Page 97 of Hard Rock Desires

The kettle clicked as the water reached the boiling point. I heaved myself off the bed and lurched into the kitchen to make myself that green tea. I wasn’t the biggest tea drinker, but I was worried a coffee would just make me anxious and jittery, even more so than I already was.

I took out a random mug from the cupboard, then paused with it in my hand. This was the same mug I’d given Zain that one morning. I’d made him coffee in this mug. He’d never had a chance to drink it.

I put the mug back on the cupboard shelf and grabbed another one. I was already upset enough. I didn’t need one more thing to dwell on.

My phone rang as I waited for the tea to steep. The only people who used the phone to make an actual call were my parents. Everyone else just texted.

“Hey, honey,” my mom said when I answered. “I’m just calling to check up on you. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

My mom didn’t even know I was seeing someone, let along that he was a famous rock star, and I wasn’t in the mood to give her the full run down to catch her up on everything. Maybe in a few weeks, when the wounds weren’t so fresh. I loved my mom, but for now I just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible before she suspected anything was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve been busy with school and stuff. I’m doing okay.”

“Are you really?” she asked.

Crap, did she suspect something already? My voice was a bit hoarse from all that screaming into my pillow. Maybe that was it.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I deflected.

“I just got a call from someone I hadn’t thought about in a while.” She sounded almost nervous. “I didn’t know whether I should bring it up, but I realized how long it’s been since we last talked. I thought maybe I should say something.”

“Who was it?” I asked curiously.

I could tell she was hesitant from the way she went silent, with only her breathing audible.

“Do you remember Peter?” she asked softly.

I nearly dropped the mug in my hand. My heart clenched painfully in my chest. As if I would have ever forgotten about that asshole.

“Why would he call you?” I said through a tight throat.

“It was a short conversation,” my mom said. “He told me he ran into you recently. He mentioned that you had been upset to see him. He said that I might want to see how you’re doing.”

“Why the hell would that man care how I’m doing?” I choked out.

“He didn’t go into much detail about what happened when you saw him,” my mom continued. “But from what he did say, I think maybe we should talk about some things.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said through gritted teeth.

“He said you were very upset,” my mom told me. “Very angry.”

“I’m allowed to be angry,” I shot back. “This isn’t about you telling me to go back to therapy, is it?”

“No, honey, that’s not what I’m saying.” My mom took a deep breath. “I think maybe there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“About what?” I asked.

“About what happened with your sister,” she said quietly.

“There’s no misunderstanding,” I said. “We all know what happened.”

“That’s the thing,” my mom said. “You were barely a teenager when it happened. I don’t know if we ever properly sat you down and explained everything.”

“What’s there to explain?” I said shortly. “Peter got my sister killed. He took her to a party where they were all drinking, and then they got into a car and he crashed it into a guardrail.”

My mother sighed heavily into the phone.

“Grace, do you remember Meg during her first year of college?” she asked.