Page 28 of The Fix

“Jeffers!”

I'm about to retreat inside for a flashlight when a flicker of red catches my eye—a cigarette cherry glowing in the dark. The familiar scent of burning tobacco hits me just as I regain my breath, my frustration flaring.

“Right here.”

“Ugh!” I snarl, throwing my hands out at my sides. “You didn’t hear me calling for you?”

“I did,” Toby sighs, his tone a complete contrast to what happened inside. Jovial, almost.

Blinking at the shadowed figure leaning against the wall, covered by the shroud of darkness, I wait for him to say more, apologize even.

He stays quiet.

Which only makes me angrier.

“What is your problem?” I snap into the blackness, taking a step closer. “You come in here, acting like you own the place, then just snap when you’re reminded that you’re here?”

Silence.

“Do you even remember why we’re here, Jeffers? In the freaking mountains?” I shake my head as more accusatory questions, statements, roll off my tongue without much effort. “It’s because of you. Your mistakes. Your crap that you keep getting yourself into, for no good reason, only to go running away all over again. Well, guess what?”

Silence.

“You can’t keep running away. Eventually, there won’t be anyone left to clean up your mess!”

“You done?” His reply comes rough, clipped, as if he’s barely holding back.

“You don’t even care, do you?” I huff bitterly, shaking my head. “As long as you have your smokes and a bottle—"

“Why not?” he roars, his ragged breaths smacking me in the face, bathing me in the scent of whiskey.

He’s close now. So close that I feel his anger radiating off him in waves.

The little voice in the back of my head tells me I’ve pushed too far, and that I should back away. Leave him be. That it’s all so far out of my control and over my pay grade.

And yet … words whip from my tongue as if Toby deserves them all.

“Because people give a damn about you!” I yell, leaning up on my tiptoes and pointing a finger in his shadowed face.

Any semblance of professionalism has gone out the window, and in its place is … well … just me. Aftermath Anna. Here to figure this out on my own without any help from the infuriatingly striking man before me.

His once-brown irises take on a new shade of black as he stares at me.

“But do they?” The finality of his words are whispers over my lips, yet still slice through me as if he’d screamed them, making those familiar hairs stand on the back of my neck.

Do they actually care about him?

I know that they do. His rebound rate is the problem. His ability to hide the things from his own bandmates, men he calls brothers, appearing fine in front of them when he is so clearly not. I’ve seen things they haven’t.

I recognize it because I’ve seen it before.

They just don’t get it.

My resolve cracks, and in those crevices, my throat tightens and my calves relax me back down to flat feet.

“Exactly,” he hisses, as if my retreat only confirms his suspicions. “That’s why you’re here and they aren’t.”

I swallow hard, the reality of his words sinking in.

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