Page 30 of Last Chorus (A Perfect Song Duet #2)

I offer a wincing smile. “I might have also pretended to accidentally touch you in the pool more than once.”

Her eyes flare with laughter. “I was guilty of that too.”

“Did you also sneak out of the pool, find my clothes, and steal my boxers to masturbate with?”

Evangeline gapes. “Oh my God, I remember freaking out when I couldn’t find my underwear. That’s nasty, Wilder!”

“It’s like you’ve never met me. ”

She considers me for a moment, then nods. “Fair point.”

Our shared smile fades from my face first.

“By the time you left the band, my feelings for you had become synonymous with my fear of losing you—or more accurately, my fear of your rejection and this perceived control you had over me. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was abusing substances by then, too, so my self-loathing and denial journeys were well underway.”

She frowns, her gaze falling to her lap. “When we started dating, you told me that you’d pushed me away because you were afraid.” I’m not sure what she means until she adds, “You were telling the truth. Or as much of it as you could articulate at the time.”

I swallow so hard I almost choke. “Yes. The only thing I lied to you about was my using.”

She nods to herself. “Go on.”

“Fast forward a few years—I met Kendra, who was already strung out on pills. With access to a steady supply through her, I started using Oxy consistently. There were immediate benefits. My drinking slowed down, I finally wrote our sophomore album, and my anxiety was managed for the most part. For the first time in years, I felt like I was in control of my life. I even developed rituals to support the narrative that I wasn’t an addict. ”

Her eyes widen. “Really? Like what?”

“I was obsessed with finding the right dosage to not look high while also shutting off my disorder. I was militant about controlling how much I took and when—even had a hidden calendar on my phone to track everything. And every few months, I’d detox myself.

I convinced myself that if I cleared the drugs out of my system periodically, it meant I wasn’t addicted. ”

Evangeline shakes her head in disbelief. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

“It absolutely was. But I was so locked in, I couldn’t imagine living a different way.

When I showed up at your Cathedral show, I was coming off a really rough detox.

I’d been sober for ten days. Jax had figured out what was happening, and earlier that night he’d offered to do a dry month with me.

For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful.

I didn’t agree to it for you, exactly, but I’d be lying if I said you weren’t part of the reason.

After all, you were my first addiction. My favorite high. ”

She makes a soft, distressed sound, but my gaze has dropped to the floor and I can’t bring myself to look up.

“I made it another four days. Until dinner that night with the guys. When I left the room, I had the worst panic attack I’d had in years. Completely debilitating. And I cracked. I found two pills that I’d hidden in my bathroom and took them. I didn’t want to, but the compulsion was overwhelming.”

I glance up, catching the tail-end of her pained expression, and add quickly, “My relapse had nothing to do with you. It had to do with me not addressing any of the underlying causes of my addiction. Any substantial stressor would have yielded the same result. It was going to happen sooner or later no matter what.”

She blinks a few times. “Thanks for saying that. So from that point on you were using daily again?”

“Yes,” I admit hoarsely. “In the following weeks, I learned what true self-loathing was. I’d finally admitted to myself that I was an addict, but I didn’t know how to stop or ask for help.

I couldn’t see a future where I had what I wanted: freedom from anxiety and you.

All I knew was that I couldn’t lose you. So I lied.”

Her mug clanks on the coffee table. Wiping her tearing eyes, she whispers, “I hate that you went through that just as much as I hated you back then for lying to me.”

“Losing you was my rock bottom, Evangeline. It’s what made me ask for help. You saved my life.”

The glassiness in her eyes doubles. “But then I told you I wished you were dead.”

I grimace, my entire body clenching with regret for what I said— how I said it—last night .

“Just like my relapse, what I did was not your fault. I’ll put you on the phone with my sponsor right now and he’ll tell you the same thing. I was newly sober and barely coherent. I knew fuck-all about how to handle my emotions and was too self-centered to see the situation from your perspective.”

She sniffs loudly, then uses her sleeve to wipe her nose. “Tell me. Please?”

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

“I found an old stash, a half-full bottle my parents had missed when they searched my bedroom. I took…” I swallow a few times to coax the words past the resistance in my throat. “I took all of them.”

“What the fuck?” She lifts trembling fingers to her mouth.

“It was almost one a.m., but my parents showed up not five minutes later. An ambulance arrived a few minutes after that.”

“What? How?”

Blinking back tears, I smile slightly. “It doesn’t make sense, does it? It’s almost like someone knew what I was going to do before I did it.”

She gasps, understanding instantly. “Katherine.”

I release a strangled laugh. “Yep. She called my mom, waking her up, and told her I was going to die if she didn’t get an ambulance to me. And my mom believed her. My dad, too.”

Evangeline’s face crumples. Then she folds over her knees and makes the worst sound I’ve ever heard, a jagged wail like I just ripped her heart out. In seconds, I’m around the coffee table and pulling her into my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault. You’ve never once been responsible for my choices.”

She fists my shirt, her forehead rolling against my chest.

“I can’t believe you almost died . I can’t—it’s too much.”

Closing my burning eyes, I allow myself to feel and accept her shock, anger, and pain.

“I’m never going back there, Fairy. I won’t make you any promises, but only because actions speak louder than words. I’m going to show you the same way I show myself. One day at a time.”