54. Varian

"Almost seven years ago, Lindsay showed up at the studio, visibly pregnant. She said she was like five months along, which lined up with the last week or two of our tour. She said it was mine."

"So the kid isn't yours?" Arik asked.

"She is…" I went into the story of that night.

Or at least the parts I remembered.

"I'm pregnant," Lindsay said, smoothing her hands over her stomach.

"I mean, I wasn't going to say it. You never comment on that," I said with the hint of a laugh.

She glared at me. "It's yours."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Hurt creased her face. "I'm not joking."

"When did we have sex?" I stared at her swollen belly in disbelief.

"You don't remember?" She crumpled, obviously hurt. But I couldn't help but think it was a cruel joke.

"No? Tell me you're fucking joking, Lindsay." I tried to laugh. "Who's the father?"

"I'm not joking." She got really quiet.

"When the fuck did we have sex?" This had to be a nightmare. I didn't fuck anyone. I hadn't. Not since the last time I'd seen Arik.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "You really don't remember, do you?"

"No, I fucking don't."

She half-collapsed, landing on her knees, sitting in a mess, face in her hands, sobbing. "I'm so sorry."

I went cold all over as it sunk in. Arik would hate me more than he already did. I'd spent the last fucking decade alone in atonement for what I'd done, and he wouldn't believe a word of it. He'd think I'd left him for Lindsay.

"She assaulted you?" Arik searched my face.

"Lindsay isn't like that." As much as I never loved her, I didn't want him to hate her.

Rage burned in his eyes. "She took advantage of you, and you are fucking telling me she's not like that? Do you hear yourself?"

"I drank a lot on that tour. I blacked out all the time." I didn't know how to explain it to him.

"How many other people did you blackout fuck?"

I hesitated. "No one, but I was always on the bus."

"What does that fucking tell you?" He vibrated with anger.

"You can't hate her for this."

"The fuck I can't."

"Arik."

"I'd kill her, but she's the mother of your child. That is the only reason I'm not getting on a plane right fucking now." His words were visceral. "If I wasn't stuck in a fucking elevator…"

I exhaled sharply. "It was my fault. I drank myself to sleep every night. I drank until they admitted me the second time." That and having a child with a woman I didn't remember sleeping with, but I wasn't going to tell him that and piss him off more.

"Don't you fucking say it's your fault. It's not. She took advantage of you." A single tear rolled down his cheek.

"She didn't. I really believe that." I wanted to go to him and hug him or something.

"Because she fucking gaslit you." His hands were fists.

"How do you know how I was acting blackout drunk?" I'd already gone over this so many times in my head, I couldn't be mad at her.

"I fucking know how you are drunk and high. You would never. And, like I pointed out, you didn't fuck anyone else. Only the person you fucking trusted to be on your bus with you." He shoved to his feet and paced the tiny space but stayed on his side."How can you not see how wrong that is?"

"It couldn't have been like that. I must have… I don't know." I pressed my eyes closed, not letting myself go back to that day. My mental health hung by a thread and I couldn't relive those years. "But I've forgiven her. I know her intentions."

"Intentions don't fucking matter when you've caused harm. She fucking had sex with you knowing you were too drunk to consent. Varian, that's rape." His chest heaved.

"I know. But you can't hate her. I don't know what happened that night, so I can't say what it was, but I got something really beautiful out of it. Lindsay is a good mother. I don't want that to be Nova's legacy." And I'd already wasted the last six years of her life playing family. I couldn't let her destroy any more of my spirit or let it hurt my daughter.

He stopped in his tracks. "You named your daughter Nova?"

"Yes."

"Why?" he asked.

I lifted my shoulders, knowing he knew.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I can't believe you're defending her."

"For Nova, I don't want to be in a war with her. So you can't hate her."

"I can hate her all I want. What you do is your choice." He tipped his head back. "Is that why…at your wedding?"

"There were a lot of reasons."

"I didn't know." Arik's voice rang hollow.

"I know. I couldn't tell you." I couldn't even admit it to myself.

"Is that why you're not willing to call it what it is?" he asked quietly.

"If I can't remember, how can I call it anything?" I didn't want it to be a thing. I couldn't let it be more than it was. It already took the little I'd had left of him.

Silence fell between us, and I truly wasn't sure if I'd made things worse.

"I never thought you left me for her," he said at length.

"How?"

He lifted his shoulders. "I saw how you were with her when we were together. She'd be pining after you, and you wouldn't even notice she was in the same room. She'd ask you something, and you'd barely respond. I knew you only had eyes for me."

"How did you react when you found out?" Maybe I was a masochist for asking.

"I was upset. Hurt. But thought maybe if you moved on, I could too," he whispered, sounding empty.

"Guess that's why you've dated so many people recently."I didn't mean for the jealousy and spite to infiltrate my words, but it did.

"Those were all PR." Arik's words were like a punch to the gut.

"Is that why you came to my wedding?"I had to know.

"I don't know why I came, but when I saw the invitation, I wanted you to put the final nail in the coffin. I needed to be in the same space with you and witness you moving on. But, well, you know how that went."

"I would have left with you."

"You had to be there for your kid."

"We could have done what we are doing now, and she would never remember a time when her parents were together. I almost think it's worse for her to remember the idea of a happy family."

"You obviously love her." He lifted his shoulders. "And that's not how our cards were dealt. You're where you need to be."

"No—" The elevator groaned and started moving, cutting me off.

The second the doors opened, Arik darted out. An EMT crew waited, along with Kiernan and John.

