Page 59 of Burn Bright
I shrug. “Because if she thought about me, maybe she would’ve left a note. I would’ve liked a note, at least.”
He stops spinning the drumstick between his fingers. His brows crinkle as he considers something. “I’m not saying Sunny didn’t care about you, but I don’t get why she wouldn’t have called your parents. Or tried to figure out why you were always there.”
“She knew I liked playing the drums and that I didn’t have a kit at home.”
“Did she even know if you had a home?”
My frown deepens, then I shake my head again. “She never asked much about my life.”
Ben shoots a fleeting glare to the ceiling, before he tells me, “I would’ve asked.”
It wells up in me.He would’ve asked.My heart thumps as I feel closer to this guy in ways I’veneverfelt close to another person. And we still barelyknow each other. “Thing is, Cobalt boy,” I whisper, “I was glad she never asked. It made it easier to keep going back at the time. Maybe she knew that.”
“Yeah, I hope she did.” He holds my gaze. “I’m sorry she left.”
Me too.“Shitty things happen every day. It’s not like we can control them.”
He stares off for a beat, then taps the stick to the top of my head. It should annoy me, but my lips twitch into a partial smile. “So you don’t have a drum kit,” he says, “but you love playing the drums enough that you auditioned at seventeen.”
“It wasn’t that long ago. I’m only eighteen.”
“I know,” he states with a playful smile. “I can do math. Not better than Jane, though.” He mentions his older sister, but before I can ask about her, he says, “You still love playing?”
“Yeah. I’ll always love playing.”
He lets this sink in. “What do you love about it?”
I’ve never been asked this before, so it takes me a moment to find the words. “I love the physicality of it…how it almost feels like dancing without exposing yourself in a crowd. I love the…raw energy. Theaggression. Everything I kept inside could come out and it was socially acceptable. Destroying my bedroom would not only get me severely grounded but probably piss off my mom’s boyfriend enough that he’d—” I cut myself off abruptly, my heart jumping to my esophagus.
Ben’s jaw muscle tics, then he slides his arm against the back of the cushion near my shoulders. Somehow, it relaxes me—his reaction to come closer and not spring farther away like I’ve suddenly contracted an STD…or scurvy.
“He’d be a dick,” I finish vaguely. “She mostly dated dicks until she met Kenneth, her current husband. But she could be a dick too, so…match made, right?”
Ben doesn’t press. He just nods.
He’s sweet.
I’m not as nice.
I can’t ignore the gnawing in my stomach any longer. I death-grip my paper plate. “I need you to know that I don’t regret the email to Tom’s bassist.” My heart pounds hard in my chest. I didn’t expect to say this out loud to anyone, but keeping it to myself feels more like a crime than the crime itself. “And if I had to go back in time, I’d make the same choice ten times out of ten. Because…because…” My pulse hammers in my ears.
Ben grabs on to the other side of the paper plate, and the movement unleashes my ironclad grip on it. When our eyes meet, he just nods as if to tell me,it’s okay.
“I was angry,” I confess. “So damn angry. I’d been living out of my car and that gig felt like a safety net. A lifeline. And Tom just so casually ripped it away. I wanted him to hurt as much as I hurt—and I know that’s wrong because it’s Tom’s band. It wasn’t owed to me. But ten times out of ten, yeah, I’d do it again.” I take a deeper breath, a weight bearing heavy on my chest. “So I’d understand if you don’t want to be friends with me.”
Ben is quiet for a long second, but I don’t see judgment in his eyes. “What if I told you, I still want to be your friend?”
“I’d say you’re certifiable.”
He smiles. “That’s not even an insult to me.”
It makes my lips upturn too. We’re quiet as he passes me the paper plate, and I finish off the tuna sandwich. He doesn’t seemto mind that I’m eating fish around him. Not that I’d be able to accommodate. I don’t have much else on the pantry shelf besides tuna and bread and some boxes of rotini.
Ben spins the drumstick again and looks me over. “If you’re worried about running into Tom at the club tonight, I can make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble.”
“I’m not worried about Tom or trouble.” I stand to toss the plate in the trash. “I just don’t have time to go to a party tonight. I’m pre-med. Getting into medical school isn’t as easy as handing over a report card with straight As. I need to stand out among other applicants, and that requires a boatload of extra shit.”
“Like what?” Ben asks.
