Lasting Damage Page 16

  Jane opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was one of her favorite kind of hotel, expensive, discrete and no one asked about her lack of baggage. The just ran her credit card and handed her the key without incident. There was also amazing room service and high end booze in tiny bottles waiting for her.

  Most important to her was that they had interesting ceilings since she had every intention of spending an obscene amount of time laying on her back staring up at the ceiling and trying to think her way past the clutter that was clogging up her brain.

  This ceiling was fabric tile. Not exactly white but not quite beige. Jane didn’t know if she had the right word to describe the color but she figured she’d been here enough times to be able to pick out this exact shade at the hardware store if she felt so inclined.

  Her favorite ceiling in the states was in a tumble down hotel in Savannah, Georgia. The building was over a hundred years old and the molded plaster ceilings had deep cracks hidden in the intricate Grecian designs.

  It made for the perfect distraction.

  Jane took a breath and held it until her lungs ached. When she was a kid she used to wonder what it could feel like to drown, if it would hurt or if it was like falling asleep. She wondered if it was one of those terrible experiences that sharpened all your senses so you could focus on something other than the stark reality of knowing you were about to die.

  When her father’s girlfriend overdosed on heroin and died, she stopped thinking about what it would feel like to drown. The two seemed interconnected, drowning and overdosing, and she was never able to separate one from the other after that.

  She let out the breath and the ache of lungs in desperate need of being filled again. She should be happy she was still alive. Happy she wasn’t in a hospital bed next to Alice, the both of them hooked to tubes and wires, while doctors discussed where they should be placed.

  Jane placed her hand over her eyes. There were more tears than she could count struggling to get out but she knew she wasn’t ready for it. Things with Harper had imploded, she should think of it was catching a lucky break since what lay ahead was not what she wanted. This time she wouldn’t have been the bored, lonely kid waiting in the empty hotel room for someone to come talk to her. She’d be the bored lonely girlfriend who would be faced with adoring fans, resentful band mates and the painful knowledge that she was the only one with something left to lose.

  Jane moved her hand away from her face, she tried to focus on the tile over her head but all she could think about was the eventuality of her current situation. Suddenly, paths weren’t as important as patterns, and more than anything she didn’t want to end up like that woman who dies with a needle in her arm.

  17.

  Harper stood in the middle of the apartment, her clothes all around her. She was separating them into piles and throwing them into the suitcases when she heard a familiar knock on the door followed immediately by a very masculine voice asking, “You in there?”

  “No,” she responded and waited for the door to open.

  Riley didn’t make her wait long. Maybe three seconds but since he had a pizza box in his hands she figured she’d let it slide.

  “There’s a rumor you’re packing up and heading out.” He asked.

  Harper tossed another shirt into her case and made up the only excuse that didn’t sound like an excuse. “You’ve got a lot of people. I figured you’d need the room.”

  “For Mom and her entourage?” Riley laughed derisively. “Those people don’t bunk with mere mortals. They’ve got the top floor of some downtown hotel booked for the rest of the week.”

  “What happens after that?” She grabbed a dirty pair of jeans, rolled them up and threw them into the biggest case.

  “Dad shows up and moves them to a different hotel.” Riley placed the pizza down on the coffee table and motioned for Harper to sit on the couch. “It’s kinda what this family does.”

  “I noticed.”

  “She’s not with them. If that’s what you want to ask.” Riley sat on the chair across from her and doled out the paper plates and napkins. “And I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking to you.”

  “But here you are,” Harper remarked. “With a pizza.”

  Riley smiled at her across the small expanse of space that separated them before flipping the top of the pizza box. Bacon and hot peppers. Harper’s favorite. “So, you gonna tell me why you lost your shit and dumped her?”

  “I suppose it all boils down to me being an idiot,” Harper ran her hands through her hair. “I went over to her apartment but Lily wouldn’t let me through the front door. Apparently Jane has run away and no one will tell me where she is and all I want to do is find her. “

  “So you can apologize?” Riley placed a slice onto one of the plates and handed it to her. “You are aware that you’re going to have to apologize.”

  Harper plucked a piece of bacon off the top and ate it. She figured she’d go for the jalapeño next as a form of self-flagellation. “I was stupid.”

  “That’s a decent place to start but I doubt it’ll be enough.” Riley announced as he got himself a slice. “You know how when you really like someone and they totally screw you over and it sorta hurts more than when your average asshole hurts you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s what you’re up against.”

  “She did lie to me,” Harper reminded him. “And she ran out on me two days in a row and didn’t tell me what was going on. I think I had a right to be angry.”

  “Hey, I don’t need the play-by-play. I’ve heard all about it.” Riley held his hands up in mock surrender before going back to his pizza.

  Harper took hold of a pepper and compared her need for forgiveness against mouth searing pain. She decided to give it a few more minutes and put it back on her pizza slice. “Alice said all that stuff, and I freaked out when I saw her with Robin.”

