“You don’t think you need strength and energy to survive homelessness?”
“Of course you do. But unfortunately, fast food is cheaper than salads and a home-cooked meal. I ate what I could afford.”
He nodded, getting my point.
For a little while we ate in silence. To my surprise, it was. . . . well, it was a comfortable silence. Which suggested I couldn’t care less what O’Dea thought of me. I always used to care what people thought about me. Too much. You can’t do fame when you care that much because the public will destroy you. Even when most of the comments were positive, it was the negative that stuck with me. Ate at me. And then there were the posts that were filled with vitriol.
The worst incident was on Instagram. I posted a photo of Max and me together. Austin had taken it and I’d loved it. We were all hanging out in a hotel room and I was sitting on Max’s lap while we tried to play my guitar together. Austin had snapped a photo of us laughing into each other’s faces. We looked in love.
At first the photo got a lot of likes, a lot of love.
But Micah decided to post a photo of himself sitting solo with his guitar, looking forlorn. I didn’t know if it was deliberate or if he wasn’t thinking, but the fans saw it as a response to my photo with Max. The comments on my photo turned nasty fast.
I was a heart-breaking bitch.
I should burn in hell.
I should kill myself for being such a bitch.
Why people thought it was okay to post things online that they would never dream of saying to someone in real life, I didn’t know.
But back then, having my life become public property wore on me.
It made me depressed.
“I don’t care as much now,” I said.
O’Dea looked over at me. He swallowed the bite he’d taken and asked, “About?”
“What people think. I used to care too much. Maybe the publicity stuff won’t be so bad now that I don’t care.” It would help me to think so.
He was quiet a moment as his gaze returned to his plate. And then he delivered a swift verbal punch to the gut. “If you didn’t care as much what people think, you’d be ready to face your band.”
I glowered at him, anger making my skin flush hot. “I meant about people I don’t know.”
“Well,” his expression remained aloof, indifferent, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Any gratitude I’d been feeling toward him for the dinner turned to dust in my mouth. I pushed my half-eaten plate away and slid off the stool.
He sighed. “Where are you going? You haven’t finished eating. You need to eat, Skylar.”
“Eat shit and die.” I slammed the bedroom door behind me and leaned back against it, trying to calm down.
Loneliness overwhelmed me. A horrendous, black, gaping hole of complete aloneness appeared, readying to swallow me.
I slid down the door, feeling tears burn in my nose.
All the time sleeping in that cemetery I hadn’t felt this alone.
Crap.
I swiped at a tear that escaped.
Maybe I really did need to see a therapist.
Okay, there was no maybe about it. I wasn’t stupid. I knew I was messed up about everything. But I was so scared.
So scared that if I started to talk to someone about everything, the guilt would become too much to bear.
A gentle knock on my door made me suck in a breath.
“Skylar?”
I ignored him.
I hated him.
O’Dea sighed. He was always sighing. Like I was an exasperating child he’d been burdened with. “I’m leaving so you can come out of the bedroom and finish your dinner.”
I snorted. What a martyr.
“Skylar . . . I’m s- . . .”
Tensing, my eyes widened. Was he . . . was he going to apologize?
“I’m . . . fuck.” He blew out an angry-sounding breath. “I’ll be back tomorrow and I expect you to be civil.” His footsteps thudded down the hallway and then the door slammed shut.
In the wake of his departure, I ventured back out into the kitchen where my dinner was waiting. His sat almost finished.
I shot a dirty look in the direction of the hallway. What a dick. “Martyr,” I muttered. But my anger toward him didn’t stop me from finishing the meal he’d cooked. In fact, I cleared both the plates and for the first time in a long time, I went to bed feeling satisfyingly full.
Pissed off.
But satisfyingly full.
* * *
IT WAS ODD TO NOT wake up with birds chirping around me. I actually missed the early wake-up call. However, the next morning I didn’t need my nature alarm. After all the sleeping I’d done the previous day, I woke up around five thirty.
I showered, nearly slipped and fell trying to get out of the bathtub with only one good hand, and got ready for the day as best as I could. My bruising was turning that ghastly yellow color, which meant it was healing but it also made me look like there was something amiss with my red blood cells and thus probably dying.
Putting the hair dryer down after a vigorous one-handed blow-dry, I considered my hair. I’d always kept it long because Micah asked me to. The rainbow colors were Gayle’s idea. She wanted me to look “adorably alternative.” I didn’t mind. Back then, I would have done anything to make the band work.
All of the dye had grown out. My hair hung down to my bra strap, lifeless. I was naturally blonde, kind of medium tone, but it always seemed a little boring, which was why I didn’t mind throwing all the color at it.
I fingered the ends, contemplating.
And suddenly I knew what I’d ask the hairstylist to do.
To my surprise, I felt a twinge of excitement about it. Like it mattered. It didn’t matter.
“Maybe it does,” I murmured to myself. “Maybe it’s all part of moving on.”
Moving on.
That sounded exhausting.
A little while later I was in the sitting room watching a morning television show, eating buttered toast (it had never tasted so good!) and drinking English breakfast tea when I heard the lock turn in the apartment door.
I tensed, readying myself for another encounter (and possible altercation) with O’Dea. But the footsteps walking down the hall weren’t his. It sounded like a pair of heels clacking along the floorboards.
And I was right.
Staring up over my shoulder, I froze with a piece of toast to my mouth at the sight of the beautiful young woman standing in my doorway. “Who the hell are you?”
She blinded me with a stunning white-toothed smile. “I’m Autumn.” She lifted her hands in which were a ton of shopping bags. “And I bring lots of goodies!”
Ah. Okay. This was O’Dea’s sister. I ate the toast, getting to my feet. Her eyes widened a little as she took me in. “I know. I’m a mess,” I mumbled around the toast.
Autumn’s perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together. “You’re just . . . Killian told me what they did to you but . . . those little fuckers!”
I grinned because the word sounded so odd coming out of her mouth. She had a melodic accent much like Killian’s. Lilting and charming and a little well-to-do. That, along with her shining auburn hair curled into waves, her perfectly manicured nails, wrinkle-free shirt, blazer, and cigarette trousers, and four-inch stiletto sandals, she was all class.
Her makeup looked like it had been applied by an artist.
Big, warm, gorgeous brown eyes—exactly like Killian’s—stared at me, framed with thick lashes that seemed to go on forever. Were those real?
Of course O’Dea’s sister was gorgeous. That family had good genes.
“If you think I look bad, you should see the other guy,” I joked.
“Killian said you were a smart arse. But I won’t joke about this, Skylar.” Autumn strolled toward me, studying me, as she promptly dropped all the shopping bags on the floor at our feet. “Those little fuckers deserve a long stint in prison for doing this to you.”
I thought about the one called Johnny who I kept seeing every time I closed my eyes at night.
And his friend, who I could’ve forgiven because he’d saved me, if he hadn’t run off with my goddamned Taylor. “I agree.”