Last Chance: Rock Romance #2

Chapter Twelve

Liam

Layla let me take the keys to her car, something that's quickly becoming a habit. Driving us to the local Regal theaters, my hands are gripping at the steering wheel out of anger toward myself.

I can't believe I brought them up. My family. I have only one confident, Ryan, and I am his. I loathe talking about my folks or even bringing up anything that might have a connection to them.

I look over to Princess and the pain slowly dissipates. She is breathtakingly beautiful, and I desperately want to tell her I think so, but I don't want to ruin whatever it is that we have between us. I don't want it to make her uncomfortable, or for us to be awkward around each other

It isn't a sexual thing at all. I respect her far too much, to bring her into my life of self-hate and loathing. She doesn't know it but late at night when I can't sleep; I go out onto the balcony to reflect and as of late, Layla has made it a point to join me.

We talk, and without her revealing too much in so many words, I know that Natalie has been through the ringer with overbearing pain. I know that she has no family alive, and I am almost certain Layla's family factors into it in some way.

I want to ask her about it, but I don't want to face the rejection of her not sharing part of herself with me. Like the way that I reject her on a daily basis, when she tries to delve into my past in a not so secretive way.

It's something that I have been struggling with the past couple of weeks. We share a bed every night, yet we haven't shared ourselves with each other in a commutative way. I'm certainly not looking for a relationship with her, much less with anyone.

Ryan calls me constantly and always asks about her. I'm beginning to feel that he doesn't call me to even speak to me. If he could call her, I probably wouldn't be hearing from him nearly as much. But because of the not knowing how much Ryan played into Natalie's trying to end her life, I haven't seen it as a good idea to bring up the fact that he calls and text messages me daily to ask after her.

He has this idea that she is his. Something he has repeatedly made clear to me. Although I have no idea how he has come to such a notion. She hasn't ever, nor does she now show any keen interest in him. She doesn't bring him up in any of the numerous conversations we have had about the band.

Honestly, she makes it a point to ask about the band in whole. Never singling one person out. I almost think she despises the guy, and I wouldn't blame her for how he treated her on the tour bus. It was probably a week of hell for her.

Also, I still think that Ryan was part of the reason she consumed all of those pills. She was thrown into a world she had no knowledge about, and was supposed to comply with whatever plans we had.

I should have done more than I did. I shouldn't have gone out with the guys that night. I have a feeling something monumental went down and maybe if I had stayed; I could have protected her. Stopped her from leaving which would have eventually stopped her from harming herself.

I catch her most days in a daze of thought. If it weren't for the counselor she was seeing, she wouldn't have an excuse to leave the house. She would have laid in bed shutting the entire world out, including myself.

Fuck she tries to get me to leave every day, even though I know she doesn't truly mean it. She just wants to prove to herself that she doesn't need anyone. That she can survive on her own without ever letting anyone in.

Princess breaks me out of my racing thoughts.

"Hey! Have you been listening to anything I have been saying?" She asks.

"No, sorry, I was thinking about band shit. What did I miss?"

"I was saying that maybe tomorrow we could go shopping. You only go out when I go out, and you could use some clothes. Besides you only have four outfits you have been wearing every four days. I'm sick of seeing you in the same thing, and it's another reason to get out."

"I am fine with the clothes I have, but if you want to go out, we can go shopping for you. We need a fan in that hot box room of yours, since you won't agree to turning on the central air that the apartment complex supplies." I say, internally smiling. Happy that today she has made a choice on her own to go out, and that she is already making plans to do so again.

"Its really not that hot, you exaggerate." She smiles back.

"So says the person who has dealt with summers in New York her entire life. I'll have you know, I wasn't raised with annual summers like you guys have here. My summer was like a spring for you."

"Where were you raised? Alaska?" She asks.

Of course, she is spot on. I was raised in the Alaskan town of Cordova. It was close to the border of Canada and Washington. My dad worked on a commercial fisher, and my mom was a stay at home housewife. The general American family then. Now for the normal American family to survive, both parents have to work.

I reply to Natalie. What harm could it do in telling her where I was born and raised? It's not like I would be telling her where my family was now, or that I haven't seen them in years. Since everything went down.

"Yeah, smarty. I did live in Alaska. A tiny town called Cordova. Our hottest summer there was like sixty degrees. I can remember being excited as hell for a day that warm. So for me, weather here is like living in the Bahamas." I tell her, while Layla listens from the back seat.

"It's really not that bad. I have been to the Bahamas, and that's way worse. Now that heat is unbearable. If you aren't drinking ten glasses of water a day, you're bound to get dehydrated."

I decide I don't want the discussion to linger any longer on home, so that it doesn't make Natalie think the floor is now open to ask any more questions. Nicely slamming the door on the topic, I quickly divert the conversation onto another topic.

"So tell me, where do you call home?"

"For now, home is Boston." Natalie says.

I had a feeling that they are not from here. I look in the rearview mirror to gauge Layla's reaction. She's looking forward toward Natalie in question. As if to say 'Why are you just not telling him the truth?'

"So where was your home? Come on I shared with you. You don't even have to tell me the name of the town, just tell me what it was like." I practically beg.

"I've been trying for weeks now to get you to open up a little. Now that you've shared a tiny tidbit of your past, I have to share?" She asks.

"Well Yeah. It's only fair."

"I guess." She huffs. "I grew up in New York. Not far from the state capitol. It was pretty boring. I lived in a very big house that was surrounded with lots of land. Layla lived across the street. Our parents were friends." Natalie tells me.

"What else? What did you do for fun?" I ask.

"In those parts you had to be able to stand getting dirty, if you wanted to have fun. I loved it outside. I still do. Playing in the woods, making my own walking trails. I always wanted to own a four-wheeler, but I wasn't old enough. My dad didn't trust me, so I had to stick to using my bike and my feet."

"Tell me about your dad." I ask, hoping she will open up a bit more. I feel the only way to help her with herself is to get her to open up about it.

Keeping shit in. Bottling it up, it will eat at your soul until you can't handle it anymore, and you either do what she did, or you harm someone else. She could do what I did, and I am going to make damn sure she doesn't.

If I have to push her to the edge of that cliff, she's fucking going.