Page 11 of Guitars and Mistakes
I looked back up into the night sky, trying to push myself up into that darkness. What would it be like out there? Cold, I bet. Empty. Maybe even lonely. But I wondered if it would be more quiet. I wondered if that silence could shut down the voices in my head. Make me stop thinking.
Being up there would certainly mean I couldn’t hurt anyone down here anymore.
Though it would also mean I’d lose anyone here who I cared about. Matt. Noah. Hudson. Molly.
Lila.
And therein lay the rub. Lila. She was the bright spot in my darkness right now. The lighthouse beckoning me home. The candle in the window that told me where I could find safety. And that was what I didn’t get. Surely the universe knew exactly how little I deserved that. Surely it understood that I’d never had a safe home before and that I knew how to live without one. That I broke the homes I’d been given—and the people who lived there. All it had to do was look at the string of foster families I’d had and the situations I’d run into. Foster parents who thought they were getting a servant—or worse, someone they were allowed to abuse. Garden sheds I’d burned down just so I would be sent back to the group home. Bottles of whiskey stolen from kitchens and consumed in the darkness of a garage. Older foster siblings who’d seen a young kid and taken the opportunity to teach him a thing or two.
My original home, which my own mother had taken from me.
I didn’t even know what family was. Not really. I certainly didn’t know what it was to care about another human being enough to take care of them. So why the hell would the Powers That Be put Lila in my path? Why risk her that way? I understood why it would hand me something I wasn’t going to be allowed to keep. That sort of thing happened all the time, and I was used to it at this point. Hell, I figured that was the universe’s idea of a fun game. A way to pass the time or whatever. Bored? Fuck with Rivers Shine. Give him another black eye. Show him one more time that he doesn’t deserve anything good.
But why fuck with Lila Potter? She was a good girl from a solid family, and talented as hell. She had a bright, shining future ahead of her and deserved every piece of it. She was the epitome of a good girl. Why throw her at me when whoever was out there in the darkness must have known that I would simply hurt her?
I shook myself and tried to get my thoughts to stop spiraling. I didn’t know what the universe was thinking, but I knew what I had to do to get around it. Lila deserved the best in life, and the quicker I was out of here, the quicker she could have it. Taylor was already pushing her onstage to perform with my band, and though I didn’t like the idea of leaving them behind—hated it, actually—it would help everyone if I disappeared. Hell, maybe The Authors would rebrand with Anna and Lila and make a whole new career. The theory made sense.
I just had to figure out the right timing.
We only had a month left on this tour—even less, if I could pull this off—and I thought I could handle things until I found my off-ramp. I’d just have to keep avoiding people who were likely to ask too many questions. Protect them. Keep them safe.
Isolate myself the way I’d been doing my entire life.
That wasn’t so bad. I could pull it off.
I pulled my eyes back down to the playground around me, feeling a bit better about having a plan... and saw Lila walking right toward me, a puffy jacket dwarfing her small frame and zipped all the way to the top against the chill of midnight around us.
“I wondered were you were,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled. “What are you doing out here all alone? Want some company?”
Well, shit.
LILA
God, he looked bad.
I hadn’t seen him up close in a couple of days, now, and though he’d looked rough the last time I’d seen him—all dark shadows and stubble—he looked even worse now. His eyes were haunted, his lips pressed tightly together like he was trying to keep his secrets locked in. His skin was paler than it normally was and he was sort of hunched, tucked into himself.
Withdrawn.
Gone was the flashy, charming man I’d met on that first night, when he basically invited himself to the room I was sharing with Anna. Gone was the flirtatious smirk as he asked me questions about myself and called me Sunshine Girl. Gone was the dreamer, the rebel, the devil-may-care rock star I’d wanted to kiss.
The only thing left was the lost boy who didn’t know where he was going or what he was doing, and was desperate for someone to actually see him.
And not for the first time, I found myself trying to figure out what the hell had happened to him that left him so scarred. I mean I knew a lot about him—he’d been discovered when he was twelve and shuffled right into the music industry with only a manager and agent to look after him. He’d already been playing the guitar by that time and had been labeled a phenom by those who heard him. His voice, barely developed, was gritty and charming in a kid so young, and the world had taken him right into their arms and become obsessed with him.
Or at least what they knew of him.
Looking at him now, though, I wondered again how much they’d actually known of him. Because I knew quite a bit, but I also only knew what was publicly available. The trivia you could find on any standard search, and the stories his publicity team had put out about him.
But none of those stories covered anything from his past. They started when he was twelve and never bothered with the boy Rivers Shine might have been before he was discovered.
I wondered if anyone had ever bothered to find out about that boy, or if they’d just buried him in the past and left him to fend for himself.
He shifted uncomfortably in the swing, which had to be at least two sizes too small for someone of his size, and tipped his head back and forth. “Not sure this is exactly your scene, Sunshine Girl.”
A thrill ran through me at the use of the nickname and I grinned, unable to stop myself. “Maybe not. But maybe I’m here to bring a little sunshine into your darkness.”
That brought a reluctant snort out of him and I took that as the only invitation I needed. I set one foot in front of the other, hesitant at first, but when he didn’t argue with me I took another step, and then another, and before long I was sliding into the swing next to his and turning to look out over the dark playground.
