Chase stops singing, leaving the final verse unfinished. He turns to face me, stares like he doesn’t know what to do. What to say. How to help.
Not with an audience. Not with Alex storming over to the stage.
I cup a hand around my mouth, my arm dropping to my side with defeat.
I’m not sure what hurts more…
The pain I see in Chase’s eyes, or the fact that I’ve spent so much time running from my own pain.
Chapter 18Chase
Just like that, she falls apart.
Frays at the seams.
I stand there frozen as the room tilts around her collapse. The audience murmurs. The song cuts off prematurely. Snickers echo from one corner, a slow-clap from another.
Everything in me screams to reach for her, to pull her close and hold her together. She’s breaking. Crumbling in plain view.
I set the mic back on the stand as Annie drops to a crouch, covering her face with her hand. The other goes slack, the microphone slipping from her grip and rolling across the stage. Her sobs slice through the static of the bar.
I hesitate. I’m not the guy who should be comforting her.
But I can’t just watch her break like a useless bystander.
Lowering beside her, I stroke a hand down her back, soft and gentle, as if she’s a frightened animal ready to scratch or bolt.
Once, twice.
But that’s as far as I get.
Alex charges onto the stage with murder in his eyes. “I got it.” His voice is all bite as he hauls her upright and into his arms with reckless force.
I rise to my feet. The outlier once again.
Kenna hovers near the steps, eyes wide and tearful, ushering me toward her. I move on autopilot, watching out of my periphery as Alex drags Annie toward the bathrooms, his grip too hard. Possessive.
Annie’s panicked voice floats into my ears. “Don’t. Please. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
A headache flares behind my left temple.
I press my fingers to it as I reach the table for my leather jacket. Noise floods back in. Chatter, laughter, the DJ apologizing, a grungy ’90s song cutting through the speakers.
I jab the heel of my palm against my head.
“She will be, you know.” Kenna’s voice penetrates, pulling my gaze to her.
Her face blurs. I teeter in place, the migraine stabbing deeper. “She’ll be what?”
A small smile. “Fine.”
Tension coils around me.
Fine.
That’s not good enough. It never has been.
But who am I to say otherwise? To challenge it with wisdom, experience, or hollow hope? I’ve been coasting onfinefor years.
