“Look, I’m not here to force you to relive a painful memory. That’s not my place. But please listen to me. You may have successfully run from whatever happened for eight years, but just like Johannes, in the end, life finds a way of forcing you to face up to what you did and figure out a way to live with it.”
And there I was planning to run from my demons forever until a purple-haired dynamo exploded into my life and upended it in the best and the worst ways possible.
Pushing off the worktop, I cocked my head, then traipsed into the living room. Aspen followed, and when I sank onto the couch, she sat beside me rather than in one of two chairs that surrounded my coffee table. She didn’t touch me, nor did I reach for her, but I appreciated the solidarity, nonetheless.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Tell me about Caroline. What was she like?”
There’s a loaded question.“She was… multi-layered. Complicated. The life and soul of the party one minute, and the next, she’d sink into a deep depression that could last for days or weeks. Everything she was, everything she did, was in extremes. There was no middle ground with her. In the beginning, she entranced me. She was so… vibrant, you know? Until she wasn’t. By the end, I used to search for excuses not to see her.”
“How long did you date?”
“Six months, give or take. I knew by month four that the relationship was dead, but Caroline would have a meltdown if I even hinted that we might’ve run our course.”
“She loved you.”
“I’m not sure she did. She was obsessed with me, but love? Our relationship was too toxic to be love.”
“How did you meet her?”
“She waited for me at the stage door after a gig. It was pouring down with rain, and there she was, soaked through to the skin, shivering. She asked for a picture. I asked if she wanted to come back to my hotel room.” I shrugged. “The rest is history.”
“So, what happened?” Her voice was soft, encouraging, kind. All the things I didn’t deserve.
“I’d ended things between us a couple of times, but she’d freak out that much, I always agreed to get back together. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t a bad person, but our relationship brought out the worst in both of us. I was twenty-seven, at the height of my fame, doped out of my mind most of the time, and my addiction only got worse every time I broke up with her, then took her back. We were spiraling, fighting more than ever. She’d started getting physical, and I’d have to restrain her to stop her from hurting me and herself.”
My chest constricted, flattening my lungs. Fuck, this was painful, and I hadn’t even shared the worst part yet. A smattering of rain pelted the bank of windows on the opposite side of the living room. I focused on the droplets dripping down the glass to center myself. Aspen didn’t say a word, just let me catch my breath. I fucking loved her for that.
“She was twenty-one years old. Twenty-fucking-one. Too young to be hooking up with a man like me. I should never have invited her to my room that night. If I hadn’t, she’d still be alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” I gave her my eyes then, bleak. “The night before she died, we had a blazing row. I told her we were over and I wasn’t taking her back this time. She threw a glass vase at my head. I didn’t duck in time. Needed three stitches.” I pushed my hair out of the way, showing her the faint white scar on my temple. “I manhandled her out the door, blood dripping in my eyes. When I shoved her into the lift, I told her I never wanted to see her again. As it turns out, I never did.”
Aspen’s fingers, with purple-tipped nails that matched her hair, wrapped around my forearm. She squeezed. “God, Joz, that’s awful.”
“Oh, that’s not the half of it.” I looked past her shoulder at my first platinum disc proudly displayed on the exposed brick wall. I kept the rest in my home studio down the hallway, but this one was special. Back then, I’d been filled with raw ambition, certain I was destined to conquer the world. Musically, at least. And I did, but somewhere along the way, I lost myself.
Keeping my focus on that disc, I scrubbed a hand over my beard. “I went out drinking with some friends, reveling in my new-found freedom. Must’ve got home around one-ish. Shot some heroin. Passed out on the bed. Sometime later, my phone woke me up. I should’ve ignored it the moment I saw her name on the screen. When I answered, she came at me with vitriol. I let her get it all out, because I’d learned through bitter experience that was the best way to deal with her. When she failed to get a rise out of me, she started crying, begging me to take her back, telling me it would be different this time.”
I pressed the heel of my hand into my chest bone, rubbing in small circles as though that would erase the permanent cramp that resided there.
“The easy thing to do in the moment would have been to agree, but I’d had it with us. Nothing would change. Getting backtogether with her would’ve just reset the toxic cycle we’d been in from the beginning. I told her no, that we were over. No second, third, or tenth chance.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, giving Aspen my attention for the next part. It was the least I owed her. “She told me that if I didn’t take her back, she was going to kill herself. That wasn’t the first time she’d threatened suicide, but she’d never followed through, and I believed the same to be true this time. So, I laughed it off and said I knew she was bluffing, but blackmailing me wouldn’t work this time. I hung up and passed out. Next morning, I heard the news.”
Fire lanced through me, turning my already blackened soul to ash. I pulled my eyes from Aspen’s like the coward I was.
“If I’d been sober rather than spaced out on drink and drugs, maybe I’d have dealt with it differently. Called for help. But I didn’t, and she died.”
Silence hung between us, as thick and oppressive as a dense fog in the depths of winter.
“So, now you know.” I got up and trudged to the window.
Eight fucking years I’d carried this weight, and it never got any lighter. Idiotically, I’d dared to hope that telling Aspen a truth I’d buried deep inside me would’ve eased my guilt a fraction.
It hadn’t. If anything, it felt heavier than it had in years.
I didn’t hear her approach, only realizing she’d moved to stand beside me when her warm palm landed on my left shoulder.
