Then she moved to sit on the edge of the bed—and missed. She wasn’t kidding that she’d had a lot todrink.
As I looked at her down on the floor, smiling her dorky smile and kind of giggling as she struggled to get up, all cocooned in the blanket, I realized she was definitely gonna need some help getting through thisnight.
Which meant I should rally one of the girls to look after her, and get thefuckout.
Instead, I went into the bathroom and got the water running warm in the bathtub. If Jessa Mayes died of hypothermia tonight and I was the last one to see her alive, pretty fucking sure her brother would neverforgiveme.
“Please, don’t be angrywithme.”
I looked up into the big window over the tub and saw her reflected in the glass, leaning against the bathroom door,watchingme.
“I can’t take it,” she said, “not on top ofeverythingelse.”
I had no idea what “everything else” was, but it really wasn’t my problem. Neither was her discomfort with me beingangry.
“I’m fine,”Isaid.
“You’renot.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Jessa. I’m fuckingtired.”
“You arenotfine.”
“Neither the fuckareyou.”
She hugged herself and said, “How wouldyouknow?”
“You’re right.” I stood and faced her. “How would I know? How would I know a fucking thing other than what you told me? You refused to come on tour with the band because you said you didn’t want to be famous. Then you became a fuckingsupermodel.”
“I am not asupermodel.”
“No? Well, the only place I get to see you is on the fucking internet, in your underwear, like all the other assholes with their dicks in theirhands.”
She gaped at me. “It’s notmyunderwear,” she objected, like that made a fucking difference. “And they pay me a lot of money towearit.”
“We would’ve paid you too. We did, tourorno.”
“It wasn’t about the money. It was about me finding out who I am. I just couldn’t do that on tour withtheband.”
“How would you know? You never gave it achance.”
“I’m not having this same argument with youagain.”
And just like that, the wallwentup.
I sucked back a breath and turned away—but there she was in the goddamn window. Moving closer to me. “You’re angry because I didn’t come with you guys when you left on that first world tour,” she said softly, “and you’ve neverforgivenme.”
Well,fuckme.
I was kinda stunned that she would go there. Say it right out loud like that, when she’d run away from it for so long. But then again, alcohol could be one hell of a truthserum.
Had she actually started to comprehend what the fuckshe’ddone?
Was this heading toward a legitapology?
Fuck that. I wasn’t accepting an apology from her. I wasn’t accepting shit allfromher.
Jessa Mayes could take her apologies and her too-little-too-fucking-late and go fuckherself.
