Whipping around, she cut through the audience we had acquired by now and let the door slam behind her as she ran out to the street. The patrons turned their faces toward me, their hushed whispers and giggles forcing me to rise and leave.
In my car, I collapsed against the seat and closed my eyes.
That went really fucking well.
I heard my sponsor’s voice in my thoughts. “At least it’s done now. You said what you needed to say.” Nial had a way of putting a positive spin on just about anything, but I thought that even he’d struggle to brighten up the fact that Oliver was still inside Ivy’s head. I could recognize the signs. After all, he’d spent the better part of ten years living inside of mine.
Still, what was I supposed to do about it? It felt presumptuous to assume that Ivy needed saving. Oliver was living in New York, and she was going to school here. With an entire continent between them, how much damage could he really do?
I let out a tired breath and started the car. No, I wouldn’t get involved in Ivy’s life. Not when she had explicitly told me she wanted nothing to do with me. All I knew now, more than ever, was that I had to keep going with the plan that would fix everything once and for all.
9
IVY
I spilled out of the Uber as soon as it parked in front of my apartment building. I glanced up toward our window, praying that Zoey was home. The driver sighed loudly as I slammed the door with too much force. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins from the conversation with Jamie, and I jogged inside, needing to talk to my friend.
She’d been wrong. I hadn’t gotten closure. I’d just opened a whole new can of worms.
The gall of him. I should have trusted my gut. Guys like Jamie didn’t have the capacity to change. For all I knew, he’d been a liar even before he’d become an addict, and getting clean wasn’t the same thing as getting a personality transplant.
The apartment was empty, and Zoey’s bedroom door was open. She must have gone to the library. She’d warned me at the beginning of the semester that I wouldn’t see much of her during the months she’d have her head down studying for the MCATs. Still, I needed her, so I selfishly texted and begged for her to rush home.
While I waited, I paced the living room and chewed on my frequently abused nails. If I had to put together a list of all the things that I was annoyed with at the moment, Jamie’s shocking appearance would be close to the top of the list. The scraggly, too-thin, sick-looking guy was gone. In his stead was a man who looked like he could be on the cover of the latest Men’s Health magazine. The toothpick arms had become muscular and well-defined beneath his tattoos. His chest had expanded. His shoulders looked like two footballs. The haircut suited him perfectly, and the new beard only served to emphasize the angle of his jaw. I mean, for a second there, I’d forgotten who he was, and my pulse had begun to race for reasons other than my anger. He was infuriatingly attractive, objectively so, and I would know, since I was still determined to find him repulsive.
The sound of a key twisting in the lock alerted me of Zoey’s return.
“Thank God, you’re back,” I exclaimed and stopped pacing.
Zoey took off her backpack and cast me a curious look. “I practically ran here. What happened?”
I flung myself onto the sofa with a groan. “I don’t even know where to start,” I told her, flinging my hands up in the air. “It was bizarre.”
She raised her brows and sat down on the other end of the sofa.
“Start at the beginning,” she suggested. “You got to the coffee shop, then what?”
“I went inside and looked around, expecting to find a man who’d seen better days, and boy, was I wrong.”
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t even recognize him at first. I looked right past him. That’s how different he was.”
“You looked past him? So nothing special?”
“I was just so fixated on finding Jamie, the one from my memories, that Harry Styles could’ve been sitting there and my attention would have skipped right over him. Jamie looked… God, it pains me to say this, but he looked…”
“Yeah?”
“Incredible.”
A devilish smirk appeared on her lips. “Oh my God. Did sparks fly between you two?”
My eyes widened. “What? Are you crazy? I hate the guy. This meeting only reinforced that. We were at each other’s throats within minutes.”
“Damn. Okay. So what happened next?”
“I sat down, and he started by thanking me for getting him help when he ODed that night.”
“That’s good.”
“Sure, although he made it seem like it was a bigger deal than it was, but whatever. So then he got to his apology, and with each word that came out of his mouth, this slow realization started to spread through me. He wasn’t apologizing for messing with Oliver and I. He was apologizing for the kiss in the dressing room.”
“I suppose he may as well apologize for that, too,” Zoey offered, lifting her shoulders up to her ears.
“You’re missing the point,” I said, shaking my head. “He wouldn’t admit that he lied to me back then. He said that trying to keep me away from Oliver was the only good thing he did on that tour.”
Zoey rubbed the side of her neck. “Did he say why?”
I scoffed. “Just the same lie as before. That Oliver is manipulative, and that he was using me.”
“You didn’t probe deeper?”
“No, because I didn’t feel the need to. I know the feelings between Oliver and I were real. I’m as confident of that as I am of my own name.”
My best friend stared at me in silence.
“What?”
“Ivy, you were seventeen,” she began. “He was your first love, and he was also a famous rock star that you idolized from the moment you met.”
“So?”
“Can’t you consider the possibility that you viewed the situation through rose-colored glasses? What about calling Cole and asking him for his read on Oliver?”
