This was it.
I stared down at the abyss, fully strapped into my gear, my muscles coiled tight. All I needed to do was let go of the bar and fall, having faith that the panic-filled vision of me crashing into the ground wasn’t real and the bungee cord would hold me.
This was it.
I looked over my shoulder, taking Parker in. His hair rumpled from where I ran my fingers through it this morning when we still lazed naked in bed. His defined shoulders and biceps decorated with bits of ink that I’d traced with my tongue. The blue eyes I loved to watch darken with pleasure. But there was no pleasure now. His lips pulled down. His brows scrunched with frustration.
This was it.
I told him I could do this—that I wanted this.
I asked him to take me bungee jumping.
I still wanted this. I just couldn’t do it alone. So, I reached my hand out and took my first breath when he slid his fingers through mine.
Parker wouldn’t leave me to handle this alone.
“I’ve been on the phone with PR all morning, and we have a plan,” Aspen explained, back to pacing.
I jerked my attention to her. “A plan?”
“Yes. We need to spin this.”
“I don’t-I don’t understand.”
She looked to Parker, and he stepped close to my side, running his free hand up and down my back. “She’s good at this,” he explained to me.
Trepidation crept in—a hint of something not quite coming together right, but I pushed on. “Okay. What’s the plan?”
“We don’t want this to negatively impact the band, not after all the work we put in this year. The guys filled me in on some of the details, and if anyone comes forward to accuse them of neglecting the letters, then it could put them in a bad light. So, Linda is calling the main news shows: The Today Show, Good Morning America, Ellen. Oprah, if we can get it. We’re going to use this.”
Use this.
The words crawled around my throat, squeezing. “Use what?” I whispered.
I glanced at Parker to read his reaction, but he seemed to be hanging on to Aspen’s every word like it was gospel.
“Your story. We can make it work. We say you came on tour with Parker to write about your experience. We can do talk shows and push that the new album has songs focused on you and Parker and how you reunited to write about your tragic past.”
“What?”
“The fans will eat it up,” she kept going, growing more excited. “Boys, you are going to explode. With this kind of natural publicity, you’ll skyrocket.”
Nausea churned like lead, and I looked to Parker. I searched my lifeline—my safety. “Parker?”
He met my gaze, brows raised as if looking to me for confirmation of the good idea. As if he didn’t know it was everything I didn’t want.
That look—the one that said he didn’t hate the idea of using this to make his jump to another level a little easier, blew me apart. It found every weakness and crushed me. My limbs went numb, and my hand slipped from his.
I stepped back from the ledge of the platform. His brow softened from hope to confusion to hurt. Another step back, and realization hit. He shook his head, pleading with his eyes to stop.
But it was too late.
Another step back.
“I trusted you,” I whispered before darting past him to the bedroom.
He followed right behind me, slamming the door. I wanted to run to the bathroom, but I needed to get out. I needed to get off that ledge.
“Don’t do this, Nova,” he pleaded.
I shoved clothes haphazardly into the bag. “Don’t to what?”
“Don’t leave.”
“What? Would you rather I stay and play your little puppet? Would you rather I sit by with a smile to be used?”
“No. That’s not what I want.”
“Bullshit,” I accused. “I saw it. She said the words, and you ate them up.”
“Dammit, Nova,” he growled, shoving both hands into his hair. He tugged at his strands before throwing his arms wide. “I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to fix this for you. Aspen is good at this, so I just…”
“She didn’t fix it for me, Parker. She fixed it for you.”
“No, she fixed it for us. There’s not a good way for anyone to come out completely unscathed, and this covers all the bases.”
“That’s the thing, Parker. I don’t want to even play the game, but here I am, basically being used as the damn ball.”
“Well, Nova, the game is my job. I’m doing my job, and it’s exhausting and hard and not always what I want to do, but I have responsibilities.”
I closed my eyes, trying to see through the storm raging inside me—past and present swirling too close to separate. Is this what it would be like? Always coming second? Would it be just like my father? The question knocked the wind out of me, and I needed out of that damn room—I needed air.