Spider

For the first time with him, I feel terribly young. I clench my hands, pushing down the urge to run away.

I came all this way. I ran across four rows of traffic to get this moment.

There’s no going back now.

My eyes look only at him and not at the brunette, although I know her face will forever be branded on my brain.

“I need to talk to you,” I say as the driver of the limo emerges and opens the back door for them.

Spider motions to the vehicle with a flip of his hand. “I’m leaving for LA. There isn’t anything left to say. Our parents took care of that.”

But his body says something different. There’s an anguished look on his face that matches mine, and his shoulders are stiff as he faces me head on, eating me up with his gaze. His brown eyes are locked on mine, and just like him, I refuse to let the connection be lost.

“You’re lying.” I’m closer now and I smell him, the scent of worn leather, cigarette smoke, and spice all mingling together to form his own particular heady scent. I want to bathe in it. I want his arms around me and not around her.

The girl—God, I hate her—looks up at Spider and traces a slim hand down his face. A resigned expression flits across her face as her eyes bounce from me to him. “Talk to her, babe. She needs to hear it from you. I’ll be waiting in the car.”

I watch as she prances past me and slides into the dark cavern of the back seat. Pretty soon, he’ll be sitting back there with her. They’ll be kissing again . . .

Stop.

Don’t.

Fuck.

Her skirt is on backward.

I close my eyes. They were together, probably naked on his bed upstairs where I was only a few days ago.

His bloodshot gaze burns into mine, his eyes like roadmaps. He hasn’t slept, or he’s hungover—maybe both.

“Say what you need to say. Go off on me. I’m ready, Rose.” His words are soft and tender, and I realize he needs me to lash out, but I’m not going to make this easy for him.

“I love you,” I say.

His eyes flare and his lips part as a whoosh of air comes out. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true. I think you love me too.”

He shakes his head. “You’ll never hear me say those words, Rose. I don’t love anyone. Love is for people who want to get hurt.”

“I can’t help how I feel,” I cry out.

“You’re infatuated with who you think I am.” He points to the girl inside the limo. “You know I fucked her, right?”

Rage erupts in an instant and I shove at his shoulders, making him stumble back against the concrete pavement. “Fuck you and all the girls you fuck. You don’t get to tell me how I feel.”

He pales. “God . . . I’m sorry. This is what I do. I cock everything up, remember? I’m lost, Rose. I’m not what you need—ever.”

I shake my head at him. “Let me come to LA with you.”

He closes his eyes and opens them, pain there, yearning . . . for me.

I know it. I see it.

“What you’re suggesting is impossible. I have a career to think about. You have college.”

“I don’t care.” I rush through the words, hoping to convince him. “I-I know it’s unexplainable but when I see you . . . I’m home, like we’re pieces of a puzzle that have finally come together.”

“You might want me now, but in week or a month when I get high and cheat on you . . .” His voice trails off, strained.

I tremble. My body is in fight-or-flight mode. I look at the girl in the car. “Do you care about her?”

He taps his fingers on his jeans and his eyes refuse to look at me. “I have a plane waiting for me, Rose.”

“This isn’t goodbye,” I say, my voice cracking. “I refuse to let you leave until you tell me I mean nothing to you—nothing!” I shout the last words, my hands clenched.

But I’m talking to air.

He is striding toward the limo.

“If you walk away from me now . . .” I let the words hang in the air.

He knows what I mean.

He halts, his shoulders expanding as he inhales, his hand doing that tapping thing against his leg.

I pant, saying things I don’t mean, saying anything as I grasp for something he might care about. “I swear to God, if you leave me here, I’ll be with Trenton . . . I’ll let him be my first. I’ll never think about you again. I swear, I won’t. Is that what you want?” My voice breaks.

He stands there, and I’m counting the seconds, my eyes begging him to just turn around and look at me.

His voice is low and raspy as he pushes the words out. “Tell Trenton hello for me, love.”

And then he gets in the car and it pulls away slowly.

I wipe my mouth with the back of a hand that’s shaking uncontrollably.

He’s gone.

With . . . someone else.

I don’t know how long I stand there, maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour. The doorman comes out and checks on me, but I ignore him.

It’s not until the sky opens and it begins to rain that I finally begin to see the truth as clarity arrives in bits and pieces.

I was never special to him like he was to me.

I touch my cheeks. Tears course down my face, their wetness a reminder that I’ve never hurt like this before . . . never. I feel like I’m dying of a horrible disease, as if I might waste away.

Is this what it feels like to fall in love with someone and not have it returned?

Is this what love songs are written about?

I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to beat my hands on the ground. I want to throw up.

I realize that people always leave, even the ones you love the most. They weasel into your life and then slink away as if nothing happened. They leave you in the wake of their destruction and gamble your heart to pursue their own ambitions.

I know what I have to do.

I’ll never let him near my heart again.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to the path which nature has marked out for him.

TWO YEARS LATER

Spider

A HALF-HOUR BEFORE SHOW TIME at Madison Square Garden, I’m tossing back a shot of expensive tequila as a knock comes on my dressing room door. It’s my second drink before the show starts. I need it to get me loose, but I’m never blitzed on stage. I made a promise to Sebastian that I wouldn’t do that, and so far I’ve stuck with it.

But afterward, once the music is over and the crowds have gone . . . it’s a whole new ballgame.

I’m wearing my usual outfit for a show: a pair of black skinny jeans and a distressed gray shirt with holes ripped artfully in the high-dollar fabric. I’m decked out in silver jewelry and the makeup girl has already popped by to outline my eyes in black kohl.

I fling open the door, expecting Sebastian or our drummer Rocco. Both of them are big talkers who like to chat before they go on . . . mostly nerves. Rocco likes to shoot the shit about the charcoal drawings I’ve been doing, and Sebastian likes to talk through the sets. Max, our rhythm guitar player, is a quiet guy who likes to be alone until we go on stage.

But it’s neither of them. It’s Rick, one of the roadies for the Wake Up and Die tour we’re currently doing after the huge success of our latest album.

“Hiya. What’s up?” I ask.

He’s chewing tobacco and swishes it aside to speak. He has a slow southern drawl; I believe he’s from Alabama.