Page 266 of Silver Sweet

“Tom.” I can’t breathe.

He cups my face with his hands. “You’re going to go on tour with Nothing Personal, with your brother?—”

My world is spinning. I shake my head. “No.No.The Carraways?—”

“Will be fine.” Tom nods over and over with the confidence of someone who’s seen the future. Is he just constructing this wall of strength for me? To get me through this?

“You’re talking about cancelling the World Tour,” I tell him. “Tom, listen to yourself. Really take that fucking in. Okay? Because a month ago, you were on Adderall so that you didn’t miss asingleopportunity.”

“And that was fear, dude. It’s always been fear,” he says. “But I know I’m more scared of you not being there for your brother than I am of The Carraways disappearing into irrelevancy.” He drops his hands to my shoulders. There’s not a single ounce of uncertainty in his powder-blue eyes.

But this is killing me.

In ways he does not understand.

“The Carraways can’t go on hiatus,” I tell him. “Because I don’t know if I can survive destroying another band. Okay?”My stomach knots. My breathing labors. “Not after Sophomore Summer.”

I have to tell him.

There’s no way we can make this decision without him knowingeverything.

The night of my arrest. I explain there’s a video of me climbing into the concert pit and assaulting a heckler. How I accidentally broke my singer’s jaw.

But I go back farther this time. I tell him where the pain started. “I got so drunk that night,” I say. “More drunk than I’d ever been in my life. And I wasangry. So fucking angry…”

Tom’s holding me around the waist. He just listens, and I wait for the moment I scare him off. But it hasn’t come.

“Chase.” The name is pure acid on my tongue. “You remember him?”

“The songwriter ex from college.” Tom stiffens, and his mouth parts in sudden realization. “Did he do something to you? Like sexua?—”

“No,” I cut him off. “He just emotionally eviscerated me. I thought I loved him.” I run my tongue over my molars. Breathing becomes hard becausewhat the fuck. How could I have ever thought I loved that guy? I know what love is now.

I know it’s standing right in front of me.

My eyes burn. “He stole my journal,” I tell Tom. “All the songs I’d written in college, he sold everyone of them to his contacts in the industry. Passing them off as his own.”

Tom’s chest rises and falls heavily, his face contorting into a wounded grimace. “Phoenix?—”

“When I found out, I drank myself under. I’d never felt rage like that. Never been that devastated. I wanted to destroy everything I touched. And I did. And it cost me…everything.”

The band I created with my brother.

My dreams.

My future.

Emotions pool through me. “At least, I thought it did. Because I met you, and I started to feel like maybe I could have more than nothing.” I lean forward, running my hand against the back of his neck. I pull him closer to me, and more emotion surges when I see that he’s not drawing away. “In a three-minute song, I was already at your mercy.”

This chokes him up more. “Which…which song?”

“What do you think?”

Tom has to look away, his breath coming out like a fist is in his chest. “‘Fire You Feel.’” He swings his overcome, earnest eyes at me. “For that long?”

“For that long,” I rasp out. “You’ve had me, Tom.”

He’s not boastful or smug. His blue eyes skate affectionately across my features. “Being loved by you has been the greatest pleasure of my life.” He steadies the tremor in his voice. “And I hope being loved by me will be yours. Because I’m not going anywhere, Phoenix. I love you too damn much to let this all fall apart now.”