Page 85 of Take My Hand

I crack my neck from side to side, taking a moment. Needing a pause. Drawing in a breath. “Just answer me this. Were you ever going to tell me?”

She eyes me warily and I add on, “I’m not mad. I wouldn’t expect you to have told me when we are still fresh into this new stage of our relationship. But I just need to know if it’s something you would’ve eventually told me.”

Because that’s what I truly need to know. Whether or not she ever planned on talking to me about it. Because if she didn’t, then clearly, we’ve gone wrong somewhere along the way. Clearly, I’ve done something wrong along the way because all I’ve wanted to do is be a safe person for her. Someone she can talk to, someone she can put her trust into.

And if we don’t have that mutual trust and openness that I thought we did, then we have nothing.

“Yes.” The answer is immediate. “Of course I was going to. But this is all still so new and I don’t know. I was scared. The timing hasn’t been right.”

She shakes her head, shoulders slumping. “I figured we’d eventually have a conversation about our future. What we envision, if we want marriage, children, the whole white picket fence. I’d broach it then.”

That conversation definitely needed to take place, but now wasn’t the time for it. Not with both of our emotions running so high and the stress of everything hanging on our shoulders.

I run my hand through my hair, pulling at the strands and relishing in the prickle of pain across my scalp. “I get it. I just…I wish you would’ve had more faith in me. I know you needed time to process, but fuck. The silence the past few days has made me feel like you didn’t trust me.”

She throws her head back. “I do,” she groans. “I do, Hayden. Ugh, you just don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” I snap.

“It’s not about me not trusting you! It was about me not wanting to dredge up the most painful memories I have and expose them when I still don’t fully feel like I know how to process them myself. It isn’t that I don’t have faith in you or us or was never planning to talk to you about it, but I just wanted it to be on my time. Can’t you understand that?”

My jaw clicks and by the way Carter’s face falls, I know she just realized what she said to me.

“You think I don’t understand?”

She holds her hands up, lips down-turned in regret. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No? You think I wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t empathize with you on not wanting to bring up painful memories and talk about them?” My voice is icy cold, sending a chill throughout the room.

“Because I do understand,” I continue. “Christ, do you think that I like sitting down in interviews and seeing the pity but also sick curiosity that they eye me with? Getting question after question about the shooting because not only do they get to talk to famous musicians, but they can also hit on mass shootings in the same piece? Double jeopardy!”

The late-night show appearance was the most recent offender of this. Arun had specified with the host beforehand that there were to be no questions directed at me or Nikolai about the shooting, but it’s like the temptation was too much for him.

And with another mass shooting that just took place at a shopping center in the south still cycling through the news, the host said to hell with the wishes of us and asked us what we thought of the recent event and what emotions it stirred up in us. How it affects us to see this still happening. If we had anything we wanted to say to fellow victims.

Nikolai had taken charge while I sat on the couch, silently seething that we were being put in that position again. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to be reminded when I was working, when I was already reminded every time I went to sleep, watched the news, heard someone yell in public, looked at my family's faces.

“Not once since I came down here have I asked you to rehash any of those painful memories. If you want to talk about them, then I’m all ears for you. But I haven’t asked that of you and I won’t. Because I know how it feels, Carter, to have seen things and gone through things so painful, so traumatizing, that even the thought of even touching those memories is overwhelming. All I want from you is just to tell me how you’re feeling, and how we’re going to get through this. Together.”

Because there’s no other option. It’s her and me. Doing this together.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes shine and I see the sincerity of her apology. “I just…” She tilts her head toward the ceiling, veins in her neck throbbing. “I’m just so fucking angry. And I’m exhausted by it.”

Carter begins to pace the length of the basement like a caged tiger. Only for her, it’s not a physical cage she’s locked in, but one of her mind’s own making.

“I don’t even know what to do with myself right now. How to get past it all. I had shoved it all so deep into my core that I never thought it would have a way of creeping back up again. But I can’t ignore it anymore, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

She stalks over to the boxing bag and gives it another couple of punches, but she quickly stops with a hiss and looks at her battered knuckles with disappointment.

Her eyes flick around the room, as if searching for something else to take her frustration out on. I hold my breath as her gaze crosses over me, half wanting her to channel it through me and half hoping she’ll find something else.

But then her eyes stop their searching and I turn to see what she’s landed on, and my stomach drops.

My favorite oxblood red bass that I’ve been playing on for the last year is propped up in a corner by the stairs. It’s been sitting there since the last show we played, waiting to be packed up once again for our next one.

It was a gift to myself before our last tour. Something new, something exciting to have with me to keep me looking forward to each show when my mind wanted to bog me down with worry.

Carter quickly looks away, guilt flashing across her face. She knows it’s my favorite. Hell, she’s taken my picture with it more times than I can count.

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