2. Varian

"I've never told the story," I admitted when Arik didn't look away.

I don't know what I was thinking, coming to this release party. These things always made me feel like the awkward kid in the corner. Like I'd missed the fucking course on how to be a normal person while growing up on a tour bus. But the draw to meet this guy everyone in the scene was calling a savant got me out of my hotel room. The fates had smiled, putting me in Chicago the same night. When would I have the chance again?

And now here we were, spilling our guts like we were old friends. I'd never been this honest with anyone.Not even my brother.

"Seriously?" Disbelief framed his face and expanded his chest. He was the type of guy who couldn't hide anything. No poker face. It was all written right there, plain as day if you looked the right way.

"My dad had a story he told, and I just let him. He wasn't a reliable narrator, but it was easier than talking about it myself.I didn't want to talk about it." Not to any of the doctors, surgeons, or even the therapists my grandparents made me see.

"It didn't bother you that it wasn't the truth?"

"I think the truth would have got his parental rights terminated." I laughed without humor. Parts of it still bothered me, but I couldn't exactly live my life and lock myself in a bathroom, so I had to choose to put it in a box on a shelf, tucked away in the back corner of my mind. "So no, I was desperate for a relationship with my dad after my mother died and let it go, like everything else."

He nodded, finally looking away. "I can understand that. Maybe it's something most people can't understand, and I know it's different, but a part of me will never live up to what my parents expect." It was like Arik knew me on a deep level already.

"So…" I breathed. I thought it would be easier without him looking at me, but I wanted those green eyes back.

His attention flickered back to my face when I didn't speak. "You really don't have to."

"Don't look away," I said, trying to let myself speak about that night but not relive it. The line between memory and PTSD was a fucking razor-slit.

"I won't." He didn't hesitate. Didn't look at me with pity or shame. His gaze held steady.

"My dad is an addict. Has been my whole life, and it doesn't matter how successful he is, he's never had a lot of money, and the money that comes in goes out just as fast. Especially when I was younger before he got as big as he is now. But that Christmas, he got some cash for an MTV Unplugged, and he decided he was going to use it to rent a place in Aspen for the holidays. When word got around that he planned to leave my brother and I at my grandparents for the holidays, I was devastated. I was at that age when your parents were still heroes, and it was a crushing blow. I begged him to take us with him."

Arik didn't press or hurry me along. He listened, passing the bottle back and forth to let me tell the story at my pace. "So he agreed to take you?"

I scooted forward to let my legs hang off the side of the wharf. "He did. So really it's my fault."

He followed suit and put his hand on top of mine. "It's not your fault."

I turned to look into his eyes. He didn't break the intense stare or look at my scar. He kept his eyes locked on mine. The moon illuminated his hair, messy like he'd just had a good fuck. It wasn't jet black like I'd first thought, but a washed-out blue with hints of silver. Much more emo to my grunge. He was as pretty as they said in a way little blurry thumbnails on social media could never do justice.

"I go back and forth, but maybe I wouldn't be who I am without it." It was like a part of the band at this point. I'd had some big, prolific photographers shoot me to highlight it as well, one for the cover of Vogue. I'd been told a myriad of different things about it throughout my life. It brought out the best and worst in people. "But let me get this out. The first time is the hardest, right?"

"You really don't have to," he said again.

"I want to. It feels like time." I didn't know what I believed in, but I knew the universe nudged us where we needed to be. It felt right. "We made it to Aspen fine, and it was like any other time I'd stayed with my parents."

"Did you not live with them?"

I shook my head, realizing he really didn't know anything about me. I'd taken for granted how well-known my origin story was. "No, we toured with them a lot, but when they weren't on tour, we bounced between my grandparents and my uncle. Mom was in and out before she died, but it was always intermittent. She was working or off god knows where."

"I can't imagine…" he trailed off, lost in something.

I wanted to know more. The pain he brought to his music hit me in the chest. Before I ever saw his face, I knew Arik was someone I needed to know.Besides all the symbolism in the band name and artwork.

"I don't know anything else. My grandparents are like my parents. They've given me everything I have."

"I'm glad you had them." He picked up the bottle and pressed it to his full lips, but he didn't drink right away. "What?" he said, getting a drunk smile.

"You're not drinking."

"You were looking at me." Arik took a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Something passed between us. There are people we meet in life who click, and he clicked. It was easy with him.

I smiled and looked back over the water. "Fast forward, Aspen is going well. It's a constant party with all manner of people moving in and out, but that was so normal for my childhood, I didn't think anything of it. There was the usual drugs and sex, but again, any time I spent with my parents was like this. It was tour life. It was rock star life." I paused to slow down my heart rate. Every word I spoke brought me closer. Brought me back to that hazy room. The music thudded in my ears. After eighteen years, I still knew every word. Bile rose in my throat, and my body immediately tried to run, tried to escape. Like I was back there in the middle of it. "The night before our last day, there was a rager, and I'd passed out on a sofa at some point. I woke up, and the first thing that struck me was that the house was moving. Or it felt like it was. I panicked. I didn't know what was going on." My words came faster as I spoke, but I couldn't slow them down. Just like I couldn't slow the memory down. Now that it was on its way out, it was coming out whether I liked it or not. "I thought we were in an earthquake or a landslide. An avalanche even. I must have been yelling because I was met with laughter. I finally realized I was in a vehicle. But I wasn't on the seat. I was on the floor. We were joyriding. My dad wasn't driving. He was in the passenger seat, my mom on his lap. I didn't recognize the guy who was driving. I later found it was Ace Carrick." I only learned who he was when I saw the police report years later.

