Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
You wanted my love
I gave it to you
You wanted my heart
I handed it over
You took and took
Sucked me fucking dry
And now I’m sitting here high
I can’t forget
After every hit I take
Every memory that surfaces
I wanna forget
Your gray eyes
Your sweet smile
You fucked me over
And now I wanna forget
I watch and listen as Braxton sings a song from their first album. It’s not on the set for this tour, yet he’s singing it. Camden is the lead singer. Gage is the drummer. Declan is the bass player. And Braxton is the guitarist.
But every once in a while, Braxton and Declan will sing. Braxton’s voice is different than Camden’s. It’s raw and husky, and when he graces the world with it, women go crazy. Like they’re doing right now as he sings “I Wanna Forget,” a song about me and how much he hates me for what I did to him. I can still remember how people speculated when this song came out. They love to analyze the lyrics and put a face to the words. It makes it more personal when they can point a finger. But Raging Chaos is great about keeping their private life private, so only a few select people know this song is about me.
“You okay?” asks Bailey, Camden’s sister and the head of Blackwood’s media. She flew into Portland to watch the show and handle a couple of things for the band with Cade, who’s on tour with us to film the guys and is working with Layla to create a web series. The fans love it because they get to see below the surface—put a face to the name. Feel and see and hear all the emotions.
“It’s nothing I don’t deserve,” I say, my eyes trained on Braxton as he belts the lyrics with such emotion goose bumps prickle my flesh.
“Nobody deserves to have their dirty laundry aired out for all the world to see.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But that’s the risk you take when you date a rock star, right?”
Just as I finish my sentence, the song ends. I expect Camden to take back the microphone, so I’m shocked when Braxton starts to talk. “How about one more?”
The crowd screams, and Braxton laughs, but I can see it on his face that he’s not happy. “This one I wrote recently. It hasn’t even been recorded yet.”
Bailey glances at me in confusion. At the same time, Jill speaks into her headpiece in a rushed whisper, telling me this wasn’t planned. I glance around at the other guys, all showing various looks of annoyance.
“It’s called ‘Unforgivable,’” Braxton says. Gage shakes his head but starts on the drums, and Camden, who took over Braxton’s guitar, starts strumming it. I hold my breath, waiting for the lyrics to come, knowing they’re going to hurt.
And I’m right because as Braxton opens his mouth and the words flow off his tongue, wrapping tightly around my heart, it feels as though I can’t breathe. Declan was wrong. So wrong. Braxton doesn’t just hate what I did. He hates me, and this song proves it.
Young love
Dumb love
Cheating love
Unforgivable love
It was love but the wrong kind
The fucked-up kind
The kind that sets your soul on fire
Leaves you burning with desire
And in the end, all you’re left with is heartache and regret
Young love
Dumb love
Cheating love
Unforgivable love
Unable to listen to any more of his words, swallow any more of his truths, or feel any more of his heartbreak, I run, and I don’t stop until I get to my hotel room. Then I climb into my bed, throw my blankets over me, and cry. I did this. I created this. I deserve this. But I also really fucking hate this. And my heart... it’s not sure if it can take much more of this.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BRAXTON
“How long are you in town for?” Alyssa asks, her voice dripping with sexuality as she runs her long-nailed finger across my thigh. When Gage and I ran into her and a couple of her friends backstage and they suggested we find somewhere more private to chill, we agreed and came back to our hotel room. We’re all lounging in the living room, smoking and drinking and listening to some music. Declan and Camden took off, pissed at the shit I pulled earlier. They’ve known about the song I wrote, that’s why we have the instrumentals for it, but it didn’t make the cut when we put out our first album.
I don’t know why I felt the need to sing it tonight. Actually, that’s not true. I know why. Because every day I’m on tour with Kaylee, I’m softening a little more, my hate lessening. It’s so easy to get lost in her beautiful gray eyes and pouty lips. In her melodic laugh. When Declan reamed into me about making Kaylee get the condoms and lube and then told me she ran out in tears when she saw me in bed with two other women, I had to remind myself what she did. She did this. She set the dominos in motion. And if I want to sing a thousand songs about what she did, I will. Because she deserves it. She deserves to hurt like I hurt and feel the pain the same way I felt it. She deserves to be reminded of what she ruined. I gave her all of me, and she destroyed me from the inside out.