Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

22. Rivers

22

RIVERS

I gasped and sat up so quickly that my head started spinning and looked quickly around the room, trying to remember where the hell I was and what I was doing here. I didn’t recognize the room. Or the bed. Or the sheets. There was a window on one wall, and through it I could see the neon lights of a downtown area, but...

Where the fuck was I?

Then it all came crashing back. The tour. The next city, and this time one big enough to have plenty of electric lights in its downtown sector. A bigger hotel where we each had plenty of space, though it was never quite enough. Olivia and Connor. The Leathers, our warmup band.

The crowds. Yet another venue, and hopefully with better sound proofing than the last one had. The late-night shows.

Lila Potter.

I shut my eyes and fell back onto my pillow... only to realize that the pillow and sheets were soaking wet. In fact, now that I was paying attention, so were my pajamas.

So was my hair.

What the fuck had I been doing in my sleep that I was now drenched in sweat? And this was sweat, right? Not beer or whiskey or some other nameless substance?

The question brought a stream of images with it, and within seconds I remembered exactly why I’d been sweating. A building so tall I hadn’t been able to see the top of it. Darkness creeping through the windows, but for the faces I saw there. The feeling that something was very wrong with the place and that I didn’t want to be there. My mother yanking me out of the car and scratching me in the process, her skin smelling like cigarettes and booze, though it would be years before I’d understand that was what it had been. At the time I’d just thought it was the smell of my mother.

The smell of home and what had, up to that point, passed as safety. Familiarity, at least.

Within five years, I’d realized it was the smell of a drunk and an addict. One who’d decided when I was about three years old that I was no longer worth keeping.

The man at the door. His harsh laugh when he’d seen me. The way his cold fingers had sunk right into my arms as he took me from my mother.

The smirk of the man she’d been pretending was my father, whose name I hadn’t even known. The net in a long line of men who didn’t really matter.

The way my mother had turned away from me before the door even closed behind us, her mind moving quickly to something else. Probably, looking back, where she was going to score her next hit of drugs.

The fact that I’d screamed for her all that night and into the next morning and spent much of the next year standing at the windows that looked out onto the street, watching for her to come back and save me. The way my heart had grown colder with every day that she didn’t. And the way I’d realized, finally —and maybe far too late—that I was on my own and had to take care of myself rather than waiting for her to come back for me. The memory of they day when I’d woken up knowing that self-protection was the name of the game. No more emotions. No more expecting someone else to take care of you or make you feel better.

No more wasting your time on love that you never got back.

Because she hadn’t loved me enough to think it was worthwhile to keep me with her. And if your own mother didn’t love you enough for that, then who the hell was going to?

Sure, I’d only been four or five at the time and they’d been concepts way too big for such a little brain. My understanding of the themes had been childish, at best. But I’d understood well enough that if she’d loved me, if I’d been good enough, she would have kept me with her rather than turning me over to a sleazy, badly run orphanage.

And that idea right there had stuck. I’d managed to find my way well enough in the orphanage itself, though I’d quickly developed a reputation as a kid who had a chip on his shoulder. Couples who came in looking for a new child never gave me a second glance, and the foster parents who took me always gave me back when they realized how damaged I was. Or how much I was willing to do to be left alone.

As far as I was concerned, that was for the best. It meant fewer people to try to please and fewer people trying to control my life. Those were people I didn’t have to let in and who never really tried to care about me, either.

Less complication, as far as I was concerned. And I’d had a ready-made answer for why they didn’t love me. I wasn’t worth loving. I didn’t have anything worth giving, and if I tried to care about something—like the little mouse I’d rescued from a cat once—it ended up dying. I broke everything I touched, and it was better if I didn’t care about anyone at all.

At some point, that idea became so baked in that I stopped thinking about. It was just a fact of life. One that protected me from all the people trying to get under my skin over the years.

I swung out of bed and made my way toward the bathroom, staggering slightly as my legs tried to remember how to walk. It was still dark out and I was guessing it was somewhere around 2 in the morning, based on nothing other than the feeling inside me that told me so. Everyone else would still be asleep. My best friends—the guys in the band—each had their own rooms, as usual, and I didn’t think I’d be exaggerating to assume that each of them had a girl in bed with them. They wouldn’t thank me for knocking on their doors and wanting to talk.

Not that I’d been doing much of that lately. I’d been specializing in isolation as of late, honestly. Ever since Lila had tried to walk out on me in the middle of a show when she thought I wouldn’t be paying attention.

The night I’d jumped off the stage and virtually fallen at her feet, begging her to give me a chance to prove myself to her.

The press had eaten it up, of course. The music industry’s designated bad boy on his knees in front of a small-town musician, trying to win her back after she saw him with a fan and took it all wrong. Of course, the media had already run with the story that I’d met her and fallen in love—as planted by my agent—but had no clue how real that story actually was.

After all, they hadn’t been around for the afternoon spent making love under the clouds. The shared adventure of stealing a car to try to catch up with the tour. The long, hot looks across crowded rooms. Nights spent in a closed-down café writing music.

They only saw what we were showing them, which was Lila and me walking everywhere hand-in-hand as if we were the newest, bestest couple to ever couple. And from what I could tell, everyone was loving it.

The truth was, though, that we were failing at it. We hadn’t seen much of each other since that night when I stopped her from leaving. Taylor—the agent in question—had taken Lila under her wing and was constantly parading her in front of the press for pictures. Every so often she insisted I be there too, and do the whole smiling thing, but that was about the extent of it. Lila was Taylor’s new pet project.

My career—and my ratty reputation—were evidently no longer her priorities.

And while I didn’t much care about whether Taylor was paying attention to me or not—it was a whole lot easier when she wasn’t—seeing Lila for only five minutes at a time was almost killing me. I’d known the girl for a whole three weeks or so and I already knew every inch of her body. Her scent. The feel of her tucked up against me, making me think everything was going to be okay. The way that smile of hers lit the world on fire.

I turned abruptly and made my way to the table where my phone was sitting, suddenly needing to talk to her. Hear her tell me that she was up and could meet me in the hallway. Hear the throaty chuckle she’d give me when she heard I was awake because I’d had a nightmare.

I wanted to tell her about the dream and everything that came with it. Speak out loud the way I’d felt when my mother left me, and how that feeling had baked in and become part of my core. Ask her if she thought it was true, or if there was any sort of hope for me.

Ask her whether I was really as hateful as I’d always believed.

I wanted her to tell me that I wasn’t that guy and never had been, and that I’d been right when I thought this was just a mask I put on to protect myself. And that the real me—the deep-down me—was just as human and lovable as anyone else.

And yes, I heard myself wishing for those things. I knew how stupid and pointless they were, and how crazy it was to think that Lila Potter would have any way of knowing to say it. But if anyone could, it was Lila. And if she’d said it, I would have believed her with all my heart.

I had the phone in my hand and was in the midst of scrolling for her name when I glanced at the time. It wasn’t 2 in the morning. It was 5. Not that the time changed anything. Either way, she’d still be asleep and probably wouldn’t want to hear from me, especially if I was calling with some sob story about a nightmare.

She hadn’t made time for me in a week. Why the hell would she make time for me now, when she was probably in the midst of the deepest sleep possible?

I put the phone gently back down on the table, blew out a soft breath of something—despair? Resignation?—and then turned and headed for the shower. If it was 5, it meant the restaurants would be opening up soon.

I’d have a shower, then go and get breakfast.

If I was lucky, the restaurant would also have a bottle of whiskey available to go with my eggs and pancakes.