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“Stay on the line with me. Help is on the way.”
Juliet’s hand against my cheek brings me back to the present.
“She tried to kill herself,” I admit, blinking back tears. The words feel strange as I say them out loud. “I wasn’t there for her and she took a bunch of pills. She swallowed a handful and tried to go to sleep. If I hadn’t got there when I did—”
Her silence is expected, but the look in her eyes makes me feel safe. She’s listening to me, and for whatever reason, she wants to be there for me.
“She needed help, but I was too worried about tours and albums and fucking parties that I didn’t even see how empty she was.” My body wants to pull away. That gnawing guilt that always eats away at me screams that I don’t deserve to be comforted. Not when my selfishness almost cost me one of the only people in the world I truly care about.
“Where is she now?” Juliet’s voice is barely a whisper.
I look away.
“It’s a place called Magnolia Springs, some wellness retreat where they focus on healing. I picked it because she has freedom but isn’t by herself. I can’t—I don’t know how to make it okay. I don’t know how to look her in the eyes and make her understand how sorry I am for putting my shit before her. She lost the baby, and with that, on top of everything else, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to trust her being alone again.”
Juliet swallows hard and nuzzles into my neck. “Is this what was bothering you, earlier?”
I nod. “They called. She’s been asking if I think she’s ready to come home. Asking when I’m coming back and if she can stay with me. And I don’t have the balls to tell her I’m too much of a coward to face her, so I just keep telling Wren that I think she needs more time.”
“Don’t say that, Ryan. You aren’t a coward.” His eyes are brimmed with tears. “You saved her life.”
I scoff. “She didn’t want to be saved. Don’t you see that? She tried to kill herself behind a locked door. She had no intention of being rescued.”
I can see the thought whirling in her mind. “But the front door was unlocked.”
I furrow my brow. “And?”
“How did you know to go there?”
I think back to that day, and back to the message she’d sent apologizing for what she was about to do.
“She texted me.”
The beautiful woman nestled in my arms raises up to face me. “I think she did want to be saved, Ryan.” Her voice is gentle. “The front door was unlocked. I think that means a small part of her hoped you would get there in time.”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her back into me.
She continues. “All you can do is love her, Ryan. That’s all anyone can do. Love her and be there for her. You can’t let this guilt you feel rob the both of you from ever getting the chance to move on.”
How is it that hearing this from her makes more sense than any of the countless lectures I’d received from the psychiatrists, nurses, and therapists? From the moment she got off that ambulance until I left her at Magnolia, I’ve felt nothing but guilt and shame.
I press a kiss on the top of her head. Exhaustion from the tour and from opening up these wounds and laying it all out to bear for Juliet has my eyes feeling heavy.
“Thank you,” I say into her hair. It’s all I can seem to manage. We lay back into the pillows together and settle in.
For the first time, I don’t want to leave once she falls asleep. I want to stay here, with her in my arms, and I don’t give a damn about the consequences.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Juliet
Today, everything was different.
Today, I woke up at dawn in Ryan’s arms after spending the night listening to him open up in ways I could never have expected.
We both had gotten up surprisingly early considering how little sleep we’d gotten.
Today our little game had turned into something real—and infinitely more complicated.
