Page 76 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
To his credit, he didn’t tell me no. He didn’t resist. He tightened his fingers around mine, stood up, and followed me back through the swinging gate and toward the closest exit.
41
RIVERS
Look, I’m not trying to say Lila was an angel.
I mean she had the coloring for it. I’d always assumed angels would be either blond or flame-haired, and her skin was pale enough to be nearly translucent. Enormous green eyes, a smattering of freckles, and a smile that could actually make your soul feel like it had been cleansed of anything you’d ever done.
Hell, she could have put on a set of wings and a halo, and I wouldn’t have been surprised.
But still. I wasn’t saying she was a Real Live Angel.
I was just saying that I was sitting there in that dark restaurant with even darker thoughts marching their way through my brain and taking me right to Hell with no one to even try to keep me company. My band—my friends—were up in their rooms, probably asleep already, their minds a million miles from where I was. They hadn’t wondered where I’d gone.
No one ever wondered where I’d gone.
Except Lila.
Lila, who showed up like a vision in the darkness, took my hand, and pulled me away from the thoughts that were trying todrag me down. Just like she always did. No matter where I went, she found me. And she always brought her light with her. Even when I didn’t want her to.
So I got up and followed her, both enchanted and annoyed at her presence but definitely incapable of saying no to her when she said she wanted to take a walk. Because the truth was I didn’t want to be by myself. I didn’t want all of the memories going through my head or the thoughts they led to. I didn’t want to look at any of that.
I’d spent my whole life living with it, and I was exhausted.
I knew who and what I was and that I’d never be anything more than that. Hell, just look at what I’d come from. But if Lila was going to drag me outside and give me something else to look at, give me some of her warmth and fire instead of the shadows that were eating away at me, I was going to let her.
She pushed her way through the first exit she found, towing me along after her like some enormous dog on a leash, and turned to her right, where she pointed us toward a deserted field. I almost stopped and stared, I was so shocked. We were in the middle of fucking Jonesboro and the city was rising up all around us, all office buildings and hotels. How the fuck was there an empty field right next to our hotel?
And had she known? She was walking toward it like she’d already planned all of this, like she’d marked the place out for our special use, and I couldn’t escape the idea of heractuallybeing an angel. Had she ordered a deserted space for us? Had she somehow magicked it into being? Demanded that the universe provide it?
I shook my head, almost laughing. I was definitely insane if I thought that.
Or I’d had too much to drink.
It was probably the latter. Or at least mostly the latter.
“Where are we going?” I asked anyhow.
“To that meadow. Obviously.”
Right.
The moment our feet hit the grass, overgrown and weedy as it was, I started to relax. There was a row of trees in front of us and Lila made for them, once again looking like she knew exactly what she was doing. I looked up at the sky and breathed out, feeling suddenly safer out here in the open with the stars smiling down on us. Away from the crowds and the stuffiness of the hotel and the photographers constantly waiting for their shot. Out from under Taylor’s stare, with all her expectations and judgements.
And, to my surprise, away from the guys, who knew what I’d become but only partially understood how I got there.
We hit the row of trees and Lila turned to me... and pushed me up against the trunk of some unsuspecting sycamore.
“What was that for?” I asked, surprised.
“Because you’re being an asshole,” she replied calmly. “And also because you owe me some answers.”
My brain must be working even slower than usual, I thought, because I didn’t have a damn clue what she was talking about. “What?”
She stepped back, and to my surprise, dropped to the ground with her legs crossed. “Sit,” she said quietly.
Unable to think of any answer to that, I sat.
