Page 43 of Heart of a Rebel

I’m going to have to face my truth.

I’ve been a coward. While the press latches onto the fact that I’m not afraid to speak my mind and stick up for women’s rights, they don’t realize that’s only on the outside. While I’ve been fighting the battle for other victims of abuse, I’ve allowed myself to quietly live as one. And the world is about to find out I’m a fraud.

I’m tarnished.

I’m ruined.

“Are you going to pass out?” Sebastian reaches for my arm, and I flinch, which makes him quickly pull away. “You’re really fucking pale.”

I step back and shake my head, running my fingers through my long hair and wishing I could disappear in myself.

“El, what’s going on?” Sebastian looks like he’s towing a line, trying not to push me, but fighting against himself about it.

“Nothing.” I roll my shoulders back, taking a step past him.

He steps aside, and I make my way toward the front of the bus. Maybe if I face this like I do everything else, I won’t have to feel it.

Compartmentalizing.

That’s a word my shrink used often when everything first happened. She said I was well versed in how to put things in tiny boxes and tuck them away, so I wouldn’t have to deal with them. She told me it likely stemmed back to my childhood and my relationship with my mother. But she also said at some point I was going to have to deal with it or face the consequences.

Maybe she’s right because I feel my regrets kicking me from inside.

Adrian’s back is to me when I reach the front of my tour bus. His large frame blocks my view of the words I know are on the mirror in front of him. And even if I’m a blender of emotions, there’s something about having him in my space that’s comforting.

Except, right now, his posture is rigid as he types away on his phone, and I sense the tension rolling off him.

At my movement, he turns, and the look in his eyes freezes me in place. Because the calm and collected energy I'm used to feeling from Adrian is replaced with fury. His gaze is hard and is shoulders are stiff.

Adrian is fucking pissed.

His eyes move to Sebastian, before landing on me again like a dart dead center. “The cops just pulled up to the venue. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

He tucks his phone in his pocket and crosses his arms over his chest.

I move toward the makeshift kitchen counter on my bus and lean my back against it. Sebastian looks around Adrian and my eyes follow to the words on the mirror.

“It’s probably a fan messing around.” I force a chuckle but it’s so far from amused there’s no believing it.

“It’s not.” Adrian pins me with his stare.

Standing up taller, I practice my most passive expression on him. I’m not going to let him affect me. He’s our band manager—soon-to-be-engaged band manager—nothing more.

“We’ll see.” I shrug a shoulder, with the threat on the mirror staring back at me.

“White roses.”

Two words fall from his mouth, and I swallow hard, not able to avoid his eyes even when I look away. I dip my chin and shake my head, not sure how I didn’t think Adrian would put two and two together.

After the first white rose was delivered to Adrian’s house, others followed. One every week I stayed with him. Each time they did I lied to him before throwing them in the trash, saying it was from an old crush and disregarding it. I’d bury the knots those bouquets formed in my stomach and pretend they had no effect.

Something I thought I got past Adrian. Until now.

“White roses?” Sebastian looks at the flower sitting beneath the mirror and his eyes pinch. His gaze darts between me and Adrian with utter confusion painted on his face.

Adrian steps toward me, a few feet away, but in my tour bus, it all feels in my space. His arms drop to his sides and his hands unclench in a show of vulnerability. I try to steady my breaths, but they only kick up again as Adrian’s eyes drop to my mouth, before looking back up again.

He bites the corner of his bottom lip as he looks me over, and I sense him actively trying to relax his shoulders.

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