Page 65 of Save Your Breath

“You know, that whole party going on in there? All those people gathered around the DJ listening to every song that plays?” He turned to me then, one brow rising into his hairline. “That’s for you.”

“You come to drag me back down there?”

“I didn’t realize any dragging would be necessary.”

I swallowed, turning toward the beach. “You’re right. I know they’re all here for me. I should be there.” I sighed. “I’m a selfish girl.”

“I never said that.”

I shrugged, not able to argue when I knew it was the truth. So many people had shown up for me tonight, and yet I’d run to get away from them all.

“You can go back inside,” I said. “I’ll be right there. I just… needed a second.”

“I think I’d rather stay right here.”

“Why? Don’t believe me that I’ll go back?”

His eyes locked on mine. “I’d just rather be with you.”

A long pause stretched between us as those words washed over me like warm spring water. Even if they weren’t true, even if he was just saying them to make me feel better… I loved to hear them.

“Besides,” he continued. “I’m curious why you felt the need to escape.”

I searched his gaze, finding nothing but softness and understanding there before I even said a word. I let out a long sigh and ran my hands through my hair, shaking my head before my elbows were balanced on the railing again.

“I wish I knew.”

Aleks didn’t push me for information. He didn’t pepper me with questions or guess what I was feeling. He just stood there, right beside me, our eyes on the water for the longest time.

“Every other album release party I’ve had, I’ve been so… excited,” I finally said, voice so soft I wasn’t sure he could even hear me over the waves. “It really freaks me out that I don’t feel that way tonight. In fact, I feel the opposite. I feel… scared.” I swallowed. “Maybe it’s because I know the album is shit. Maybe it’s because, deep down, I wonder if Garrett Orange is rightabout me — if they all are. Maybe it’s because this could be the night I crash and burn and everyone realizes I’m a fraud.”

Aleks nodded, tilting his head side to side a bit as if weighing the options I’d presented. “Maybe,” he conceded, which did nothing to ease the ache of my chest. “What if that was what was happening? What if every big fear you just listed came true?”

“I’d throw myself off this balcony.”

His gaze turned to me, stern and severe. “Don’t even joke like that.”

“I’m being dramatic,” I said, waving him off as my shoulders slumped more. “But I mean… I’d be dead in all the ways that matter. Creatively. Career-wise.”

“Would you?”

I blinked at him. “Didn’t you hear the worst-case scenarios? If Garrett is right, if the album tanks, if everyone realizes that I…” I shook my head. “That I’m a shit songwriter and an even more terrible singer? That I’ve been hyped up for years for nothing? That I’m irrelevant? That would be it. I’d be done for. I may only be twenty-six, but in this industry, that’s… not young.” I swallowed. “My time would be up.”

“But you wouldn’t be dead,” Aleks pointed out. “Regardless of how dramatic you want to be about dying of embarrassment. Your heart would still be beating. Your lungs would still be pumping oxygen into your organs.”

“I’d be lost without music.”

“Who said you’d have to give it up?”

He turned to me then, leaning weight on his elbow that rested on the railing. God, he looked so sexy it wasn’t fair. His suit, his freshly trimmed facial hair, his dark eyes…

“Would you really stop creating music if this album got panned? I mean, honestly. Would you just never pick up a guitar again, never sit down at the keys, never sing?”

My heart squeezed at the thought. I couldn’t even voice it, but I didn’t have to.

Aleks already knew.

“You wouldn’t stop,” he said when I didn’t answer. “If anything, you’d be… free. Free to create whatever you want, to start over, to take all this damned pressure off yourself to be the best. And then what would you bring to life? What would you feel?”