Page 110 of Heart Break Her

Noah’s eyes dart to Rome, who looks a little surprised. “You didn’t know Myth had gotten into that shit?”

I shake my head.

Rome rubs his hand over his shaved head. “Fuck man, yeah. It started somewhere around Phoenix. Why do you think Sacramento was such a shit show?”

“Because Adrian hired a shit crew?” I look at Adrian, who is still sitting there drinking his coffee like he’s our fucking dad, keeping an eye on things.

“I wish, man. Myth was so messed up in the head that night, giving horrible directions to the crew, breaking shit,” Noah says. “I knew he was trying to keep it under the radar, but fuck, I thought you knew.”

“How did you know?”

Myth and I were tight, and he kept this from me? I knew he liked to party and snort nose candy on occasion, but I had no idea he’d gotten into heavy shit like heroin. What else didn’t I know? Did Cassie even know? No wonder she was such a mess when she left here. Just mentioning his drug use and death was essentially me rubbing salt in her wounds.

“That night, I could see it in his eyes. But even before that, it was obvious. Come on, you know how I know.” Noah avoids answering directly.

He doesn’t need to. The whole band remembers when Noah hit his spiral. Somewhere between China and Italy on the world tour. We had to cancel three shows because he couldn’t stand up straight, much less hold a pair of drumsticks. The second the tour ended, Adrian shipped him off to rehab with two options, sort his shit out or we were finding a new drummer.

Noah holds my stare, and there’s something dark working behind his eyes. Memories, maybe? Someplace in his past he doesn’t seem to like letting his mind go.

“When you’re in deep like Myth was—like I was—there’s no one who can get you out but yourself,” Noah says. “And either you do that before it destroys you, or you go down with it. If it hadn’t been your drugs, it would have been someone else’s, or someone else’s. That’s how it works. It’s not your fault. You gotta stop holding onto that shit.”

Eloise leans in and plants her hand on my shoulder. “Why do you think Cassie doesn’t hate you?”

“She does.”

“No.” Eloise shakes her head. “She’s upset. It’s a lot for her to process. But I saw her reaction when everything went down with Megan. She doesn’t hate you. She knew Myth better than any of us. She might be processing the extent of what happened that night, but she knows what happened isn’t on you.”

I bury my face in my hands and try to kick loose all the shit swimming around in my brain. Knowing Myth. Losing him.

Losing his sister.

And something unexpected happens. Something cracks so far down inside me that I don’t realize what it is until it’s too late to stop it. I bend over in the fucking grass, and a feeling heaves in my chest. The pain is almost unbearable enough to split me in two. But instead of breaking open, it rushes out instead, spills from my eyes in rivers even my palms can’t hide.

Like a fucking punk, I sit in the grass and cry. Feel everything I’ve buried over the past year. Everything Cassie shook loose is melting off of me. I feel the anger in it, the guilt in it, but mostly I just feel the pain in it. Claws reaching up from hell, reminding me of what I’ve done.

And my band, Adrian, they don’t say a word. They sit around in the circle and watch me burn at the stake. They let me shed whatever it is I need to, no matter how ugly.

Even when I stop, and my eyes are raw, and I get up and walk to the edge of the backyard and scream my lungs raw, out into the forest, they don’t speak. Adrian probably has some comment about not straining my voice on the tip of his tongue, but he lets me be.

It isn’t until I drop to my knees in the grass, and Eloise gets up and walks over to kneel beside me, that I remember I’m not alone. She wraps her arm around me and rests her head on my shoulder.

But she doesn’t say a word as the rest of them make their way over and pat me on the back. Because Eloise, the band, Adrian—they’re family. They’ll take my secrets to the grave, and with them huddled around me, I know all they want is to keep me out of my own.

“Fuck,” I say, letting out the breath I’ve been holding for a year. It feels like letting go of a ghost that’s been occupying my body. It feels lighter. “How about breakfast?”

I laugh, because there’s nothing left to do at this point. My throat hurts, but it isn’t any different than any other part of me.

“Fuck yeah, I’m hungry,” Rome says. “I vote pancakes.”

“I’m not cooking shit for you guys,” Eloise says. “Last time I didn’t even get so much as a thank you, and you all left me to clean up the mess so you could drink beer on my porch. You’re all unappreciative dicks.”

I look up at her and force a smile. “Even for your bro?”

Eloise rolls her eyes. She might hate me, but she’s secretly a total sweetheart who does anything for the guys she calls unappreciative dicks.

“Fine,” she says.

Noah jumps up, following Rome into the house with Adrian close behind them. But Eloise stays put for a second longer.

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