Page 14 of When the Stars Rise

“You used to sing all the time.”

“Only with you. And only when we were, like, six.” Technically, that’s not true. I used to sing “Here Comes the Sun” to her when she was sad.

“You were so cute back then. So sweet, too. Sweet as that ring pop you proposed with.”

We laugh.

“Our tongues were blue for two days.” I smile at the memory.

“I saved the plastic ring foryears. I miss those days,” she says with a sigh.

“When I was cute and as sweet as a ring pop?”

“Yeah. When you were cute and as sweet as a ring pop.” Another sigh. “It feels like a million years ago.”

“Not to me. Feels like yesterday. Probably because you stayed small and cute and sweet.”

“Yeah. I guess we can’t all be five-foot-ten supermodels.”

She’s obviously talking about Devin again, a model I dated for approximately five minutes.

“Guess we can’t all be rock star wannabes either,” I retort, getting in my little dig about Asher Keating, the lead singer of Ash Tuesday. Douchebag.

On that note, she rolls onto her side and gives me her back and I’m seriously questioning my sanity. Why did I ever agree to join her for the final leg of this tour?

But here’s a little secret.

Despite all the shit we’ve put each other through over the years, Hales and I don’t know how to live without each other.

Here’s another little secret. Something I know, but Hayley doesn’t.

Our biggest addiction is not the pills she pops or the risks I take.

Our biggest addiction is each other.

We can’t quit each other, and no matter how painful it might be, we can’t let go.

So I stroke Hayley’s sweaty hair, my touch gentle until her breathing becomes deep and even, and when I’m convinced she’s sleeping peacefully, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, consumed with my thoughts.

When we were seventeen, Hayley asked me to take her virginity. Practically begged me. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted her. I havealwayswanted Hayley. Before the accident, we did pretty much everything short of having sex. But after the accident, everything got so fucked up. There was no official breakup, but we weren’t together anymore.

Suddenly, Hayley was thrust into this new life. My dad and Shiloh moved her in with them, and she was trying to acclimate to all the changes. She was grieving the loss of her parents, spent months with a cast on her leg, and everyone at school kept calling her my stepsister.

She was pushing me away. I could feel it. I don’t think it was intentional, but it was just how things were that year.

So, where did that leave me?

Numbing the pain with alcohol and wrestling with my guilty conscience.

When Hayley was in the hospital after the accident, strung out on painkillers, she asked me what had happened.

She looked so small and fragile in that hospital bed. She had fifteen stitches in her head, a concussion, a bruised cheekbone, a split lip, three broken ribs, and a fractured leg. On top of that, she’d just found out that she lost her parents.

No way in hell could I tell her the truth.

So I looked her in the eye, and I swore on my life that her parents died on impact. She asked me if I checked to make sure. I told her I had, and she believed me.

What else could I say? The truth was too hard to handle, even for me. I had to make a choice that night, and I made the only choice I could. To save Hayley.