“Ah… wow,” she says, pressing her hand to her forehead. “I suddenly feel like such an ass… I thought you were just avoiding me last night. I tried calling you. I thought…wow. Wow, I am such a bitch.”
My tongue darts out over my lips, and I shake my head. “No. No, I’m sorry about that. I should have texted you when I got home,” I counter. “Were you okay? Did anything happen?”
Talk to me.
Tell me about the phone call.
“Nothing,” she says. “No, I just… I think packing was getting to me. I was looking for a distraction.”
I hug my arms around my chest as she backs away from me and begins throwing more things into bags. “What do you mean packing was getting to you?” I ask.
“I mean… it’s this place. Memories. It’ll be hard to let go,” she replies.
It’s killing me not knowing whether this is a response to calling out the wrong name last night or something else—her way of pushing me out. I don’t like it. I can’t let her push me out. I need her to talk to me so that I can actually discuss the phone calls and tell herI’mthe one who won’t let anything happen to her.
Packing is getting to me.
“Can I ask you something?” I say after a minute or two of contemplating her fear.
“Sure,” she replies.
“What’s so special about this place?”
Bonnie slows to look around, and I watch as her shoulders droop slightly, as she finally seems to inhale a full breath.
Slow down, rockstar.
It’s okay.
You can slow down with me.
Be selfish. It’s okay.
“This is where I got clean,” she says solemnly. “These are the walls that kept me safe after the second rehab stay. This was my fresh start.” She pivots, her eyes scanning the room as if she cansee the ghosts of her past in the walls. “I guess it’s just hard to let go of that… of really anything that pulled me out of the pit.”
The way she says the last sentence makes me pause. Anything that pulled her out…
“What can I take for you?” I ask as she sits a couple of bags on the counter.
She pushes a duffle toward me. “This one. And my pillow, can you grab it?” she asks.
I feel like I’m walking her out to rehab again.
Fuck, what have I done?
I did all of this to her.
I brought those guys back into her life because I didn’t take care of them the first time. She was doing so well, and then I came back, and I…
Maybe her avoiding me for a few days will be a good thing.
“Anything,” I tell her.
I was wrong.
This is fucking killing me.
It’s been a full week of her barely speaking to me, barely allowing herself to stay in the same room with me for more than a few minutes without asking one of the guys to join her. She still hasn’t told me aboutanything—not the call, her stalker’s texts, how the song is going, not a single joke…Nothing. Her glances are short, her cheeks always heated when she looks my way.