"Shit. I'd never tied the two together…" He trailed off.

"On purpose. They buried it. They must have paid people off. I've never gotten a straight answer. But he died that night in the accident." Maybe because he was dead, it was never pressed. Or maybe they felt bad for me being a child and didn't want me to be the face of the death of a beloved rock star along with my scar to the public for the rest of my life.

"I can't imagine anyone getting away with that nowadays."

"It would never happen. Not with how the paparazzi and social media are." While my body acted like it was an hour ago, my brain treated it like another lifetime, disconnecting me from the situation. I watched it from above as I went on. "When I started to calm down, I got myself into a seat and put my seatbelt on. I kept asking them where we were going, but they wouldn't give me a straight answer. Finally, I got it out of them. They were going on a supply run. They'd run out of liquor. From where they'd rented this cabin, we had to go partway down the mountain to get into town. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I didn't get why they'd even brought me. My dad gave me some half-assed answer about thinking I'd enjoy the ride down the mountain because it was like a roller coaster. I understood why it felt like I was falling."

I closed my eyes. "Ace whipped around the turns and switchbacks. My stomach turned. It was pitch-black, but I remembered from our drive up how treacherous the drop down the side of the mountain was. I freaked out and told them to slow down. I begged. They laughed more. And the rest went too fast. I've been told we must have hit black ice, but we spun out. The car collided with something and stopped us for a second, but it was a false safety. They started laughing again, and then suddenly, we fell." My voice went hollow. The emptiness in my chest took over when I let myself relive the memory. I saw my breath in the car, and the stench of iron in the air filled my nostrils. I swallowed thickly, fighting the bile rising in my throat, trying to find my voice. "When I came to, the horn was blaring, but the car was silent. I hung upside down by my seatbelt. No one was laughing anymore. I felt warm and wet. I quickly figured out blood was running down my face and into my eyes."

"Fuck."

"The next time I woke up, I was lying on a table getting stitches in my face."

Arik was quiet. I didn't blame him.

What could he even say?

What could anyone say?

"So the accident left you scarred and killed a world-famous rock star and your mother while your dad walked away presumably unscathed, and no one knows," he said at length.

"Very few people."

"No wonder you don't talk about it."

"It's not that." I rubbed at my sternum, trying to ease some of the tension there.

"Why don't you talk about it?"

"It feels like a secret my family has kept for so long it's not mine to share. It's my father's. It's Ace's kid's and his wife's. Who knows if Ace's kid would even want people to know the reality of it." My words opened me up, leaving me raw and exposed to this stranger. I don't even know why.

He put his hand on my back. "That's really heavy."

"Some days it is. Other days, I block it out."

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" I frowned.

"For bringing them up. I'm sure everyone does, and I don't want to be that guy or seem nosy."

"You don't seem nosy." Much the opposite. "No one asks. It's too taboo."

"It's not the most fun conversation to have. They probably feel like they are putting you out or are too awkward to even ask," Arik mused, running his fingers through his windblown hair.

"So what's your excuse?" I asked teasingly, wanting desperately to lighten the mood.

"I have no excuse. You're disarming." He paused, then added, "I guess with you, my filter is broken."

"Just with me?" My chest warmed unexpectedly.I liked Arik's company way more than I should.

"Just you. I'm pretty closed-lipped with everyone else. It's hard to know who you can trust. Especially after the burn down of Nicole and me."

"I feel you there. I've spent my entire life like that. There is no privacy in this business."

"I can't imagine." He searched my face.

I picked up the bottle, not wanting to wonder what he was thinking. "Were you dating her long?"

"Four years. We met in the scene our last year of high school, applied to the University of Chicago together."

"Last drink. Want it?" I offered, hoping he wouldn't take it. He shook his head, and I poured the rest down my throat, happy for the static in my brain the alcohol provided. "I thought she was a scene girl. She on the law school side of things too?"

"Yep." He laid back, leaving his knees to dangle over the wharf while his hands tucked under the back of his head.

On a whim, I laid out but rolled to my side to face him, drawing us closer. "You said you were doing Warped, right?"

"I did. It feels like three conversations ago. How did you remember?"

"I remember everything. Part of the curse. We're headlining."

Arik jerked his head to the side, staring at me. "You aren't on the list."

"We just agreed. It hasn't been announced yet. Death Nostalgia had to back out. So I guess we'll be seeing a lot more of each other."

"Shit. Here I thought this was some kind of confessional, and we'd never see each other again but would carry each other's secrets to the grave." He wore a smile, showing off dimples, and it was contagious.

"You don't want to see me again?" I asked, trying not to let the disappointment into my expression.

"I do. Just not how I envisioned it. I'm much happier with this turn."

My body calmed, not staying in the fight-or-flight I was so used to living in. "Since the fates are bringing us together again, I guess that means we'll have to settle for friends instead of lifelong stranger confidants."

"Deal." He sat up and held out his hand like we were sealing some pact.

"No blood?" I asked.

"We'll save that for our next date."

I took his hand, not knowing how it would change my life.