“What are you trying to pull, Peyton?” I demand as anger takes hold of me.
Her eyes fill with tears. Peyton was always great at crying on command. “I’m not lying, Jake,” she produces a black and white photograph.
I take it, looking at the obvious sonogram picture. It’s proof of a baby somewhere. I shove the picture back at her. “This doesn’t prove anything.”
“Jake, I swear I’m telling the truth,” she pleads. “I need you. We need you.”
I scrub a hand down my face. Everything in me says she’s lying.
But what if she’s not? What if I don’t remember because I was too drunk?
If she’s not lying, that means I’m about to be a dad. That my responsibilities and priorities just changed.
My shoulders fall along with my head. I open the door wider and step back so she can come inside.
And that fast, my world changes, and my dreams turn to dust.
Cara
I look through my list again, ensuring I have everythingI’ll need for the next several weeks. Electrical adapters, laptop, clothes, shoes, toiletries, and hair accessories are all there, but I feel like I am missing something. The threat of panic pushes its way up my throat as I try to figure out what it could possibly be.
I hate those feelings of anxiety that creep up on me.They slither in like a serpentthreatening to cut off my breathing and vision.It constricts and tightens around my throat until I’m clawing and gasping for air.
I want to say I never struggled with this as a kid,but it’s not true. I just hid it well. After my mom died, I struggled everyday just to smile, but I did it. And I sought control because I couldn’t control the cancer that took her from me. I couldn’tmanagehow sick and frail she was or how much pain she was in.
When I moved in with Dane, he immediatelygot me into therapy. I was a very depressed thirteen-year-old girl, but I was also very traumatized and full of anxietyfrom watching the cancer suck the life from my mom. Watching her go from beautiful and vibrant to a shell of herself. A person I didn’t recognize as my beautiful, loving mom at times because the cancer slowly changedher personality too. I realize now thatitwas not my mom. Thatitwas the disease that infected her brain and changed her. But that little girlI once was, took a very long time to get there
Therapy helped me learn thatmy mom loved me. It helped me cope with that loss. And it helped me tofocus on things I could control.
After Chicago, everything changed. I couldn’t forcea smileif I tried. I couldn’t focus on things I could control because I felt like everything was out of control. I felt like I couldn’t trust myself, my judgment. I just wanted to huddle in my bed and never come out.
Stop it!This isn’t anything worth panicking over. If I forget something, I can just buy it later.
With my eyes closed, I inhale. I force my fingers to unclench asI exhale. On another inhale, I roll myhead back and forth a couple of times, then open my eyes on my concluding exhale.
“Hey, brat, are you all right?” my brother asks from the doorway.
I turn to see him leaning his shoulder on the frame. His blond hairis a little longer now. On top,anyway. I don’t think he’ll ever let it get too long again after the mohawk the guys forced him to wear.His bright blue eyes are lined with worry, and I know that worry is for me.
I give him a reassuring smile, making sure it reaches my eyes because he will notice if it doesn’t. “I’m fine. I just feel like I’m forgetting something.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind, Cara. You don’t have to go.”
This isn’t the first timehe’s said that to me. He’s given me whiplash lately. One minute, he seems thrilled that I am going on tour with his band, Sons of Sin. The next, it seems like he is trying to talk me out of it.
Cami, his girlfriend, says he’s worried it will be too much for me. That the constant travel will be too much stress.That life on the move from city to city every night or the cramped, small spaces will be a trigger of some sort.
I know I worry him. I’ve been worrying him fornearly two years now.If I am honest with myself,I’m a little worried too, but I want to do this for him.
My brother’s band is going on their first international tour. It all nearly came to a halt when Maddox, their vocalist and guitarist, broke his hand in some mugging.That’s when they decided they needed Jake.
Jake wastheir bassist before the record contract. Then, suddenly, he was a single dad to a newborn baby girl, and the late nights on stage were replaced with late-night bottle feedings.
I was in Chicago for my first semester of college, but Dane told me about it.I felt terriblefor all of them but especially Jake. I wasn’t as close to him as Maddox and Ryder, the band’s other guitarist, but I knew how much he loved the guys and playing music.
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three years.Lyra’s next birthday will probably be celebrated in a bus or hotel room somewhere.
From what they’ve told me, the guys have been looking for every excuse tobring Jake back to the band. Not that Maddox intentionally got hurt, but it created the perfect reason.Of course, Jake’s first concern was Lyra. I could see his desperation,though.Desperation they all shared. How badly they wanted this.
