#Kissing (Rock and Romance #1) (11 page)

Chapter 29

I wake up to clanging, no doubt my mother cleaning up after me. The blue glow of my phone nearly matches the creeping twilight. I have nine missed calls and texts.

Niko, Niko, Niko.

I delete the voicemails. I can't bear to listen to his voice, but I do look at the texts before deleting them too.

Babe. What happened? Where are you?

Crazy party. I hope you're ok. Went back to the hotel, but you weren't there.

Josie, we're leaving in a couple hours. Call me. I'll wait as long as I can.

I miss you, J. Please call. Write. Whatever. Please.

What the fuck. What happened? I'm starting to worry.

The last one is from Kat.
Don't worry. I'll be sure to take good care of Niko
.

I flip through my socials, reading a few messages from Halos' fans that became something like internet friends. The kinds of photos my mother mentioned her friend Darcy Reynolds showed her fill my stream. There I am, just a few days ago, my arms overhead, dancing with a carefree smile on my face, ignorant of the camera, just happy, free, me. Another one where I'm halfway through a bottle of vodka, flipping off the camera. I don't even remember. Someone snapped a photo of me on Niko's lap, whispering in his ear. What was the last thing I said to him? What did he last say to me? It's a heavy lump in my stomach and fire on my skin. Now none of it matters. The life I built dissolved in an instant, in a stupid minute of shitty decision-making. I'm the kind of girl who leaves a trail of disaster and flame in her wake, and I'm not sorry. Except, I used to be, once upon a time—the girl I was before I destroyed life as I knew it to keep myself alive.

Where I am right now is the exact opposite of where I want to be and if I'm honest, of whom I want to be.

The clicking of my mother's heels warns of her approach. I roll over, but my still-glowing phone gives me away.

"Josephine. Dr. Woodson said you didn’t show up. Do you remember what I said about using the coasters? They're right there on the coffee table. You know I feel about water rings." She flips on the light.

I huddle under my covers.

She hovers over me. "I know you're awake."

I'm stupid for hiding like this. It's childish, like I'm five-years-old and having a tantrum. It's only a matter of time before I have to face my mother, but experience has taught me that no matter how I reason with her, if I point out the fact that this is my life, that I have dreams and desires of my own—even if they're elusive—, she doesn't listen. She nods and smiles placating, but then picks up where she left off, citing her intentions and dismissing mine. She's a brick wall that extends in all directions forever and ever. There's no getting through to her. I gave up trying—the last time altogether and just left. If I'd been thinking more clearly the other night, I would have gone somewhere else. Heck, I probably would have had an easier time sorting things out with Niko, but there's no going back.

She sits down on the edge of the bed and waits. My mother is determined, which is different from being patient. Patience has a soft agreeability to it. Her determination is stiff with edges, sharp exhales, and a toe tapping against the carpet.

Finally, I roll over. "My boyfriend cheated on me." This, perhaps she'll understand because from the little bits that I've discerned from her first marriage it's a sore spot.

"Oh, sweetie." She pats my shoulder and then shakes her head. "You should have seen that coming. A boy like that—I saw the picture of him with all the tattoos. He could have been handsome. It's a shame really."

The lack of sympathy, or at least understanding, prickles me with irritation. "Never mind. You didn't even know him."

"I saw enough. Darcy sent me another link this morning. There was a series of photos of him with a girl who was most certainly not you, thank God—He'd have locked the pearly white gates if—well, never mind." If her tight features allowed for an expression it would be what scandalized looks like.

I struggle against tears. Why did Niko have to screw up? I mean, if I'm not being stupid, it had probably happened before, but why did I have to see it?

One reason: Kat.

My mother and I do not cry in front of each other. During the divorce, she hollered at me when I snuggled in bed with her, the two of us teary and lonely one night. She sent me back to my room with a scolding. In this family, we cry ourselves to sleep, alone. We experience our emotions, if at all, alone. Her mantra is we pick ourselves up, dust off, and keep going.

But the problem is I don't know where I'm going only that I don't want to be here.

"Listen, when I was a girl I didn't have designer jeans or a college fund. My biggest dream was to get the heck out of Boyce, West Virginia. Now, I don't expect you to understand that kind of thing, but you only have one choice if you want to stay here. Go to college. Make somethin' of yourself. You'd practically be done by now. Time is a wastin'." She sugarcoats what she really means is
get your shit together, Josephine
.