Both of them tried to speak, but Arik didn't stop.

"Are you at least okay?" Kiernan called when he was huffing and puffing and couldn't keep up with Arik.

"Nope. I'm going to go have a mental breakdown and then commit a murder, so be on call to help me bury a body."

Kiernan grabbed me when I tried to get past to follow Arik. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Shockingly, it's not me." No one knew except for my brother, and I didn't want anyone else to. I'd die if it ever got back to Nova.

Kiernan narrowed his eyes but released me. "Go fucking catch him. He can't go outside. He'll get mobbed."

"Old man." I jogged after Arik, finally hearing footsteps on a staircase. I leaned over the rail, looking up, then down, spotting him.

I didn't bother to yell at him to wait and took the stairs two at a time, telling myself to thank my trainer later.

I got in front of him. "Please stop."

"Move, Varian. I'm so mad, you don't want to be around me right now." His cheeks were wet and his eyes red.

"Don't go do something stupid."

"What the fuck kind of stupid thing am I going to do in a venue?" He had a point.

"I don't know. But I don't want you to be alone," I pleaded.

"Is that why you had the breakdown?"He shuddered an exhale.

"Partly."

"You getting married fucking broke me. I've not been able to date anyone since we broke up. I can't fucking love anyone else, and I was so mad you could."His chest heaved, filled with emotions.

Every word hit me like a knife, carving through all the anger I'd manufactured for him. "I'm sorry. I didn't know how to tell you. I wanted to when you showed up for the wedding, but I couldn't talk about it."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?" He didn't ask unkindly.

"Couldn't. I couldn't say it or even talk about it. Then I was embarrassed. It made me physically sick to even think about it." My hands shook and my forehead got clammy.

"Then why did you marry her?" His voice broke.

"Because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought it was the right thing for Nova, and I thought it would help. I made a lot of stupid decisions dealing with it. Or trying to."

"I wish I had known or could have been there for you." He squeezed his eyes shut.

"By the time I could even bring myself to tell anyone, you'd long stopped speaking to me." My voice was barely audible.

"Why didn't you call?" he asked, eyes snapping open to meet mine.

"I almost did on the worst nights. So many times."

"What stopped you?" His face stayed unreadable, but his eyes told me all I needed to know. I'd given him a scar he'd carried for the last seventeen years.

"I didn't want to hurt you anymore than I already had. I wasn't in a good place."

"I wasn't either," Arik admitted.

"I know. I read every post. Every fucking song lyric."

"You shouldn't have read those. I wrote my pain away. I never thought you'd look." He didn"t break our eye contact. It was the longest he'd looked at me since my wedding.

"I couldn't stop. They were about me. How could I not?"

"Because I wasn't trying to share the pain, just get it off my chest." He shook his head, tears welling at the corners of his eyes again.

"I've loved your lyrics as long as I've known you. I've loved all your music. I couldn't stop just because we did." My cheeks were wet, but I didn't know when I'd started crying. I wiped them with the backs of my hands.

"They weren't to hurt you. I still loved you. It was always just a way to get rid of the pain." He tore his gaze away.

Loved.

Past tense.

My chest ached like he'd stabbed me.

"Why didn"t you call if you still loved me? Before Nova. All those years. Every time I'd call you to meet me…" I never could figure out why he'd fly halfway around the world to fuck for a night and then leave in the morning. No calls. No texts. Sex and out.

"If you were willing to leave me once, you'd keep doing it. I wasn't going to talk someone into being with me, and that's how I convinced myself you didn't love me like I loved you. Because I couldn't have left you." Arik's voice was empty. It hurt as much as his words.

"It's a different kind of love. I did it because I loved you and didn't want to ruin your life. I put you over me." I knew he'd never understand, but I wished he would.

"Bull-fucking-shit." He lifted his hands like they'd fit around my neck but he balled them into fists instead. "This fucking tour… We can't spend months together."

He moved to get past me, but I stepped with him to block.

"We have to figure it out. We have to figure out how to deal with each other at least until it's finished." A part of me hoped that if we could get this out, it would make it at least tolerable to be around each other.

"I can't."

"Why not? I'm hurt too, and I can."I'd give anything for more time with him. Even as friends.

"Because I can't be in a room with you without needing to touch you. I realized at your wedding I had to completely take myself out of your life because you never would. Every time you called, I was there. Every time you offered. I can't say no to you." He pressed his eyes closed.

I ran through what he said, matching it to all the one-night stands we'd had with each other over the years. He'd never initiated but always came.

"So touch me." I cupped his cheek, stepping into him.

His lips parted, and I inhaled his breath. "Varian."

"Stardust." Air squeezed out of my lungs as I brought my mouth to his.

Arik kissed me in a gentle caress, and we had a whole conversation without words. Hopeful and devastating. I was delicate so as to not break the spell.

Tongues slid past lips.He grabbed the back of my neck, and the tender kiss turned demanding, claiming, intoxicating.

A low sound filled my throat, and my grip tightened on him. Every muscle in my body was tightly coiled, like a wire twisted too tight. Too many years of famine made me bleed desperation.

Arik threw me off, gasping for oxygen. "I can't do this. We can't fall back into this. You're married." He held up a hand when I tried to speak or grab him again. "Don't make me do this. It's too much."

I checked his journal when I got back to my bus.

Reminder to self:

You get used to all kinds of pain you didn't think you could live through.

Second reminder:

I've tried every generic to feel the same effect.

But there's nothing like molecules arranged like yours.