Instead, for some unfathomable reason, Eric clicked to compose a new tweet.
He didn’t know what he hoped to achieve. Tessa wouldn’t be on Twitter tonight. Not after what had happened. Eric didn’t bother aiming his message @ her, or at anyone in particular. Fourteen million followers would see it, minus one. He entered the words anyway, driven by a force he couldn’t explain. There was a pain in his chest—the last ember of a fire that hadn’t quite died. He had to give it one more try before the flame went out for good.
He hit Tweet, and his notifications lit up with the inevitable blizzard of replies. In the past, he would have viewed those messages with contempt, but now he couldn’t summon up more than a numb indifference.
Who was he to judge, anyway? He wasn’t so different from all those fangirls after all. In the end, he wanted the same thing they all did. A like. A reply. Maybe a follow back. Some sign of acknowledgment from an account that probably couldn’t hear him. Some tiny gesture that told him the words he craved: “I see you… I notice you… I know that you exist… I love you back… I love you too…” Anything to know that his message had been heard by its recipient and not shouted into an empty void.
Eric rested his forehead against the steering wheel, staring at his useless phone, but a sharp knock on the window interrupted him. He looked up, startled, and his body temperature spiked a few degrees at what he saw: Tessa, with her hands cupped round her face, peering at him through the glass. She hadn’t left him for dead out there after all. He cracked the passenger door back open.