Page 143 of Sing For Me

“What would have been the point of that? Her dad would have lost all that money for booze, and her mom would have lost her ticket to the Hollywood glitterati.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” I let out a sigh. “We’d been together pretty much from the start. I’m not gonna lie—that was a huge part in me pushing them to sign her. I wanted her in LA with us. She was my first real girlfriend.” I swallow. “First love. We used to spend hours and hours playing together, writing music.”

“You wrote music?”

I give her a sheepish smile. “I wrote my first song when I was ten. I was going to be a rock star, just like my dad.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

Because I haven’t gotten to the worst part yet. “The label eventually dropped her. I was so pissed at my dad—I thought she had a better chance of getting better if she stuck with us. But my uncles said it wouldn’t do her any good if they were enabling her. They couldn’t just stand by and support her financially while she wasted it all on drugs and self-destructed. Because it was obvious that was the track she was on.”

A sick feeling gathers in my belly. “She just got worse and worse. She had this shitty apartment in South Central, I used to sneak out to go stay with her, because my parents forbid me from going to that neighborhood. I figured if I was with her, she’d be less likely to use. But it never stopped her. I’d wake up almost every night and hear her on her phone with her dealer or some random asshole who could help her score.”

I hear Eva catch her breath next to me and I’m sure she’s thinking about my overreaction to hearing her on the phone with Luke that night. I had known I was being stupid even then, but I couldn’t shake the weight of dread that had settled in my belly when I woke up and realized she wasn’t in bed with me.

“Sometimes I’d wake up and she’d be gone. Sometimes she wouldn’t come back for days. When she died, I didn’t even know about it for almost a week. They found her in some abandoned building in Hyde Park.”

“Fuck,” Eva whispers. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

“It was…awful. It was such a stupid waste. She could have done so much.” I’m hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. I don’t talk about this shit, ever, and it’s apparently taking more out of me than I anticipated. “Can we sit?”

“Sure.” We settle on the sand, Eva pulling her knees up to her chest, eyes fixed on the ocean. The sun is almost gone now.

“I can’t imagine going through something like that at eighteen.”

I stare at her, incredulous. “Eva, you lost yourmotherat eighteen.”

She nods. “And it was terrible.” She finally turns to face me and I see infinite tenderness in her eyes. “But she fought for us. Did every treatment the doctors could think of. She fought her heart out until the very end. I can’t imagine watching someone fade away and knowing they don’t want to be helped.”

There’s a lump in my throat as I nod. “Yeah. That was exactly how it felt. Like I should be helping her, you know? Always wondering what else I could do, how I could change her mind. How I couldsaveher.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I would think going through that at such a young age might sour a person on relationships.”

I somehow manage a short laugh. “Yeah. I had no desire to ever date again. Until I met this redheaded girl I couldn’t resist, no matter how hard I tried.”

“Will—”

I reach for her hand, nearly sagging with relief when she doesn’t pull away.

“I spent a long time feeling like I let down the person I cared about most. I didn’t have a lot of faith in myself to take care of someone else.” I swallow. “Thinking about you in the same industry, maybe meeting or even working with the same people who took advantage of her…” I squeeze her hand. “That terrifies me.”

“But you know that’s not the lifestyle I lead, right?”

I snort. “Yeah, I think I figured that out around the time I saw that picture of you in a Star Trek costume. Such a nerd.”

She reaches over and pinches my arm and I swear, no pain has ever been sweeter. Because it’s Eva, teasing me.

But I know I haven’t given her everything yet. And this woman deserves everything from me.

“I blamed my dad for a long time. My uncles too.” I close my eyes. “It was a little easier with Daltrey and Lennon, because they hadn’t wanted to sign her at first. I could convince myself they’d just been railroaded into it by their older brothers. That’s, uh, probably why I borrowed the money to open my shop from Lennon, and not my dad.” I swallow. “I was a petty little asshole, and I knew it would hurt my dad. Iwantedto hurt him.”

“But didn’t they try to get her help?” she asks softly.

“They did exactly what they should have, once they realized she had a problem. It wasn’t about that.”

“Then why…”