I find my voice. "And if I don't?" I hate the way the words sound, spoiled. An immature ultimatum to her ultimatum, but I want to know.

"Then you're on your own."

"What about Daddy?"

"He and I have had words. He's very disappointed in you."

I doubt that. My father would tell me I'm wonderful even if I kicked a puppy. However, he does make a monthly deposit in my bank account and my mother could have persuaded him to invest it elsewhere. My father is big on getting a return on his investments. Aside from my charming personality, I have little to offer in terms of ROI these days.

"Since you opted not to seek the professional guidance of Dr. Woodson, you took one step closer to being on your own. I expect you to be motivated and ready with a plan bright and early tomorrow morning. Do you understand me? I'd hate to cut you off, but you have to learn one way or another. Oh, and do thank Jesse Quaid for saving your life; he's such a lovely young man, really making something of himself. His mother is so proud."

In these words, I hear how disappointed she is of me.

Chapter 30

I'm nocturnal. I adopted late hours when I joined the Halos on tour. I blinked away sleep, sloughed off the layers of expectation, pressure, and the perfectionism corroding me. I blasted it away with music, drank it away with my new friends, and kissed it away with Niko. I reinvented myself one party at a time and never thought it would take me right back to where I started.

My stomach dips and flips. I let go of some things, but added others: disappointment, disgust, and proving that I really don't do a decent job of fending for myself.

I battle with myself over how I might create a plan to please my mother so I can buy some time to get everything figured out, including my next steps. The pull in the direction of the Halos is strong, but Niko's expression when he was with Kat tethers me here in static indecision.

After a quick internet search, I split the difference and scroll through the Employment section. I'm not a handyman, data entry sounds mind numbing, and I'd rather be my mother's assistant, getting her coffee and whatever else real estate agents do than apply for the position of substitute teacher at my old high school. I copy down a list of nanny for now until I come up with a better plan.

I open my socials, checking out what I'm missing. Kat skulks in the periphery of pictures, as drunk and slutty as ever. Niko smiles, captured laughing, and rocking out, but I want to believe he's empty without me.

I pause on an image of a girl with Niko's arm over her, complete with his watch with the leather band, my gift to him last Christmas. There's another with him and the same girl and it's like a punch in the gut. A third photograph hits me harder in the shoulder this time. It hurts but I keep going. There's another photo of a girl with an angular haircut and the grainy image is like a blow to the jaw. His hand grips her hip, her chest pressing into his, their eyes closed. Then the one that nearly knocks me out is a profile picture of Niko and a girl kissing—full on lip lock. Has Kat been taking these all along, releasing them now to undo me?

But I don't let it take me out. I still have a little fight in me. I email myself the images and then with shaking fingers text them to Niko, one for each of the texts begging me to return. I write
#Lies
repeatedly until the letters blur.

Pressing send doesn’t give me the kind of relief screaming at him or actually punching him would provide. I launch to my feet and tear down the magazine pages of the Halos pinned to my teenage-dream walls. I rip them to shreds, letting the pieces fall like ash onto the white carpet. I drop into the paper pile, tears drifting down my cheeks. I lower my head between my knees. The corner of his lip peeks out from under my foot.

First, I fell in love with his voice. Sweet little me, laying on my bed on my elbows, ankles crossed and swinging, already seeking a way out, but not yet desperate enough to look for an escape beyond music.

Then Bubbie died and everything changed. I stumbled upon
Heartlight
, a then-new Halos song on my iPod. I listened to them nonstop. I literally lay in bed all day, mourning and skipping school—, which I'd never done before—with their album on repeat. It was cathartic.

The sound and the lyrics meant I didn’t have to think. In the days and weeks afterward, I lived and breathed for the Halos. I devoured videos, interviews, and read articles. In short, I became obsessed. However, it was a brief love affair. Life caught back up with me in the form of assignments, papers due, and commitments to the debate team. Months passed with my mother and I having an endless argument about my promising future when all I could think about was life without my grandmother.

After one particularly bad fight, I drowned my frustrations in double shots of espresso at a cafe, where I spotted a flyer for a Halos show that night. The songs, the sound of Niko's voice, the wail of the guitar, and the pound of the drums came back to me then, an arrow pointing me away from here. The possibility of going to see them took me outside myself, beyond my troubles, and I thought I'd never return.

I said goodbye to JQ and that was it.