“No. I’m not talking to him about any of this,” I said, rubbing my thighs. “We never even had an open conversation about what happened on the tour.” I was sure Ran had told Cole the gist of the story, but I’d refused to get into the details whenever Cole tried to bring it up in the past. Despite my hopes for the tour, it didn’t really bring my brother and I any closer, and while we enjoyed a good relationship, discussing any of this with him would be way too embarrassing. “It would be weird to call Cole now and start asking questions.”
“All right.” Zoey sighed. “Look, I’m not saying Jamie told you the truth, but after you came home, you said yourself there were certain parts that didn’t make sense. Like why Oliver seemed to end things because you called an ambulance for Jamie.”
“That’s not what I said,” I protested. “I don’t think that’s why he ended things. He was just upset that I didn’t listen to him and didn’t stay away from Jamie.”
“How is that any better? From the outside, a request like that seems pretty controlling.”
Indignation flared up inside of me. “He was just trying to protect me from his crazy bandmate. It was for my own good.”
“Okay, but then if he had your best interests at heart and reacted in the heat of the moment, why didn’t he ask to continue being in a relationship after you left?”
“He was busy trying to save his band. I don’t blame him for not prioritizing me in those weeks. And afterwards…” My chest ached, as it always did whenever I reflected on the dull, drawn-out pain of that heartbreak. I’d begged Oliver to meet me in New York or LA, but he’d always managed to come up with a reason why the dates I proposed couldn’t work. When I tried to call to hash it out, he didn’t pick up. It was always just messages, just strings of letters on a screen that often started to lose all meaning after I’d stared at them for hours.
I looked down at my feet. “I don’t want to get into all of that again. At one point, I loved Oliver, and I thi
nk he loved me, too. We aren’t together anymore, but I won’t let Jamie corrupt the good memories I have of him.”
Zoey ran her tongue over her teeth. “If you stopped putting Oliver on a pedestal, it would help you get over him. Block his number, Ivy. It’s not doing you any good.”
I closed my eyes. She just didn’t get it. Keeping his number wasn’t just a pathetic attempt at hanging on to the guy who’d stolen and broken my heart into a million pieces. That number was the last thread I had connecting me to the girl I’d been on that tour.
I could still remember so clearly the first night we met. The smoky club. His voice ringing above the music. The way time had stood still while we appraised each other from across the room. The sensation of all other people disappearing.
He’d made me feel things with just his gaze that no one else had ever made me feel. I’d been bold, and beautiful, and special. Like a sorcerer, he’d begun to transform me, but before his work was finished, someone broke the spell.
Jamie.
Sometimes, I thought that tour had left me in even worse shape than before. My big attempt at reinventing myself had been a pathetic failure.
“It’s so hard,” I admitted, tears pricking behind the backs of my eyes. “How would you feel if you believed you’d peaked in life by the time you turned eighteen?” I cracked open my eyes to see Zoey’s expression soften.
“Ivy, that’s nonsense. You didn’t peak on that tour.”
“You weren’t there,” I choked out. “He made me into someone better.”
“I wasn’t there,” she conceded, “but I know there was nothing wrong with the Ivy who went on that tour. And the only thing wrong with the one who’s sitting across from me right now is the fact that she allowed some guy to make her life very small.”
“What do you mean?” I said, sniffling.
“It’s like he’s a planet, and you’re in his gravitational field. All you’ve been doing for the past two years is orbiting him, and you’ve forgotten there’s an entire universe for you to explore. Get out of his orbit. I know it’s hard, and it’ll hurt, but I’m confident it’ll be worth it.”
I leaned back against the sofa and let her words sink in. Something in there had resonated with me, but I still wasn’t fully convinced. I bit on my lip and shot her a look. “Isn’t that what great love is supposed to feel like? Like that person is the center of your universe?”
“Oliver isn’t the great love of your life,” she insisted. “Not even close. A great love is not supposed to make your life feel small. It’s supposed to expand it and fill it with possibilities. It’s supposed to make you feel powerful. One day, you’ll find it, and whatever you’ve felt for Oliver will pale in comparison.”
A sad smile tugged at my lips. “For someone who’s never been in love, you sure know a lot about it.”
Zoey snickered. “You pick up all kinds of wisdom from reading romance novels.”
My chuckle was interrupted by my phone vibrating in the back pocket of my jeans.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
I sat up straight, schooling my face into a neutral expression. “Okay, let me think all of this over. Thanks for rushing back, by the way. I’m sorry I had to interrupt your studying.”
She reached over to squeeze my hand. I prayed she wouldn’t notice how my pulse had begun to race beneath my skin.
“Of course, babe. Now don’t make it a habit, okay? I really do need to study my ass off right now.”
I nodded at her and stood up from the sofa. “You got it. I’m gonna go lie down in my room if you want to study here for the rest of the day.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” she said, also standing up and moving toward the bathroom. I waited for her to go inside before dashing into my room and pulling out my phone before the door had even closed.
I typed in the passcode incorrectly three times before it finally worked. My hands trembled as I scrolled through the notifications to his message. It had been almost two weeks since I’d last heard from Oliver.
