I escaped the only way I knew.
One bottle of wine.
Two.
I lost track after that.
The room spun around me, and I fell off the bed at some point. Hated myself for being this weak.
But it was too much.
I loved him.
He loved me.
But he didn’t know my secret.
And now—now the whole world wanted me.
Wanted my music.
Almost a hundred million people had watched me in my most vulnerable, intimate state, singing a lullaby I’d written for myself, to help me deal with unimaginable pain. That pain was on display, raw and real.
For the whole world to see.
I wanted to sing.
I wanted to let Myles love me.
I just didn’t know how.
And no matter how much wine I drank, I couldn’t drown that out.
Waking up was a slow,painful process. My tongue was a wooden stick glued to the roof of my mouth, which was filled with sand that was on fire. Someone had put my skull in a vise, poured molten lava into my brain cavity, and was using my temple as an anvil. My stomach felt like a vat of boiling acid.
I hurt.
I also stank—I could smell my own body odor, a rank jumble of smells emanating from my mouth, armpits, and vag.
I heard seagulls, and that was wrong somehow, but the lava-drum that was my brain was far from operational, and I couldn’t figure out why I was hearing seagulls in the distance.
I also heard waves crashing, and tried to put two and two together. We must be in Oslo or somewhere near the water.
The world was swaying. Back, forth…back, forth. Lulling. Soothing.
And nauseating.
Suddenly my stomach was heaving and I was gonna hork.
I grunted, trying to at least roll over instead of vomiting on myself. I managed to flop sideways, and the swaying worsened, as if I was on a boat.
“Oops, don’t fall out.” A voice. Male. Deep. Familiar. A voice that somehow meant hugs and kisses and snuggles and comfort. “Here, I got you.”
“Puke.” It was all I could manage, and my voice sounded like a raven with a sore throat.
I heard movement, felt a hand at the back of my neck, holding my hair aside. Something touched my forehead, the rim of a bucket or something…just in time. Out came the hot filthy acidic flood, my stomach twisting itself inside out. Grit, bile, liquid guilt and shame.
“There you go. Get it all out.”
