Page 36

Counting Trees

Mia

The last time I’d been in this condo, a hurricane had been raging outside.

Now, the storm was inside me.

I stared at where my fingers rested on the bone white keys of Aleks’s piano, unmoving, frozen. I yearned for music, ached to play something that would relieve the pressure building in my chest.

But I knew nothing would work.

So I just sat there, staring, listening to everything happening around me like a ghost who couldn’t fully participate. It was dark outside now, evening giving way to night, the waning crescent of moon visible over the Hillsborough River like just another eye fixed on us.

Giana left first, making sure Aleks was good to go before she excused herself back to her hotel. Aleks left next, right at the time of our planned fake fight. I stared at the keys extra hard as he prepared to go, knowing if I looked at him again, I’d break all the way down.

He hadn’t stopped it.

As if the call hadn’t been heartbreaking enough, I’d had to sit here and watch him apathetically agree to every step of Giana and Isabella’s plan for tonight. He didn’t try to pull me aside. He didn’t tell everyone to fuck off.

He really was done.

I felt both resigned and desperate as I sat at that piano, each emotion warring for who would win. They tugged on the bones of my rib cage, and I heard each crack as they fought.

“?Estás bien, mi amor?”

I blinked at the question from Isabella, dropping my hands into my lap as she took a seat next to me on the piano bench. You good, my love?

“Peachy.”

She frowned, sweeping my hair back behind one ear. “One last little bit here, darling. Almost done.”

I nodded, a strained smile on my lips.

“Just think about the ticket sales and all the songs you can write,” she added with a playful nudge.

This time, my eyes welled with tears.

As if my heart wasn’t already broken enough from that boy. As if I couldn’t already fill a whole album with songs about how he’d wrecked me.

“Hey,” Isabella sang, brows pinching together more. “What’s this? Talk to me.”

I sniffed, swiping the tears off my face and forcing a smile. “Just getting ready. I’m about to have to sell a breakup, remember? Need to have a blotchy, tear-streaked face.”

Isabella didn’t look convinced. When she opened her mouth to question me more, I stood abruptly.

“Speaking of which, I should probably get to it. You’re going to stay here until the paparazzi clear out, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Great. I’ll see you in L.A., babe.”

Another forced smile. A kiss on her cheek. A straightening of my shoulders.

And then I grabbed my suitcase and bolted out the door.

James was on my heels as I tore through the hall and to the elevator, but he didn’t say a word. Not as we climbed inside and I chewed my lip against the emotion building in my chest. Not when we hit the bottom floor and the tears began to spill. Not when he sheltered me as we walked through the lobby and a sob ripped from my throat.

By the time we were walking the short distance from the front doors of the building to the waiting black SUV, I was a mess. A complete and total disaster.

And it wasn’t acting.

The finality of everything hit me like a thousand books to the head, each one a memory of Aleks that I’d never forget. I slid inside the car with camera lights flashing, reporters calling my name and asking what happened while I fell apart for their entertainment.

“Mia! Is it true you and Aleks have split?”

“Who ended it, Mia? Was it you or Aleks?”

“Mia, are the rumors about Aleks cheating true?”

“Mia, is this the end of the wedding plans? Are you calling it off?”

“How are you holding up? Can you give us a comment?”

James shut the door behind me, snuffing out the noise as another sob tore through me. I folded my arms over my stomach, aching and rocking and shaking my head.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be real.

The driver already knew where to take us, every part of the plan set into place. He headed toward the airport while I tried to calm my breaths. I pressed a hand against my chest and closed my eyes, focusing on each inhale, trying to lengthen my exhales.

In, and out.

In, and out.

The tears were still sliding fast and furious down my cheeks. I let them. I watched them fall to my thighs, felt them dry on my chin. My skin was tight from their tracks, my nose running, eyes fatigued.

After a few minutes, I gained my composure a bit, sinking back in the seat and letting my head loll to the side. I sniffed, watching the city of Tampa pass in a teary blur.

I started counting trees.

1… 2… 3…

But the trees turned into memories, each one pelting me like the rain that had whipped against Aleks’s windows last time I was here.

A magnolia tree, but I saw Aleks, brows bent in concern as he shielded me from the paparazzi in New York. I felt his hand on the small of my back, the way it held onto me even still in the car when all the cameras were gone.

A palm tree, but I saw Aleks’s beaming smile at the beach mansion, his bare chest exposed by an open, tropical button-up. I felt his heat from that first fake kiss, heard his words whispered only for me. L?ck du mir.

A jacaranda tree, but I saw Aleks in a stupid fish head mask, saw him peeling it off and beaming at me, felt his strong body when I jumped into his arms to celebrate our win.

An oak tree, Spanish moss hanging dreamily from its limbs, but I saw his heated eyes as he stripped the jersey with his name and number on it over my head, felt his hot breath on my skin as he whispered filthy words along the column of my neck.

All of it hit me in unrelenting flashes, wave after wave of feeling crashing over me until I was drowning.

And that’s when I realized.

None of it was fake.

Not one single thing that had happened since we first met up in New York had been pretend — not to me.

And I didn’t care if he didn’t feel the same. I didn’t care if I was crazy for breaking all the rules I’d set for us. I didn’t care if I’d feel like a fool in the morning.

I had to tell him.

I blinked, snapping out of my haze and into the moment with my heart thundering loud and fast in my chest. “Don’t get on the highway.”

James frowned at me, the driver’s eyes snapping to mine in the rearview mirror. “But, Ms.—”

“Don’t get on the highway,” I repeated, leaning forward. “Boomer’s. Take me to Boomer’s.”

“That’s where Aleks is,” James said.

“Exactly.”

I thought I saw the corner of James’s mouth inch up, but I was too busy snapping my fingers at the driver.

“Boomer’s,” I repeated, louder this time. “Please. And hurry.”

I knew now what I wanted, what I was willing to risk.

I just hoped I made it in time.