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If we have a future past this.
At first, I wasn’t sure. There wasn’t a day that went by where I doubted my love, but I doubted our survival.
This is the hard part. I don’t want to be apart from Tate any more than we have already. When he returned, I knew he’d be leaving at the end, but now it’s different. He only left the first time, never returning in between tour dates or business trips, because I sent him away.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you away how I did.” Now it’s my turn to let remorse stain my cheeks. “I was hurt, scared, and convinced you’d find something better while you were gone. I regretted it almost immediately, and I understand you were hurting too, which is why I don’t blame you for not responding to my text.”
Tate blinks. “What text?”
“The text. The text I sent a month after you left.”
He sits up, wearing a mask of confusion. “There was no text. The day in the hospital was the first we spoke in over a year.”
“No. I texted you.” Dragging myself from the bed, I grab my robe and hurry down the stairs before returning to an equally perplexed Tate. I pull up our messages, scrolling until I find the one I’m looking for, and hand him the phone. “See.”
He wraps his fingers around mine to hold the screen steady as he reads the message. His eyes flit left and right as he mouths the words over and over before heartbreaking realization slips over his face.
“Talia.” His expression is grim. “This is the first time I’ve seen this message.”
FORTY-TWO
TATE
This is a sick, twisted joke.
I’m sorry for how we left things. It isn’t fair of me to shun you from your home. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.
I love you.
Words from a text I never received. I’m certain. I scramble across the mattress and snatch up my phone from the bedside table. When I have our text thread pulled up, I show her the most recent message between us before this one: me asking if she wanted a take-out coffee from Peaches on my way home.
“But…w-where did it go?” She grabs my phone, swiping up and down as she searches for the message.
She won’t find it.
Because it’s been deleted.
While I hate to jump to conclusions and throw around empty accusations, deep in my gut, I know who’s to blame. From the date and time stamp on Talia’s phone, the text was sent during another trip to LA, where I spent the weekend at a photoshoot for a recent brand partnership.
I gave my phone to the one person I trusted, all because I wanted to remove the temptation to text Talia.
A person I have quickly learned does not have my best interests in mind and only what I fill his pockets with.
Here’s me thinking cutting our time short together was the biggest issue left for Talia and me to navigate, but now it’s the fact we didn’t need to spend this much time apart to begin with.
“Maybe you didn’t see it with everything going on. You were getting—”
“No.” My hands tremble with rage. “The message never reached me because it was deleted before I could read it.”
“But who—” She pauses, eyes narrowing with contempt. “Howard.”
She’s a fantastic judge of character, and from the two occasions she met my manager, she took a disliking to him. If only I shared her intuition. For some reason, flashbacks to their interaction along the red carpet replay in my head.
“He said something to you. The night of the premiere.”
She isn’t quick enough to hide the slight flinch in her features.
“What did he say?” I strangle the bedsheets.