  “Well, that’s the problem with Alice.” Riley let out a deep breath, the kind that sounded like it’d been held onto for too long. “She’s very convincing until you realize that she’s just out to hurt Jane.”

  “Jane?”

  “Alice’s favorite target.” Riley stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. “It’s a holdover from our childhood that Mom still likes to encourage since she’s not allowed to hurt Jane anymore.”

  “Wait,” Harper paused to get her bearings now that she’d officially been knocked off her high horse. “Say that again.”

  “Iris uses to get Alice to hurt Jane because she isn’t allowed to do it anymore.” He said the words with the slow, care of someone who wanted to be heard. “And, just for the historical accuracy, Alice isn’t her daughter.”

  “Seriously?” Harper felt herself stumbling with each new piece of information set down in front of her.

  “My parents have a very liberal view on what it means to be married. They have rules that they follow, but monogamy isn’t one of them.”

  “So, she’s Ander’s daughter?”

  “Not biologically,” he said. “Dad adopted Alice after her mom, Kayla, died. She was a groupie with a heroin problem. Alice, she was three when she and Kayla moved in.”

  “He moved his junkie girlfriend into your house?” Harper picked up her plate and set it down on her knees. She wasn’t sure whether or not she was hungry but she was anxious and eating usually fixed that. “Your mom was okay with that?”

  “My mom was on tour most of the time and my dad was starting to settle into domestic bliss.” Riley told her. “He was happy raising me and Jane and keeping us off the road. Kayla came along and she sort of fit into the whole scene. Mom liked her and she adored Alice, so it worked for a while.”

  “What happened?”

  “Dad went on tour again,” he said after he swallowed his mouthful of pizza. “He tried to take his happy little family with him and everything kind of exploded. Kayla always had problems, and Alice was a real pisser of a kid. There isn’t a whol
e lot to do when you’re on the road. Old ghosts have a habit of whispering in your ear when you don’t have anyone new to talk to.”

  “Heroin.”

  “Everybody’s got something.” Riley looked down at his plate and shook his head. “Kayla was more of a mother to Jane than our own mom ever was. She was the one who found her. It was the ‘needle-in-the-arm’ nightmare that people who’ve never experience like to talk about. Jane certainly never talked about it after the cops showed up.” Riley looked past her shoulder for a moment; it was as if he were remembering the whole thing. Every detail, every word, every tendril of emotion flashing in front of his face one more time. “Jane wasn’t the same after that. The rest of the tour was canceled, Dad brought the three of us back here and Jane made him promise that she’d never have to go on tour again, but Mom wasn’t having any of that. She told Dad that she’d never made the promise so it wasn’t her word being broken.”

  “Shit,” Harper whispered.

  Riley’s gaze returned to her face, he nodded and took another deep breath. “She had Jane back on the bus in two weeks.”

  “Just Jane?” Harper wanted to close her eyes and have the information wiped from her brain. She didn’t want this kind of insight into someone without their permission. Jane was too private a person to have people discussing her history behind her back.

  “When she took Jane with her I didn’t understand what she was doing but the older I got the more I understood my mother’s motivations. Iris was pissed that Jane loved Kayla, so she punished her.”

  “Emotionally?” she asked.

  “And physically.” Riley told her. “I knew how to avoid getting smacked around but Jane’s never had much fear of anyone. She fought back and she paid for it. Bruises, broken bones, a few mysterious falls off the back of the tour bus that no one wanted to explain. Had to get her jaw wired shut when someone bounced her off the edge of a bathtub. A lot of people depended on our mother for their livelihood so there was considerable effort to keep her abuse of Jane out of the papers. She had money and she had connections so no one ever asked what the fuck was going on.”

  “How could they adopt another child if she was abusing the ones they already had?”

  “Like I said, Ander’s adopted her and no one was talking about Jane.” Riley took another slice of pizza and slapped it down on his plate. “Iris had her name put on the paperwork after Kayla died. They both thought that, after every Alice had been through, she deserved to grow up with a mother and a father. I guess they believed that they owed her some normality. What no one anticipated was how Iris planned on using Alice against Jane.”

  “That is fucked up.”

  “Not as fucked up as Jane being programmed to take care of Alice.” Riley shook his head. “That takes some serious mind-fuckery to accomplish.”

  Harper put her slice of pizza back on the plate. Her appetite disappeared as her stomach nosedived into her shoes. She’d been raised by some pretty strange people but she never, for one second, felt anything but love and pride coming from them so her basis for shitty parent comparison didn’t exist.

  She knew Jane would never want her to feel pity for her so she settled on sorrow.

  “I talked to Chloe.” Riley’s voice sounded resolute while his eyes spoke of something less certain. Harper had to wonder if he was just as conflicted as she was or if he was desperately trying to patch things up so they could all go on with their lives. “The thing with Robin wasn’t what it looked like. Alice was listening in on their conversation-”

  “Wait.” Harper held her hand up, cutting Riley off before he could finish defending Jane with information she already knew. “She still lied to me.”