I hardly remember how it happened after that. Niko bought me a drink, but instead of bringing it to my mouth, I put my lips on his. I lost myself in him, in sex. Then alcohol took me the farthest from reality. The volume was turned way up, supersonic, stacked amps, ringing in my ears for days, drowning out the relentless, internal dialog until it softened everything into silence.

Only, I guess it was temporary, because now the noise is louder than ever.

I lay here and listen to it until the sun comes up. I liked the sound of the Halos better.

Chapter 31

At twenty past seven, my mother pauses outside my bedroom door long enough to say, "Josephine, I expect you to be downstairs before I leave for work. We have to talk about your future, now."

I stagger down with five minutes to spare.

Her lips are set and her arms fold in front of her chest. "Let's hear it. What's your plan?"

"I have a few job leads. Nannying is at the top of the list." What more can she expect me to come up with in one night?

She rolls her eyes and slaps her hand to her hip. "Years of tutoring. Of pushing you through testing and excelling. Extracurriculars, shuttling you here and there and everywhere. Josephine, you were going places, college-bound. Do you have any idea what I had to do just to get my Associates Degree? To get out of my parents' house? To transfer to a four-year school while you were a toddler, earn a business degree, and now lead one of the top real estate agencies in the state? Do you know what it takes? Do you have any idea?"

Of course, I don't know those details because they're her own. "That's the difference. That was your life. This is mine. I have to make my own mistakes and find my own way."

"No, Josephine. Everything we did while you were growin' up was so you wouldn't have to experience that kind of struggle. And you're thrownin' it all away to become a nanny? You may as well get pregnant and have your own kid. Go on welfare. Work in a gas station."

"You worked in a gas station," I spit, knowing this only because she let the detail slip during a similar argument.

"Because I had to."

"Should I get married first or do you think single motherhood would suit this little scenario better?"

"Young lady, I've worked hard all these years so that would never be an option for you. I set you up to excel, to live a life above and beyond what I even dreamed for myself when I was your age."

"That's the problem. These are your dreams; this is all what you want."

"So you dream of getting knocked up and being a drain on society?"

"No, of course not. That's not even what this is about. But if I were to become a mother, I'd do a hell of a better job than you. Loving someone isn't shaping them into the person you want them to be; it's letting them be themselves."

Her face hardens. "And who are you, Josephine?" She lifts her chin, making quick work of casting emotion from her expression. "I thought I was being a good mother, but if my methods aren't," she gives a little jerk of her head, "suitable to you then we'll have to reassess our situation." She loops her purse over her shoulder and clicks to the door.

"Mother, that's just it. You haven't given me a chance to figure that out. Since I was old enough to go to preschool, you've kept my schedule full, pleasantly distracted from getting chocolate on my shirt, mud on my fingers, and from making my own mistakes. You never let me fall and get back up on my own."

"That's because I know how much it hurts to fall, young lady. I thought I was doing you a favor."

"I didn't ask you to. And I do know what it feels like to hurt. Niko broke my heart." My chest aches because maybe my heart was already broken when I left JQ.

"I just want what's best for you."

"How do you know what's best for me?"

"I'm your mother."

"Ok. I'll start simple. What's my favorite color?"

"Lime green, the color you insisted we paint your bedroom walls when you were six. Thankfully, I convinced you to go with pale sage. Cream or an antique white would have been preferable, but—"

I shake my head. "Blue. What is the one thing I could eat every single day?"

"Well, you always loved Mrs. Quaid's stuffing on Thanksgiving."

This is true.

"What subject in school was I genuinely interested in?"

"You excelled in mathematics and the language arts."

"PE and music, for your information."

"Those are hardly subjects."

"What's my favorite song?"

"Josephine, this is silly. I'm guessing that changes every day."

"
Heartlight
by the Halos. It's their only slow song and it saved my life. You hardly know me so how do you reason you know what's best for me?"

"I want you to have a good life."

"Of course you do. I do too. But it's my life. You have your own. You can't keep trying to keep me from living mine. This. Is. My. Life."

She flinches as though each word pierces her, but then she draws herself up. "You have an appointment this afternoon with your endocrinologist. But from now on, I'll let you arrange for your medical care. In fact, I suggest you talk to your father about your health insurance. I don't suppose you want me paying your monthly premium if this is your life."

Cue the angry drum beat as I stomp up the stairs.