Made you question.
A glimmer of light in the darkness.
She was a star that had shone in the midst of a total eclipse.
Soulshine.
Misery tightened my chest, pressing deeper and deeper into my spirit and clotting my mind. I squeezed my eyes closed against the assault of it. Trying to choke it back. To remind myself why I could never have her. The way I’d used her.
A little girl ran along the fence of the play yard, her head tipped back with laughter and her short black hair cropped around her cherub face.
Pink cheeks and the darkest eyes.
My soul shook.
I stared out the windshield at the child I no longer knew but recognized with every part of me.
Terrified.
Terrified of who I’d become.
Terrified of what I’d lost.
Terrified of my past.
Thing was, I refused to live it for the rest of my life.
It was time to make a change because I couldn’t keep going on like this.
I picked up my phone and tapped out the message to my attorney. The one I’d been talking to for the last two weeks.
Getting up the nerve.
Me: I’m ready.It took all of five seconds for it to buzz back.
Kimpleton: You’re sure? This one can’t be about revenge.I stared at the tiny child running in the field, chasing a soccer ball.
My daughter.
My daughter.
Me: With her, it never was.I tossed my phone back into the console, put my car in drive, and pulled from the curb into traffic.
I was struck with a brand-new feeling. Something so foreign that I wondered if it was real.
Hope.
Dim but gaining in force.
Because someone taught me recently that life isn’t about the past. Yeah. It was what shaped you. Formed and fashioned. But it was how you handled it that mattered most.
For the first time in my life, I was going to handle it right.
And I had one more stop to make.* * *Half an hour later, I pulled up outside the warehouse in an industrial part of the city. A bit seedy and so L.A. that you knew you couldn’t be lost. Graffiti covered almost all of the metal siding, most of it done by local artists that had been invited in to do their thing, other pieces appearing overnight, mind-blowing portraits and scenes that shouldn’t be possible coming from a can.
But when an artist had the need to create, that creation was unstoppable.
Medium didn’t matter.
It was the heart, the passion that did.
Guessed maybe that was what I was riding on when I stepped out of my S7, knees knocking like a fourteen-year-old kid getting ready to get his dick wet for the first time.
Maybe that’s what it felt like.
Starting over.
A new experience.
A second chance.
Something that might count in the middle of the destruction raging a path through my insides.
Maggie kept telling me to do something about that vacancy.
To go after what I wanted. To listen to the voice inside of me that was calling out to be filled.
To just pick up the fucking phone and call.
The expression on Emily’s face when she’d looked up at me that night promised that I knew better. There was no going back. Too much damage done.
Just prayed she’d find her peace in the middle of it. Understand the reason.
That some part of her would know that I would love her forever.
I took the five concrete steps up to the glass double doors that led into the building and swung open one side to the blaring heavy metal music that screamed from the overhead speakers. It pumped into the waiting room that was nothing but a bunch of dingy couches and overflowing ash trays and the stench of stale beer.
Energy flashed.
A shockwave.
Fingers twitching and spirit rising to take note.
This sense like I was coming home.
The girl behind the reception desk with teal-blue hair and a septum ring and two diamonds in her cheeks pulled her attention up from her phone, her expression morphing from idle disinterest to shock in a second flat.
She shot forward.
I shoved my hands into my jeans’ pockets. “Don’t have an appointment.”
A snort blew from her nose. “You think you need one?”
I cocked my head. “Do you?”
“Pretty sure you can go on back.”
It was almost a grin that pulled at the corner of my mouth. I roughed a hand through my hair, walking toward the next set of double doors, shooting her a parting glance and wondering why the fuck I felt nervous. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I pulled open a door to the half-hearted practice going down inside.
Members of A Riot of Roses were spread out, tipping back warm beers and fumbling through a set that I doubted made a whole lot of sense any longer.
Van saw me first, head pulling up from the electric guitar he held on his lap where he sat on a couch. He froze, blue eyes going wide in surprise.
Slowly, he stood and set his guitar aside.