Page 42 of Pretty When It Burns (When The Lights Go Down #1)

Chapter thirty-nine

"Control" - Loveless

Mia

Ithink I’ve slept maybe thirty minutes since last night.

I’d slept in our bunk reluctantly. Couldn’t sleep anywhere else. Everything on this damn bus reminds me of him.

I rise from the bed, my joints cracking as though I aged fifty years overnight. I have to get out of here. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I sure as hell can’t stay here.

I pull out my duffle and larger suitcase from under the bunk and start rummaging through all the drawers for my clothes—at least, the things I’d come with.

I can’t bring myself to pack any of the clothes Grayson had bought me, any of the shirts that are really his but I’ve claimed them as mine, anything that I’ve borrowed from Johanna…

none of those things feel like they belong to me anymore.

In the midst of the flurry of clothes going into a bag or being tossed to the side, I pull out my phone to check to see if Grayson has called, maybe changed his mind, for the thousandth time since he’d left. He hasn’t.

Against my better judgement, I look at our text thread. More and more photos, the stupid jokes, the flirty banter…

“Love you more,” I’d said. Apparently, I meant it.

My thumb hovers over his name.

I don’t call. What’s the point? The phone works both ways, and he’s the one who said he needs space—whatever the hell that means.

I put my phone away, angry at myself for looking again. I want to get mad at him—but no matter how hard I try to put my anger on him, I can't do it. I’m wrecked, wrecked in a way that doesn’t leave bruises, but still makes every inch of my body ache.

Zipping the duffle shut, I toss a few more things into the suitcase before sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment, breathing hard, hands shaking.

No more tears, I order myself.

A soft knock on the wall comes before the curtain to the bunk room is pushed back. Rylee.

“Mia?”

I don’t answer at first. I’m tired of trying to come up with things to say.

She moves through the curtain and notices that I’m surrounded by half-packed bags and a mountain of clothes.

“Going somewhere?” she asks.

I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s exactly something she’d say. Beating around the bush when she already knows the answer.

“I can’t be here anymore, Ry,” I tell her. “Not like this. Not alone.”

She leans against the wall, arms crossed, holding herself together for both of us. I know she’s trying to keep herself from breaking down with me.

“Where are you gonna go?”

I hesitate. I haven’t really gotten that far.

“I don’t know. I’m just going to go to the airport. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

She doesn’t say anything for a second. Then she comes over and sits beside me, our shoulders barely brushing. “If you go now… it’s okay,” she says softly. “I understand. But don’t take off thinking you’re not coming back. You were made for this life, Mia. We’re not done with you yet.”

I blink back the tears I thought surely I’d run out of by now.

“None of it means anything without him.”

She looks like she wants to protest—to prove me wrong—but she stays silent.

I stand and zip my suitcase. “Will you tell them I had to go?”

Rylee nods. “I’ll handle the guys. You handle you.”

I pause at the door, taking one last inventory of everything that I’m about to leave behind. The space where everything has changed.

“Mia? You’re coming back,” Rylee insists. “I know you don’t see it now, but you will.”

“We’ll see.”

And then I head out the door.

I didn’t call ahead.

Didn’t text.

Didn’t even know if I was going to go through with it until I was standing outside the damn house.

It looks like something out of a magazine—colonial style, crisp navy shutters over the windows, and a wrap around porch with a swing.

And the front lawn really is perfectly manicured with its symmetrical flower beds and freshly mowed grass.

A wind chime sounds gently in the breeze.

Massachusetts Luxury Real Estate has probably featured this place more than once.

The whole place looks unbothered. Like no one inside of it has ever abandoned their family.

I stand here for a while, just staring. The image I conjured in my mind—that my father works in a strip mall selling refurbished cell phones and lives in a rundown one bedroom apartment—would be so much more satisfying than the reality. But nothing has really changed. It’s just… shifted.

I wonder if the neighbors are watching from their own picture-perfect houses, whispering to each other about the girl with her hair in a knot and grief fresh in her eyes.

When I finally make it to the front door, it opens before I even knock.

“Mia?”

“Byron.”

He stands in the doorway wearing a sweater vest and slacks. His hair is grayer than I remember, but he’s healthy. Like someone who got a decent night’s sleep the night before. Like nothing has ever gone wrong for him.

“What are you—how did you—?”

“Property records search,” I say flatly. “It’s really not that hard.”

He blinks. “Well… okay then.”

I look past him into the foyer. A marble staircase, fresh flowers in a vase on a glass table in the center of the room, a rack of neatly arranged shoes. This isn’t survival. This is reinvention.

“You live here?” I ask, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation.

“Uh, yes,” he says, closing the door behind me. “Steph’s out right now—she’s at the club.”

Of course she is.

I move slowly through the entryway, taking in the photos lining the walls—Byron and Steph, grinning in matching tennis whites, and their two bubbly, blonde teenage daughters. Not one photo of me. Not one of Makenna or Macy.

Not that I expect anything else.

“You really just… started over,” I scoff. “New wife. New kids. Is there anything you didn’t replace when you moved here?”

Byron clears his throat, clearly rattled. “I didn’t mean to—”

I give him a look so cold it could stop his heart. “What? You didn’t mean to abandon your family? Or you didn’t mean to get caught?”

“Mia, I—”

“You walked out!” I snap. “You left Mom with three girls and no answers. You chose her. Then you chose this. And what’s even more mind-blowing? You chose to have more children! Can you even tell me why?”

“I thought it would be easier if I didn’t interfere,” he says weakly, maybe a little surprised that I let him complete a sentence. “I was a pariah. I thought you girls deserved to grow up without that attached to you.”

“Easier,” I spit. “Easier for who? For Steph? For you? Because it certainly wasn’t easier growing up without a father.”

He opens his mouth again, but I’m still not done.

“I used to think maybe you were out there missing us. Maybe you knew you’d made a mistake. That it was pride, or shame, or something you couldn’t face. Maybe you didn’t think you could take care of us the way we deserved. But this? This is worse.”

He steps forward slightly, like he wants to put a hand on my shoulder, but like hell if I’m letting this man touch me.

“I’ve thought about you and your sisters every day. I know I have no right to say it, but it’s the truth.”

“You thought about us,” I laugh. Cold. Hollow. “Great. That’s great. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I don’t know how to make this right, Mia,” he says. “Just tell me what you want from me, and I’ll do it.”

“You can’t,” I tell him. “That’s what you don’t get. There’s not an apology that fixes it. Nothing makes up for all the missed birthdays and graduations, or teaching us how to drive, or telling us that boys who lie don’t love us. You missed all of it—and now you have to live with it.”

He looks wrecked. Good.

“I’m not here to reconnect,” I continue.

“I’m here to remind myself that abandonment doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I survived without you. More than survived.

My photos are in national magazines. I’ve got crowds of people screaming my name every night.

I’ve got a life that most people would kill for. ”

I step toward the door, gripping the handle before pausing.

“The man I love left me,” I say without turning around. “He left me, and you know what? I almost let it break me. But then I remembered something.” I turn to face him one last time.

“I don’t have to keep loving people that make leaving look easy.”

He opens his mouth and says, barely audibly, “I’m sorry, Mia.”

“Don’t you fucking dare tell anyone else who sees that video that I’m your daughter.”