Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit

27. Rivers

27

RIVERS

I pushed my fingers through the links of the chain that supported the swing and looked up into the night sky, trying to focus on the stars above me and the great expanse surrounding them. Miles and miles—light years, evidently—of darkness that held nothing but stardust and wishes. Big empty spaces where no one knew your name or what you’d been in the past.

Places where no one was waiting to hurt you or leave you behind. Blame you for things you didn’t understand and leave scars on your soul that you couldn’t seem to get rid of.

I shut my eyes on that thought, which hit far too close to the truth of the matter and thought back over the night. Lila hadn’t given me a second look after the one we’d shared when we caught Anna flirting with Matt—and Matt virtually laying his bass down at her feet—during the first song they played. She’d held my gaze for a long moment, every emotion she was feeling clear on her face, and had then turned away and gone into the end of the song like a pro.

Like she’d played to audiences that big a million times and knew exactly what to do.

And like we hadn’t just been sharing some sort of unspoken inside joke that had covered not only the antics onstage but also everything we’d learned about each other over the past two weeks, and how deeply it had affected both of us. At least how deeply it had affected me. I’d thought it had all affected her too, but looking at the situation now…

Well, maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe she just looked like the kind of girl who took everything to heart and was, instead, someone who instinctively understood how to protect herself from feeling too much for people she should avoid.

If she knew that, I wish she’d share her secret with me.

Not that I was actually surprised when she turned away. Hell, I’d been surprised when she’d met my gaze at all. I hadn’t done anything good for her, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to help her reputation. We’d barely even spoken over the last week. She probably didn’t know what to make of me or my moods, and she definitely hadn’t come around asking if I was okay.

Which was exactly what I’d wanted. I’d loved singing with her tonight, loved seeing her smile at me again, but the truth was, I was trouble. I’d pulled away from her for a reason and I was still solid on that decision. I wasn’t going to risk her or her reputation, even if it would have meant saving my own. I already knew I was heading for rock bottom—a crash bigger than anything I’d ever experienced before—and I wasn’t going to take her down with me.

The problem was, I could see that I was breaking her just by being around. There was a pain in her eyes that hadn’t been there before and a tension in her shoulders that didn’t match her usual carriage. She’d stopped wearing the bright expression she’d had when I met her, and her lips didn’t smile as often these days. Instead, she looked jaded, like she’d been down a road she didn’t like and had started wearing armor that didn’t fit quite right.

I understood that armor, and I knew what it meant. I’d known her for two weeks, and I was already hurting her. The sooner I was out of her life, the better.

I looked back into the night sky, trying to push myself up into that darkness. What would it be like out there? Cold, I bet. Empty. Maybe even lonely. But I wondered if it would be quieter. I wondered if that silence could shut down the voices in my head. Make me stop thinking.

Being up there would certainly mean I couldn’t hurt anyone down here anymore.

Though it would also mean I’d lose anyone here who I cared about. Matt. Noah. Hudson. Molly.

Lila.

And therein lay the rub. Lila. She was the bright spot in my darkness right now. The lighthouse beckoning me home. The candle in the window that told me where I could find safety. And that was what I didn’t get. Surely the universe knew exactly how little I deserved that. Surely it understood that I’d never had a safe home before and that I knew how to live without one. That I broke the homes I’d been given—and the people who lived there. All it had to do was look at the string of foster families I’d had and the situations I’d run into. Foster parents who thought they were getting a servant—or worse, someone they were allowed to abuse. Garden sheds I’d burned down just so I would be sent back to the group home. Bottles of whiskey stolen from kitchens and consumed in the darkness of garages as I tried to forget who and what I was. Older foster siblings who’d seen a young kid and taken the opportunity to teach him a thing or two.

My original home, which my own mother had taken from me.

I didn’t even know what family was. Not really. I certainly didn’t know what it was to care about another human being enough to take care of them. So why the hell would the Powers That Be put Lila in my path? Why risk her that way? I understood why it would hand me something I wasn’t going to be allowed to keep. That sort of thing happened all the time, and I was used to it at this point. Hell, I figured that was the universe’s idea of a fun game. A way to pass the time or whatever. Bored? Fuck with Rivers Shine. Give him another black eye. Show him one more time that he doesn’t deserve anything good.

But why fuck with Lila Potter? She was a good girl from a solid family, and talented as hell. She had a bright, shining future ahead of her and deserved every piece of it. She was the epitome of a good girl. Why throw her at me when whoever was out there in the darkness must have known that I would simply hurt her?

And talk about the conflict to end all conflicts. The girl was home to me. Everything bright and good. I felt myself reaching for her even when I was asleep, my fingers stretching toward hers in an attempt for connection. And yet I was pushing her away as hard as I could, knowing that I couldn’t keep her. Or that I wouldn’t.

She was everything I wanted and everything I would never allow myself to have, because I didn’t believe I deserved it.

What. The. Fuck.

I shook myself and tried to get my thoughts to stop spiraling. I didn’t know what the universe was thinking, but I knew what I had to do to get around it. Lila deserved the best in life, and the quicker I was out of here, the quicker she could have it. Taylor was already pushing her onstage to perform with my band, and though I didn’t like the idea of leaving them behind—hated it, actually—it would help everyone if I disappeared. Hell, maybe Global Authors would rebrand with Anna and Lila and make a whole new career. The theory made sense, and the guys would be crazy with excitement about having girls around to protect.

I just had to figure out the right timing.

We only had a month left on this tour—even less, if I could pull this off. I could handle things until I found my off-ramp. I’d just have to keep avoiding people who were likely to ask too many questions. Protect them. Keep them safe.

Isolate myself the way I’d been doing my entire life.

That wasn’t so bad. I could pull it off.

I pulled my eyes back down to the playground around me, feeling a bit better about having a plan... and saw Lila walking right toward me, a puffy jacket dwarfing her small frame and zipped all the way to the top against the chill of midnight around us.

“I wondered where you were,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled. “What are you doing out here all alone? Want some company?”

Well, shit.