Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
“How do you know what the hell I enjoyed or valued?” I fairly yell at her.
“Because I could hear it in your music. I can’t hear your enjoyment anymore.”
That stings like a son of a bitch. “Are you criticizing my music? To my face?”
She lowers her voice to a murmur, as if she senses she’s gone too far. She has. And I’m pissed the hell off about it. Who does this twenty-year-old think she is? “No, I’m questioning the spirit of it,” she whispers. “The music is good, but your soul…”
I’m breathing hard.
She’s hitting way too close to home.
“My soul what?” I ask, not really wanting to know. But simultaneously wanting to punish myself by being called out. Or confirming what I already know. What I’ve been feeling for years of going through the motions.
That I’m nothing but a hollow shell.
She shakes her head, lips pressed together.
“No, you finish the conversation you started, little girl. My soul what?”
“You don’t have one anymore,” she blurts in a whisper.
I think I’m prepared to hear her answer, but I’m not. For some reason, hearing it from this girl is a dagger to the gut. Maybe because she’s smart and I sense she knows what she’s talking about. “I didn’t sell it to the devil, if that’s what you’re thinking. He came and took it from me. In the form of the public. The so-called fans.”
“What do you mean?”
All right, I’m going to shut up now. There is no point in talking about this. I don’t talk to anyone about this shit, because it’s nobody’s business but mine. No one’s hangup but mine. There is something about the way this girl is looking up at me, though, like she needs to know. Like she’s asking for an explanation because it’s important to her. I guess that’s how I end up saying things to her that I’ve kept trapped in my head for years.
“You don’t know what it’s like. One minute, they celebrate you and swear to love you forever. But when you pour your blood and sweat and tears into the next album and the one after that, but they’ve already moved on to someone else. They don’t even know your ass anymore.” I take a long pull of Jack Daniels, knowing I need to stop now that I’ve gone well past drunk. “This industry is fake and fickle. Ninety-nine percent of this job is trying to prove you still deserve to be on stage, these people judging you with their total lack of experience. All the people who were with me in the beginning—my friends, managers, agents—they sucked the blood out of me and moved on to someone younger, shinier. What soul should I have left when they ripped away pieces until the whole thing was gone? Answer me that, June.”
There’s a sheen in her eyes by the time I’m finished. “I’m sorry.”
Oh man. That was the dead wrong thing to say. I don’t want her sympathy, because it makes me feel something. A stirring among the numbness I’ve been living with for a long time. It makes me feel like I’m a real person, instead of some famous guy on a poster.
“You’re sorry?”
She firms her chin and nods.
No. Absolutely not.
I fist her hair again, tugging her head back with a little more force than intended. But I don’t stop there, because I need to distract her from my moment of weakness. I lean in and speak directly against her mouth. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re sorry.”
“Too bad,” she breathes, her voice catching, those green eyes searching mine.
Seeing a lot. A lot more than I’m ready to acknowledge is there.
I don’t know what happens, then. I just lose it. I lose myself in her.
My mouth is violent with hers. A pit forms in my stomach right away, because her lips are so soft and innocent compared to mine, and my treatment is too rough. I’m licking into her mouth with too much audacity. Ownership. Aggression. I want her to slap me hard across the face and go back to looking at me like a soulless monster, but she goes boneless, instead, her mouth parting for me like she was born to offer me her tongue.
It’s a dangerous drug, the way this spitfire surrenders.
There are flames licking inside of her and she’s allowing me to experience the burn. It’s benevolence. It’s a privilege. She tastes so fucking good, my thoughts spin out like a car on black ice, crashing into the guardrails of my mind, and my hunger intensifies.
Fuck. Fuck. I am way too old to be kissing a college girl like this, driving my tongue in so deep that she’s starting to squirm in my lap, her whimpers going straight to my head. I’m going to hell. I’m going to the deepest pits of hell.