George is saying something, but I cut him off. “Gotta go.”
Clenching my teeth, I hop out of bed and charge for the door connecting our rooms.
“Listen here, ass—”
A low, tortured sound fills my ears. “Josh.”
When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see Phoenix’s silhouette thrashing around on his bed.
The headboard thumps again as I run over to him.
“Josh. Wake up!”
I quickly unlock the cuff around his wrist. “Hey.” Placing my hand on his shoulder, I give him a gentle shake. “It’s okay. You’re just having a bad dream.”
“Josh!”
Shit.
I shake him a little harder. “Phoenix—”
He bolts up with so much vigor he nearly knocks me to the floor.
Forehead creasing, he takes in his surroundings. He looks so disoriented and his breathing is so erratic I briefly debate calling for help.
I flick on the light next to his bed. “Are you okay?”
God, what a stupid question. Of course, he’s not. He’s having a nightmare about his friend and bandmate dying.
A nightmare based on reality.
Coming out of his haze, he lurches off the bed and wanders over to the minibar. He yanks the door open with so much force I’m surprised it doesn’t come off the hinges.
He surveys the various alcoholic mini bottles and reaches for the Bacardi.
I scoot to the end of the bed. “You’re gonna regret this in the morning.”
Chandler more or less said he doesn’t care if Phoenix drinks in private as long as it doesn’t become a public issue, but drinking won’t make the demons he’s trying to drown out disappear.
It will only create new ones.
With a snort, he twists the cap off. “Add it to the list.”
Leaning down, I grab his forearm. “Why don’t you switch to Coke instead?”
“Great idea. I’ll call my dealer.”
Talk about a misinterpretation.
I gesture to the Coca-Cola can in the fridge. “I meant the soda.”
His throat bobs on a swallow. “Soda won’t make me forget.”
“Neither will getting trashed.” Something tells me deep down he knows that, though, so I try a different tactic. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’d rather drink about it,” he grunts before he downs the Bacardi.
Can’t say I’m surprised. Getting Phoenix to open up makes pulling teeth seem effortless.
Even still…I try anyway.
“I know losing your friend was hard—”
“No, you don’t know. Trust me.” He jerks his chin in the direction of the door. “I’ve got it from here. You can leave.”
His dismissal makes my heart sink like a cinder block.
“I want to stay.”
He might not want to talk, but I don’t feel right leaving him alone.
After all, it’s my job to watch over him.
Cutting me a look I can only construe as ‘suit yourself’, he opens a mini bottle of Jack Daniels and guzzles it.
Then—as if getting drunk were some kind of Olympic sport he was training for—he plucks a bottle of Hennessey from the fridge.
“Phoenix.”
I might as well be talking to a wall, though, because he finishes it.
“You should slow down.”
He launches the empty bottle across the room. “You should leave.”
Trepidation coils my stomach when he gets off the floor and makes a beeline for the small bar in the corner.
My trepidation turns to full-blown aggravation when he swipes the bottle of vodka off it. Unlike the others, it’s a fifth bottle.
The composure I was trying to maintain snaps like a twig, and I spring up. “Jesus Christ, dickhead. Would you fucking stop!”
“No!”
I’m trying my hardest to sympathize, but he’s making it beyond difficult. “I know losing your friend hurts like hell but—”
“You don’t fucking know!” he screams so loud I flinch.
“Then why don’t you tell me?” A bolt of sadness spikes through my chest. “And if not me…then someone. Anyone.”
Because trying to block it all out with drugs and alcohol will only send him to an early grave.
Nostrils flaring, he brings the bottle to his lips and turns toward the gigantic window overlooking Houston.
He’s silent for so long that when he finally does speak, it nearly startles me.
“It was my fault.”
Most people have a tendency to blame themselves when preventable tragedies happen to someone we care about.
Doesn’t mean it’s true.
“No, it wasn’t,” I remind him. “You weren’t the one driving.”
In the window’s reflection, I see pure agony slash his face. “Yes, I was.”
His confession makes the room spin.
So many thoughts—followed by even more questions—zip through my head, but I clamp my mouth shut.
He’s finally talking and I don’t want to give him a reason to stop.
The veins in his forearm flex as his grip tightens around the bottle of vodka. “But I was so high I ended up pulling over.” A gut-wrenching noise escapes him. “Josh told me he was fine to drive back…but he wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t because we’d been partying together most of the night.” He expels a shaky breath. “Hell, the fucker had just snorted a line of heroin off the dashboard.”
Broad shoulders sag with what looks like the weight of the world. “I was too fucked up to care, though, so I handed him the keys and switched places with him.” His voice dips. “Didn’t even put up a fight.”
I rack my brain, attempting to think of something that might alleviate his guilt…but I come up empty.
“When I woke up, Josh was still alive. He even cracked a joke.” He grips the back of his neck with his free hand. “The car was fucked, but at least we survived, you know?” Sorrow laces his tone. “Then I watched him die.”
My chest tightens as I process what he’s saying.
I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to see his friend alive one second…only to watch him die the very next.
No wonder he still has nightmares.
No wonder he’s been stuck in such a downward spiral.
Phoenix takes a lengthy sip from the bottle. “I didn’t realize we hit another car until after Storm pulled me out of ours.”
I remember the reporter mentioning it was a two-vehicle accident on the news that night, but he didn’t give any details about who was in the other car…aside from citing they didn’t make it.
His hands clench into fists. “The woman we hit was only a year older than me.” The muscles in his back tense and coil. “She was pregnant…and her four-year-old son was in the back seat.”
A sharp pang spreads throughout me as he continues.
“She was on her way to clean a house but couldn’t find a babysitter, so she decided to take her son with her to work because she needed the extra money and couldn’t afford not to.” His shame is so palpable it nearly brings me to my knees. “Her mom said she was a huge fan and listened to us all the time.”
An excruciating sound fills the room. “They had their whole lives ahead of them.”