A wave of fury swept over me and just as quickly receded. It wasn’t Colt’s fault Beth was... Well. Sick. I’d read a bunch of stuff online. There was no one cause for an eating disorder. And no easy cure. Most of the websites suggested anorexia was the result of a combination of factors. Perfectionism. Anxiety. Genetics. Low self-esteem. Stress.
Touring with your country superstar boyfriend? Getting thrownoffthe tour by the country superstar boyfriend? Ticked a lot of boxes.
Still, he was here. I was prepared to forgive him. Not everything. But a lot.
But it wasn’t Colt who got out of the luxury car. I recognized the driver guy, Jimmy, from the wedding.
I thought about dashing upstairs for some shorts. Shrugged instead and opened the back door. “Hey.”
He nodded, his gaze politely on my face. “Hi. Is your sister ready?”
I crossed my arms over the T-shirt. “Ready for what?”
“Colt’s recording. He sent me to pick her up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Is there a problem?”
I narrowed my eyes. “He doesn’t know?”Beth hadn’t told him.
“Know what?”
“Beth is in the hospital.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Jimmy’s face crinkled in what appeared to be genuine concern. “Is she okay?”
I shrugged. “Holding her own.”Stable, our mother’s text said.
“What was it, an accident?”
The weight of my sister’s secret pressed on me. Colt wasn’t only Beth’s boyfriend. He was her boss. Jimmy’s boss. If she hadn’t told him... “I can’t really say.”
“But what do I tell Colt?”
I set my hands on my hips. “You tell that piece of shit he can ask her himself.”
I stopped in the doorway of Beth’s room on my way to the shower. My heart wobbled at the sight of her guitar, silent in a corner. Her teddy bear, waiting on her bed.
The walls still displayed her childhood posters, Hannah Montana and Harry Potter. Her books and stuffed animals were neatly lined on the shelf, frozen on the cusp of adulthood. Like Beth herself. A wave of longing for my sister swept over me.
I grabbed her bear and hugged it tight, knocking the journal on her bedside table. It fell open on the floor.Oops. I reached to pick it up.
I wasn’t snooping.
Not really.
But I missed her so much, and the notebook was a part of her, the place where her music came from. Her childish, looped handwriting, scrawled and scratched out, danced across the lines. I recognized the words of her song, “Smooth as You.” Smiling, I turned the page.
It looked different, the writing darker, as if she’d pressed into the paper. Tight, hard letters. Numbers, dug into the page. Steps. Crunches. Calories. Inches. Pounds.
My stomach quailed. This was... Beth? Or her illness, compulsively transcribed into a notebook. I flipped through page after page of cramped, black writing. Like graffiti on a wall, like scars cut into her skin. All this time, she was bleeding. She was killing herself, and we never knew.
I wished I’d never seen it.
CHAPTER 26
Beth