“I dreamt of you last night. You were in my bed, your hair cascading over the side like a black waterfall. When you saw me, you gave me a teasing smile, as if you’d been waiting for me to catch you like this. Before I could get to you, I woke up. I felt an awful loneliness waking up to nothing but the cold side of the bed. I miss you, beautiful. Do you miss me, too?”
There was a ball in my throat. How could I block him? These messages, always filled with pretty words and tempting fantasies, never failed to bring me to my knees.
I sank to the carpet and pressed my back against the door. A tear carved a path down my cheek, followed by another, and then my vision blurred.
Zoey’s advice rang in my head, but my despair rang louder. My friend was right, my life was small, but I didn’t have enough faith in myself to think that by pushing Oliver out, I’d be able to expand it. I swiped the tears away with the back of my palm, afraid she would hear and realize I was crying. I couldn’t show these messages to her anymore. Not after the conversation we’d just had.
What do I tell him?
I missed him, but I’d missed him for so long by now that the feeling had dulled. He was thirty-one now, and I didn’t know this version of him, not really. He must have changed in the past two years, given everything that had happened in his life. The realization that the guy I still pined for might no longer even exist pulled a pitiful sob out of me.
I wasn’t yet ready to cut him off. But maybe I could start to make small moves in that direction.
My fingers danced across the screen as I crafted my response.
“I miss you, too. Hope you’re doing well in New York.”
I scrunched my nose. That felt too curt.
“I miss you, too, and I dream of you often. Maybe we’ll meet in our dreams one of these days.”
At least I wasn’t asking him to come see me for the hundredth time. That felt like progress.
I checked for typos and pressed send, forcing myself not to agonize over my words. Would he notice something was off?
And if he did, would he even care?
Class started late. By the time the professor got to the blackboard, I’d managed to fill half a page in my notebook with flowery doodles.
He apologized for his tardiness and jumped right into the lecture. “Today we’ll be talking about love and addiction. I bet most of you wouldn’t naturally associate the two together, but Peele and Brodsky’s seminal work of the same title lays out a compelling argument for why so many behaviors we observe in addiction can also be found in romantic love.”
My ears perked up.
“Let’s list a few of these. There’s the obsession with qualities, behaviors, and traits of the object of our infatuation. When they’re not around, we crave them. Who hasn’t done something crazy or brash in an attempt to see their crush?”
A few people laughed. My thoughts jumped to the insane schemes I’d come up with to go see Oliver in New York.
The professor smiled. “Who hasn’t felt mortifying panic and anxiety when the object of your infatuation seems withdrawn? Who hasn’t lain in bed, crying and unable to move in the wake of a breakup?”
The laughter died down. I was right there with them. The week I got home from the tour, I barely left my room. If I lost track of my phone, I’d go into a full-blown panic attack, fearing I’d miss a message from Oliver.
“And of course, all of these negative emotions are often eliminated as soon as we’re back in our beloved’s arms.”
The edge of the desk dug into my ribs as I leaned forward.
“All of the above statements ring true about love as much as they do about substance addiction. To quote Peele and Brodsky, ‘Love is an ideal vehicle for addiction because it can so exclusively claim a person’s consciousness.’ Love can fill a void. It can offer us solace, and it can quickly become the center of our life, much like a chemical substance.”
My heart pumped a rapid rhythm as little puzzle pieces joined inside
my head. Is that what I was? Was I…addicted to Oliver?
Someone raised their hand. “So are you saying love is bad?”
“No, I’m saying that just like some people can use drugs with integrity, while others become addicted, the same is true of love. We can love in ways that are positive and enrich our lives, or we can love in ways that are harmful and decrease our self-contentment.”
My pen fell out of my hand with a loud clack. The professor looked at me for a brief moment before continuing the lecture, but I was no longer listening. His words swam inside my brain like toxic waste, polluting every thought.
In that exact moment, my phone buzzed three times.
My pulse began to race as I reached for it on autopilot. The realization made me feel nauseous—when had I become this…conditioned? Those three buzzes set off an avalanche of emotions inside of me before I even knew what the message said. Is this what addicts felt when they were about to get their fix?
I didn’t want to read his message, but I couldn’t resist its pull. My fingers tapped in the passcode.
“I’m tired of dreams. I want the real deal.”
A few students turned to look at me as I shot out of my seat, grabbed my stuff, and headed out the door. I felt dizzy.
“You’re going to come? When?”
When had I become this pathetic? I knew he wouldn’t come. He’d sent messages like this before and they’d never resulted in anything, so why was I still deluding myself?
I ran out the building and let out a strangled breath. The phone was heavy in my hand as I stared at the screen. He wouldn’t respond. He had a tendency to ignore blunt, to-the-point messages like the one I’d just sent.
The sun was shining with ferocity. It was another scorching day, and I walked to the campus cafe in a trance, rereading his last message over and over again. Tears blurred my vision for the second time in the last twenty-four hours.
Sitting down at a table outside the cafe where I was supposed to be meeting Jack in about an hour, I put my head between my palms. For all the heady highs I’d experienced with Oliver, I could count an equal number of crushing lows.
Pretty Words: An Enemies To Lovers Rock Star Romance (River Valley Rebels) Page 12