Page 52 of Falling Like Stars

“You practically thanked everyone in that room but me. Me! I’m your goddamn fiancée, and you gave me nothing!” She’s screaming now, every word reverberating off our huge, empty house.

“You are not my fiancée. We are not together—”

“How do you think that makes me look, Zach?” She’s in my face now, leveling her finger at me. “You did that on purpose. You took me with you so that you could publicly embarrass me.”

“You don’t need my help for that.”

The stinging heat of her slap explodes across my cheek. Her left hand is coming for a second strike. I catch her wrist but she’s faster and not drunk. Like a frenzied cat, she’s clawing at my face; I feel the burning rents on my cheek and neck. Somehow, I grab both her wrists and shove her off me. She can’t maneuver in her tight dress, and her butt hits the carpeted floor. I stagger to my feet.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, breathing hard. Now it’s my turn to level a finger at her. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.”

There must be something in my eyes that scares her because her enraged expression collapses.

“I’m sorry, Zach, but I don’t know what else to do!” she wails, tears instantly falling. “You make me so frustrated! You’re like a brick wall to me now. It’s like I can never get through to you!”

I need to be in a room in this house that has a door that I can shut and lock, but I’m too fucking drunk. I collapse back down on the couch. Eva kneels on the floor beside me and takes my hand. I snatch it back but I’m running out of steam. I can’t keep my eyes open, and the room is still spinning…

“Everything’s going so great for you,” she cries. “You always get everything you want.”

“Not everything,” I mutter, and a flash of Rowan’s blue eyes dances over my watery vision.

“And I have nothing. Nothing! No offers… I may as well be invisible. It’s so unfair, but I’m not done yet. I have something to give, you know?” Eva runs her fingers through my hair. “You just need to be my partner. Give me a shred of the same consideration you give everyone else.”

“Nope. Don’t think I will. Show’s over, Eva,” I say against the pillow and drunkenly brush her hands off me. “Time to call it.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she says, touching her fingertips to the scratches on my cheek. “It could be so much better. Like it was, if only you would just…”

I don’t know what else I need to do for her. What else I can give. What last part of my heart I can throw to her sharp teeth, because I slip mercifully into the black before she can tell me.

I wake up with a jolt, and pain assaults me. My head is thundering. I blink and sit up in bed with the vague understanding that something isn’t right. I’m in the master bedroom, and I’m not supposed to be in the master bedroom.

A slant of pale yellow light slips through the Italian designer drapes and illuminates a pile of clothes on the floor.

My tuxedo from last night.

Under the sheets, I’m in boxer briefs and nothing else.

“Don’t remember doing that,” I mutter, the vague sense of offness growing into an ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something nameless and heavy. Then I look over and the feeling blooms into full-blown nausea because Eva is naked beside me.

She stirs and smiles. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“The fuck…” I breathe.

She sits up and wraps her arms around my neck. Her hair is a mess, makeup smeared, but she’s smiling. Triumphant. My skin breaks out in gooseflesh as she smacks a kiss on my cheek, awakening stinging pain.

“Sleep well? I’ll bet not. You really poured it on last night.”

Last night. Last night is a black hole. I can’t remember…

Before I can move or speak, she’s bounding out of bed and throwing on some yoga pants and a T-shirt. “This house has no food in it. I’m going to make a grocery store run.” She stops at the bedroom door and blows me a kiss. “BRB.”

I stare at the spot where she was for a solid minute, then head to the bathroom. The light assaults my eyes and makes the scratches on my pale skin look even redder and angrier. There are three along my jawline and two on my neck that sting like a son of a bitch. Gingerly, I splash cold water on my face and stare at my reflection.

What happened?

The last thing I remember was coming home and making it as far as the couch. Eva screaming. Something breaking. I study the scratch marks, consider waking in the wrong bed with her beside me, and it takes a few minutes before I remember that I won an Academy Award last night. What should have been the highlight is an afterthought, as I try to find the lost hours and can’t.

I feel as if I weigh a thousand pounds while I shower, dress, and make my way downstairs. What was once a beautiful paperweight is now a shattered arc of sparkling glass across the travertine, like a comet. A one-of-a-kind piece I’d bought at a gallery in Las Vegas. The artist died before he even turned thirty and now another piece of him was gone forever.

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