Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“I don’t love that part,” I admitted. “But did you see the happy fans? Did you see the ones crying because I took a picture with them, the ones who couldn’t speak as I signed their albums? Did you see the little girls all dressed up to see me?” I shook my head, heart filling with wonder over those statements just like it had the first time they happened. “That’s what I focus on. That’s what I see more than the bad.”
I took a sip of my cider on another shrug.
“Honestly, what bothers me more than anything is the comparison trap in my own mind. The fans are wonderful. It’s me who beats myself up.”
Aleks frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s hard not to let things like that article from Garrett Orange get to me.”
“Fuck that guy.”
I smirked. “Yeah, but also… people listen to him. They respect his opinion. And that makes me wonder sometimes if all the shit he says about me is true, and I’m just surrounded by people who love me and are paid to build me up, so I don’t see it.”
“Your team would build you up even if you didn’t pay them. You don’t pay me or your parents, and we love your music.”
“They’re my parents,” I said, deadpan. “And you don’t listen to my music.”
“Yes, I do.”
I laughed, but when I looked at Aleks, his jaw was set, eyes serious as they held mine.
The laugh died in my throat.
“Mia, I’ve listened to every album you’ve ever released, front to back, at least a hundred times.”
I opened my mouth, but my throat was too dry to respond.
He listened to my music?
“I don’t know why that surprises you,” he said, reading my expression with a grin. “Like I wasn’t your test dummy for every song you wrote in high school.”
“Yeah, but that was different. You lived with me. I forced you to be my test dummy.”
Aleks threw back the last of his cider. “Well, now you know you didn’t have to do much forcing.”
Something about that made my stomach flip, and I smiled to myself, taking another sip of my cider. It felt so nice to be with him again, to just sit together and talk. It’d been so long since we’d done this.
And the last time I’d tried…
I lifted my eyes from my glass to Aleks, thinking about the Fourth of July two years ago when we were at my parents’ house. I’d been with Austin then, and Aleks had been…
Not himself.
Or maybe too much of himself.
He had been destructive, sad, lonely. I’d watched him drink himself into a stupor, and when I’d gone to talk to him, he’d been shut off, cold.
It’d scared me a little, the way he acted that night.
It was the first time I believed what he’d always told me, that some of his mom and dad lived in him. It was the first time I thought addiction really could take him, if he let it.
“How are you?”
The words spilled off my tongue before I thought better of them, so I doubled down.
“How are you really?”
Aleks’s eyes flicked between mine a moment before the corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m good, Strings.”
“Really?”
“I’m not debating taking a bottle of pills like I was the last time we were alone, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
I cringed a bit, dropping my gaze.
“It’s okay,” he said on a laugh. “I… I’m sorry you had to see me that way. I was…”
Aleks quieted, not finishing the thought. And I knew without pushing that he didn’t want to talk about it more. It wasn’t often Aleks fell into his really bad nights, but when he did, I knew it hit him hard. I knew he hated it. I knew it made him feel like he was one breath away from the life his parents lived, and he hated it.
“Do you ever think about going back to Switzerland?” I asked, changing the subject.
Aleks took my now empty glass, carrying it with his over to the sink in the kitchen. “Sometimes. I thought it might be fun to play on the national team there someday.”
“That would be amazing,” I told him, smile genuine. “And maybe you could meet up with some of your foster siblings.”
Aleks snorted at that.
“What? I bet they’d love to see you.”
“And I bet they wouldn’t even remember I existed,” he shot back. He didn’t say it with an edge, though. He said it as a joke, his smirk climbing. “It’s okay, Strings. Not everyone needs friends.”
I hated that so much, I couldn’t help but show it on my face. Because I knew what he meant by that statement wasn’t that he didn’t need friends, it was that he didn’t believe he deserved them.
He had always been afraid of who he was deep inside, of his genetics, of what he perceived as his destiny. And part of me had always felt like I had no right to speak on it. I couldn’t imagine going through what he had, and I didn’t want to pretend like I could ever fully understand.