Truth

Guess what? I. Didn’t. Give. A. Fuck.

So what if she was sent here to help me? So what if she was my teacher? He could have her.

She was doing a lousy job at helping me.

Giving me a motherfucking spoon as a type of “exercise.”

I sighed, flopping back onto the bed, my muscles beyond sore from jumping around a stage for the last several hours. I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was just after one in the morning, which meant I wasn’t going to get sleep for at least a few more hours. It seemed I could only sleep when the bus was actually moving, and we weren’t going to start driving until at least three, when the guys climbed back onto the bus.

They weren’t the biggest partiers, but they still liked to have some fun from time to time. And they should. They should celebrate the great show. You should always celebrate your lead singer not puking on the crowd.

Throw a fucking party.

I looked at the spoon again, still hearing Brooklyn’s small laugh from just a couple yards away.

Finn’s words echoed through my head as I slowly sat up, my feet dangling from the bed. “Just give him time, sweetheart. He’s not the only one who needs this to work out. We need him back to the way he was before…”

I pushed the thought away and snagged my phone for my nightly ritual.

I pushed the voicemail button, and her voice filtered throughout. It always sounded so strained, so unlike her. It wasn’t high-pitched like it used to be; it was dull, sad, lost.

As soon as I heard her, I cringed. “It’s me again… why did you give up on me? Why, Reid?” Then some shuffling around. “I know I did the wrong thing. I know I’ve been dragging you around, hurting you… confusing you… but I needed you, and you weren’t there.”

It was like the hole in my chest grew deeper with guilt each time I listened to the voicemail, but I couldn’t stop myself. I did it after every show, trying my hardest to figure out what I was supposed to do. Only… there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t do a damn thing. That was what sucked about the past—you couldn’t change it, no matter how hard you wanted to.

The voicemail ended, and my heart felt stiff and cold in my chest. Then the next one started up. This was the voicemail that always perplexed me the most. It was left only a few hours after the first, but it was like an entirely different person was speaking, not Angelina. Not the woman I thought I knew. But it was her, and each time I heard it, the knife in my chest was lodged in a little farther.

“I hate you, Reid! I hate you so much. I wish I never met you. I’m glad I went off with Lori, and I’m thankful I did what I did to our baby, because I know it’s better off.” Then click.

Those two words: our baby.

They were like a sting to my bare skin every single time I listened to the voicemail. Our baby. The baby that I had no idea existed—if it even did exist. I wished I could just sit her down and shake her until she fessed up, until she sobered herself and told the truth. I had a mile-long list of questions for her, starting with who this Lori person was that she constantly blamed things on, but that list burned to ash. I would never get to ask her any of those questions, because I simply had no fucking idea where she was.

Her parents loathed me now. They blamed me for her sudden disappearance and what had happened after. They blamed me, even though I was the one that got her to the hospital as she bled out in a hotel bathroom, holding the fucking bloody culprit in her hand. I hadn’t spoken to Angelina since that night—the night that literally haunted my dreams. The only thing I had was two missed calls from an unknown number with her mumbling through the other end, leaving me a cryptic voicemail that I liked to torture myself with.

I didn’t have the privilege of knowing Angelina’s medical history, as I’m neither her spouse nor relative. Even though the words that came out of her mouth indicated that we had some mystery child together, I didn’t get to know anything. Her parents refused to talk to me, now relying on lawyers to do all of our bidding.

They wanted me to fall off the face of the earth.

My lawyer wanted me to just let it go, to let her go.

But I couldn’t let it go, because there was one small, tiny part of me that wondered if I did have a child out there somewhere. I thought back to that night, many months ago, when I’d found Angelina with blood pooling out of her stomach. My own stomach revulsed at the thought, but I dug through my memory, wondering if I’d missed something. Did she have the baby? I knew that what she’d said wasn’t true, because it didn’t make sense. You can’t just cut a baby out of your stomach. But who was this Lori she was supposedly hanging out with?

Nothing made sense.

And all I wanted was the truth. The dirty, raw, heartwrenching truth.

I replayed the voicemail once more, the pit in my stomach deepening beyond belief. “It’s m

e again… why did you give up on me? Why, Reid?”

Deep down, I wondered if I did give up on her. I ignored her endless phone calls and text messages because they all said the same thing: Take me back. I’m sorry. I was with Lori, but I won’t hang out with her any longer. I finally just stopped answering. I focused on my own shit. I focused on my career and didn’t want to be bogged down by someone who was so back and forth. But now, the guilt ate away at me like some flesh-eating disease. What if she was trying to call me to let me know that she was pregnant? None of her messages said so, but could she have been afraid? Maybe she wanted to tell me in person. Ninety percent of me knew she wasn’t pregnant—we’d always used protection, and I hadn’t seen her in months before I had formally broken up with her—but there was that ten percent that teetered over the what ifs.

Carissa, the only person who knew the whole truth, other than my lawyer, Finn, and Jackson, had said the same mantra since the moment I broke down and epically upchucked all over my fans—which was the same night I got those disturbing voicemails. It’s hard to fight for someone who doesn’t really want fighting for, Reid. You did fight. Just because she wants you to fight now, doesn’t mean that you didn’t fight then. But I didn’t truly feel like I fought for her. Maybe in the beginning of our relationship, but once she started playing games, I called it quits and didn’t give it a second chance.

Everyone told me to let it go, to let her family deal with the mess that she was in and take the opportunity to dip out like they so desperately wanted.

But I couldn’t.