Page 32 of Before You Fell

Damon’s jaw tightens. “Phoenix, I said groupies aren’t allowed in here.”

Phoenix’s gaze flicks to him, bored and cold. “Then don’t call her that.”

“Phoenix, don’t,” Cruz says.

Phoenix looks at him. “Don’t what?”

Jax’s eyes cut to me, then back to him. “Be this much of a dick, man.”

Phoenix lets out a quiet laugh. “Bit late for that.”

Jett leans back into the couch. “I’d say read the fucking room, but apparently you only read screaming chicks and room numbers on hotel key cards.”

Phoenix ignores the guys and their comments.

I can’t do this. There is no way I can sit here and watch him turn himself into someone I barely know just to prove he can.

I stand.

“Well, I’m needed elsewhere.” My voice comes out flat enough to pass for bored, which is lucky, because bored is cleaner than hurt.

“Songbird,” Cruz says.

I keep walking. Out of the studio and into the hall. I pass the vending machine humming in the corner, the stack of black road cases, the half-open office door, and the faint thud of bass still bleeding through the studio walls behind me.

I don’t look back.

By the time I shove through the side exit and reach my car, my hands are shaking.

My apartment is dark when I walk in, except for a thin strip of sunlight leaking through the heavy blinds I have yet to open, cutting the living room into pieces.

It’s small, overpriced, and too quiet. A songwriter’s apartment with notebooks on the coffee table, loose pages on the floor, and numerous mugs in the sink.

I drop my keys into the bowl by the door and kick off my boots.

I cross the room and sink onto the couch.

The silence sits too close. It crawls under my skin, slips behind my ribs, and touches all the places I have spent the day pretending don’t hurt.

I can still see him. That is the shittest part about it. His mouth in the hallway. His eyes on mine. The way he almost looked at me before the blonde with fuck-me boots dragged the rockstar persona back over his face.

Fuck, I miss him.

I press my palms against my thighs and try to breathe through it. Of course, it doesn’t fucking work. Breathing is for people with healthier coping mechanisms and fewer songs written about men who should come with warning labels.

I sit up and open the drawer in the table beside the couch. The little amber bottle of pills rolls toward my fingers as if it has been waiting.

I stare at it for a long time before I tell myself the lie gently. Because gentle lies go down easier.

I’m not falling apart. I’m just taking the edge off. There is a difference, as long as I don’t examine it too closely.

I twist the cap, tip one pill into my palm, and close my fingers around it before I talk myself into being sensible.

I swallow it dry because I cannot be bothered to get water.

My phone rings and Mom’s name lights up the screen at the worst possible moment.

I close my eyes for a moment.