"I just go where the guitar takes me."
Angus Young
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I laugh so hard my stomach aches. “He tried to stick a meatball up his nose? You’re lying!”
Vincent’s chuckle is warm in my ear. “I swear, baby. And then he threw it across the table. It bounced straight into Lacey’s plate. I wish I’d filmed it.”
“I would’ve loved to see that,” I sigh, rolling onto my stomach. “So, what happened after?”
“They had to call one of the nurses because he wouldn’t stop giggling. The boy is chaos!”
His voice, even through the phone, makes me smile in ways nothing else can. It’s been a month and a half since he left for the rehabilitation center in Pennsylvania. Our calls are limited. We can talk only a handful of times each week, and I can’t visit him.I geti t because that’s the whole point of him leaving: he needs space to focus on himself, without me becoming a distraction.
But God, I miss him.
“And how’s everything else? How areyou?” I ask gently, propping the phone on speaker while I open my laptop and start scrolling through job listings.
I haven’t told him Mary fired me. I took too many days off when Fleur died, and she said it was okay—until one day I accidentally broke ten plates, and she chose to fire me. But honestly, I don’t even care anymore. I’ll find something else, just like I’ll find a new direction now that I’ve dropped out of college. Vet school was supposed to be my dream, but now the thought of it makes me sick. I can’t handle four more years of vet school after graduation. Maybe I’m not stupid; maybe it just wasn’t my dream after all.
Vincent sighs on the other end. “I... I think I’m okay. I’m doing a lot of therapy, and it’s... exhausting. But I talk about you all the time. Everyone here knows your name. They probably dream about you, too, because I don’t shut up about you.”
My chest tightens. Roxy, our kitten, bats at the hem of my sock, and I scoop her up with a laugh. “We miss you too. Even Roxy. She’s sulking without you.”
“Nova?”
“Yeah?”
“It feels like torture, being without you.” His voice breaks on the words.
I clutch the stuffed animal he gave me last summer to my chest. “It’s torture for me too. But baby... listen to me. You didn’t leave to punish yourself. You left to heal. To learn to love yourself the way we love you. Don’t forget that, okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I can almost hear him swallow. “I’m trying. But it’s hard.”
“I know. But you’ll get there. You’re the strongest person I know.”
He exhales sharply. “And you? How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, curling up in bed with Roxy pressed to my stomach. I set the phone beside me, as if he were lying there too. “I’m busy.”
“Or keeping yourself busy,” he corrects, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Maybe your prediction’s the right one,” I admit, giggling.
“How much time do we have left?”
“Half an hour. I have to give the phone back at ten-thirty.”
“Where are you now?”
“In my room. My roommate’s watching TV in the lounge.”
A wicked thought sparks. “Maybe we could—”
“Do you want me to FaceTime you?” he interrupts, voice low, thick with need.
My breath hitches. “Yes.”
