Prologue
XANDER
As always, it’s recommended to listen to the playlist while reading
SPOTIFY-YOUTUBE
We’re on the road again. Falling Down is kicking ass and taking names. I hate being away from Tera. Hate it. She’s going through so much, so I go visit her when I can for as long as I can. Sometimes, I can stay weeks at a time, other times it’s only days. It depends on the tour schedule, and those schedules are getting more hectic by the day. Jerry keeps adding additional dates and three months has turned into five.
After the attack, Tera was dead inside. I could see it—everyone could see it. There was no light in her eyes. She was despondent and lost. Who could blame her? I can’t imagine how she felt—I don’t want to imagine how she felt because if I do, I’ll kill someone. That won’t be helpful to her at all.
Dad talked to a friend who talked to a friend who talked to a friend, and they found a psychiatrist who would help Tera without her having to leave her apartment. They have online or home visit sessions. I don’t care what it costs—I want the best for my wife and I’ll do anything, pay any price, to ensure she gets it.
I die a little inside every time I have to leave. It hurts deep into my soul. I walk out the door and I leave a piece of myself behind. That piece of me belongs to her.
Speaking about Dad, when Tera moved to New York, he moved to LA to be closer to us. He just packed up his practice and started over—taking Sandy with him. She's been with him from the first day he opened his practice, and I think she'll be with him until the day he retires.
Dad and Sandy visit Tera often and stay with her some weekends when Linc's out of town and Tera doesn't have plans to have friends over. She and Shea are still best friends, and though I hate it, she and Carter Winters are still in contact. That guy got all the firsts I was stupid enough to let him take. He'll get nothing else.
Time has gone so fast in some ways and extremely slowly in others.
It's nearly a year later when Tera and I are finally able to be intimate—not sex, but holding one another, sometimes kissing—nothing too heavy. She’s not ready for that. It hurts me to know what she's been through and what she's still battling every day.
Three months after she moved into her apartment post-hospital release from the attack, she told me I could fuck other people. I didn’t want to fuck anyone then and I certainly don’t want to now.
One night, the decision was taken out of my hands—sort of. I was drunk and stoned and partying hard with the guys. Jesse all-but pushed us out the door, and when I leaned back against the building and the girl dropped to her knees, I imagined it was Tera. I hated—hate—myself for it.
It'd been I don't know how many months and I didn’t even come. Couldn’t do it. The self-loathing I felt after I pushed the girl off me had me wanting to kick my own ass. I showered in the hottest water possible and let it scald me to wash off the dirty—and it was only a blowjob. I didn’t even touch the chick. I wouldn’t—won’t fuck someone else. I just can’t.
I haven’t been that drunk or stoned like that again. She means too much to me.
