Blame it on the Tequila by Fiona Cole (the reading strategies book txt) 📕

“Did she leave?”

“Swear to God, if she ran.”

Parker. I remembered his message from New Years and how he accused me of always running. And maybe I did, but I never ran from a good thing.

More doors slammed until the one to the bus opened and closed. Footsteps moved down the hall, and I held my breath, almost jumping out of my skin when the handle jiggled before a knock.

“Nova?” Parker called.

But I didn’t answer. It was obvious I was here, but I didn’t have anything to say.

“Nova, can you come out?” Pause. “I want to talk about what happened.” Another pause. “Please.”

“No.” The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it. I never wanted to talk about it. I never wanted to think about it, and talking about it required thinking about it.

“Nova, come on. Open the door,” he said with less patience than before.

“No.”

A rumbling growl let me know he’d reached the end of his rope. “We’re done avoiding this. It’s been a tense month, and hiding doesn’t help anyone. We have an album to write, and we’re not flowing like we usually do. You do not get to run. Not this time.”

I don’t get to run? Not this time?

The words burrowed into my chest, twisting and burning, scraping past old wounds, opening them back up. It tugged off the sheets hiding the emotions I left hidden in the corner—the hurt, the anger, the resentment.

I didn’t get to run?

How dare he.

Tossing the pillow aside, I shot from the couch and yanked the door open to an angry storm over an ocean, looking back at me. I fumed, meeting his glare.

I didn’t get to run?

I stepped close, but Parker didn’t back down. “You. Left. Me,” I growled.

“You all left me. You convinced me it would be okay—that it would all be fine. And I believed you.” My body vibrated with the words. Like the effort to hide them from even myself had been so great that now that it was set free, it couldn’t handle the strain anymore. “You promised. And then you left.”

I hated the way my voice cracked. I hated the small hallway with Parker crowding me. I couldn’t stand it, and I needed more air. I needed more space. It was too much, and I needed out. I stomped past and made it just past the kitchen when a strong hand gripped my arm. I whirled around and slipped into the self-defense training I’d had to take for years to feel stronger. I twisted my wrist, stepped in, and pulled my hand toward me, thrusting my elbow up and breaking his hold. But I didn’t back away.

Parker stared with wide eyes, holding his wrist.

“Nova…”

“And then you left again. Except this time, you didn’t come back.”

“We did come back,” he defended.

“Not when you promised,” I almost shouted.

“You told us to go. I offered to wait, and you still told me to go,” he shouted back.

“I didn’t mean go forever.”

His shoulders dropped, and he lowered his voice, almost pleading. “We tried, okay?”

“Yeah, well, trying wasn’t enough—not the second time around. And I wasn’t okay enough to wait for a third time,” I admitted, hating when the first tear finally broke free, quickly followed by another. “I was hanging on by a thread.”

He paced to the end of the bus before turning around and pushing both hands through his hair, tugging on the ends.

The confession rocked him, and I was too tired to care how vulnerable I was making myself by admitting it all. The last time I saw them before they left, I’d been a shell, unsure of everything, unsure of what I’d look like a week from then. So, I’d told them it was okay. I told them to go. I hadn’t been prepared for them to not come back.

Admitting it all rocked me too, and my muscles ached with the effort it took to stand. Stumbling back, I fell back on the couch.

“We were selfish, okay?” Parker finally barked, like the admission barely snapped free. “We were selfish dumb teenagers, all running from something. At least, they were running.” He winced and ran his hand over his jaw. “And I just…I felt so much pressure to fucking make it. This was our chance, and I took advantage of how much you supported me. They looked to me to make the final decision—I was the only one that had someone to go back to—and I fucked up. I had my mom messaging me, and the managers pushing for more shows, and the guys happy, and I just…I…I didn’t know what to do. I was selfish.”

I hated that I understood. I hated that it hurt me to see the hurt in him. I hated that I never took the time to think about what it cost him to make those decisions.

Because I’d been a selfish teen too.

But my selfishness never hurt anyone else.

I squeezed my eyes shut, chewing my lip, trying to figure out the back and forth knot twisting inside me. The bus sat silent, and I didn’t know what to say when he admitted he was wrong.

“And you never gave me a chance to fix it,” he said, some of his frustration slipping back in. “I’ve lived with it every day and never got a chance to make it right. I always wondered what the hell happened or if you were okay. Not that I’m trying to compare my guilt to what you went through, but you were my family, and maybe…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “And maybe that was too much for me to understand as a selfish asshole. I let you down so much, and I didn’t know how to fix it, and maybe I used it as an excuse to stay away, but once I did figure it out, you were gone.”

“Yeah,” I choked out, trying to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop. “I didn’t know how to handle it either. And no one