Page 30 of Guitars and Mistakes
You didn’t do that with someone you didn’t care about.
I just needed to find a way to make him feel safe. I was positive that there was more than I knew about his past, even after my talk with Matt. I knew that people had made him feel like he didn’t belong or didn’t matter, and I knew it must have created a tendency in him to think he didn’t deserve anything out of life. He probably went out of his way to undermine anything good that came to him, subconsciously, and he probably hated that he’d done it.
I doubted he knew why he did. Maybe he didn’t even realize when he was doing it.
He needed to heal from some decades-old trauma so he could stop. It was the only way to help him, and also, by default, the only way I thought he’d ever be able to have a strong, functional relationship with anyone else. One where he let himself be loved and taken care of rather than pushing the other person away the moment he decided they were too good for him.
I had an idea for how that could happen.
But I was going to need some help.
I unlocked the door to the suite I was sharing with Anna and opened it quietly, praying that she was either still out—I really needed to ask her what was going on with her and Matt—or already asleep. The light from the hall sliced through the room to show one bed, then the other, and I saw that Anna was indeed already in her own bed. I stopped short, worried that I’d wake her, but her slow, even breathing told me that she was well and truly asleep.
Thank God. I didn’t think I had the energy or patience to tell her all the things that had happened today or listen to her lecture me about the dangers of letting Rivers back in.
I already knew them by heart. And I was running out of ways to tell her that I didn’t care.
I crept to the desk, picked up the laptop I’d brought with us, and tiptoed into the sitting area, where I at least had a wall between me and the sleeping Anna. With a sigh of relief, I opened the laptop and went right to my email. I’d sent several out last night, and if people were at all organized...
Yes. I had several emails, most of them junk, but at the top of the list was one from the Jonesboro Children’s Society.
“Thank you Baby Jesus,” I whispered, clicking on it.
Dear Lila, it read,thank you for your inquiry. As it happens, we did have a Rivers Shine in our home around the timelines you’ve noted. We had him from when he was three until he turned twelve and left for Nashville. He was in and out of a number of foster homes, but I think I can tell you that he was not an affectionate or kind child. He didn’t fit any of the families who tried to take him and they inevitably returned him with complaints about his behavior. He did not make friends easily and was never a candidate for adoption. He left without asking permission but told his friends where he was going. We do not know of any forwarding address for him.
I sat back and considered the terse email for several moments. Well, there it was. I’d learned the name of the orphanage from Matt and emailed them immediately, but hadn’t expected much in the way of a response. They’d sent me... more than I’d thought they would.
I suspected they were also violating a range of privacy laws with how much information they’d already given me.
But as long as they were willing to violate them, I was going to ask for more. If he was turned over to a Jonesboro orphanage at the age of three, it stood to reason that this was why he hated Missouri so much. It was where everything had started. His life, and then the end of his time with his family. And, if I was reading this email right, everything that happened to him after that. This was where his demons were.
The demons who told him he didn’t belong, and that no one would ever care about him the way he cared about them.
This was where it had all kicked off.
I hesitated for another moment, wondering if I was going too far. Was I overstepping the boundaries of our relationship? Pushing too close to the truth? Would he hate me for doing it?
Or would he finally get the closure he needed to heal and move on with his life?
I didn’t know. I had no fucking idea what was right or wrong here, or where my head was at. But I did know that Rivers deserved more than he’d been given, and that I might be the only person in the world willing to do something about it.
So I started typing out a response, thanking them for answering and asking whether they knew anything more. Anything that I might be able to use to help Rivers destroy the demons who had been holding him at bay for far, far too long.
RIVERS
Icrowded onto the bus with the rest of the band, despite the fact that I’d told them I was going to leave, because until the paperwork from my lawyer came through I was still officially on the tour. I also didn’t want to let the guys down and leave them in a bad way for the next show, which was booked for tonight.
Leaving the tour was still the right thing to do. But taking care of my band—my best friends—was as well. We’d spent too long watching each others’ backs for me to leave them high and dry now. I might be a bad boy and a rebel. That didn’t mean I was going to fuck my friends over. I figured I’d told them about my plans and that was about all I could do for the moment. They had time to figure out what they were going to do—probably wrap Lila and Anna into the band, if they were smart—and how they were going to do it.
Until then, I’d be there to support them.
Once it was done, though, I was on my way out. I had a cabin in the hills around Knoxville where I was planning to hole up for a bit, a bank account big enough to support me through any break I might take, and... Well, I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have one fucking clue what I was going to do now that I’d started down this road. But I figured that was what the cabin was for.
Sitting around by myself and deciding what my next step was.
I shied away from that thought as quickly as I’d had it, hating the idea of spending so much time with no one but myself and my thoughts for company, and dropped onto my favorite couch in the bus. Everyone else was already here: Matt, Noah, Hudson, Molly, Lila, and Anna. Those two had been included on our bus ever since they started performing with us, and I grinned to see Lila lounging in a chair, sunglasses over her face and her hair in a messy bun. She looked like the epitome of a rock star; carelessly elegant, like she’d just rolled out of bed looking all rock and roll. I was guessing she’d paused at least long enough to make sure she knew where we were going and what we were doing, though, and probably had her guitar stowed somewhere on the bus in case she wanted to write a song.
That was just who Lila was.