  “And you lied to her,” Riley reminded Harper. “I think this means you guys are even. What Chloe told me was that Jane had breakfast with Sarah who, apparently, said all kinds of weird, fucked up shit and she wanted to talk to Robin about it.”

  “What kinds of weird shit would have her running out the door?”

  “Sarah talked about cheating on Robin. I guess Jane felt like she owed it to her to find out if she knew.”

  “She could’ve just told me where she was going,” Harper replied.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but both of my sisters are terribly decision makers,” Riley laughed. “If you’re going to be in her life you’re going to have to learn how to roll with it.”

  “And you didn’t tell me any of this before? Why?”

  “I was hoping you’d figure it out on your own, but obviously you need me to walk you through the whole damn thing,” Riley said with a kind smile directed her way. “Look, Jane doesn’t forgive easily and I’m impressed she was willing to get over the first round of bullshit. I suspect it means she really likes you.”

  “And that’s a good thing, right?” Harper was ready to grasp onto any kind of hope Riley offered but she knew it wasn’t going to mean a tinkers damn if Jane wouldn’t talk to her.

  “It was until you fucked it all up,” he answered. “Like I told you, the more you like someone the more it hurts when they break your heart.”

  “Did Robin break her heart?” Harper felt the question building up in her gut before her brain was ready to tamp it back down where it belonged.

  “Only in a very seventeen kind of way.”Riley shrugged. “Jane’s a smart girl. She moves on. So you need to get yourself to the Renaissance Hotel in Providence and you beg her forgiveness.”

  “Is that my only options” Harper sat back in her seat and stared up at the ceiling. She never minded admitting when she’d done something wrong but suddenly it felt like there was so much at risk and all she was going to do was make it worse.

  Riley put his pizza back down on the plate and clasped his hands together. He looked paternal and caring, like her dad the day she came out of the closet. “Do you really need another option?”

  Harper already knew the answer. She and Jane were fucked up and terrible for one another but Harper didn’t want anyone else. The only question that remained was if Jane felt the same way.

  *****

  Jane knew answering the door was a bad idea when she heard the first knock but curiosity got the better of her and soon found herself face-to-face with an anxious looking Harper.

  “Please don’t slam the door in my face.” Harper held her hand out to keep Jane from blocking her entry.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Jane gripped the doorknob and reminded herself that she had told enough lies for one lifetime so she needed to restrain herself.

  “Can I come in?” Harper took a shaky breath and stepped toward the door.

  Jane bit down on the inside of her cheek. Her first instinct was to tell Harper to go away and never come back but she knew it wasn’t what she really wanted. “Sure,” she muttered and stepped aside to let Harper pass.

  She waited until Harper was safely in the room to ask the day’s most obvious question. “Who told you where I was?”

  “Riley,” Harper answered. “He talked to Chloe.”

  Jane decided it wasn’t worth reacting to something she’d assumed would happen. Chloe had a big mouth and Riley was nosey, together they created assholery of epic proportions. What did surprise her was Riley spilling the beans and Harper taking action. “What are you doing here?”

  “Apologizing and begging your forgiveness.” Harper put her hands on her hips and stared down at the floor. “If you’ll let me.”

  She went back to carving up the inside of her mouth as her brain turned the situation over in her head. Apologizing wasn’t something she was accustomed to, but she was willing to do it when her conscience needed cleansing. “I was the one who ran around behind your back and told a bunch of lies. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I the one who fucked it all up because-”

  “We both fucked it up,” Harper interrupted cut her off before she could complete the thought. “You and I were active participants so we both get to feel like giant pieces of shit, and we both get to apo
logize so we can fix this.”

  “No, you don’t understand, I was laying here thinking it was good that we weren’t going to work out because it was never going…” Jane’s voice faded away.

  Harper shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other but kept her gaze locked on Jane’s face. “Riley told me about Alice’s mother.”

  “See, that’s just the thing, I can’t end up like that.” She shook her head. “I can’t be some famous person’s dead girlfriend. I can’t be like her and I can’t die like that.”

  “Why do you even think it’s a possibility?” she asked.

  “Because when I look at you I feel happy and when you’re not around I feel like I might never be happy again and it terrifies me.” Jane felt her voice crack under the weight of her emotions but kept going. “You can take it all away by just leaving. By telling me that you don’t want me around because I’m too much of a fucked up mess and no one would blame you.”

  “Riley told me that everybody’s got something. We’re all fucked up in some way and there’s nothing we can do about it so we might as well enjoy it.” Harper looked down at the floor and tried to clear her head. “Maybe life isn’t about being with the perfect person. Maybe it is about being with someone who isn’t perfect by society’s standards. Maybe what you think is fucked up about you is what makes you perfect for me. Maybe it’s why I love you?”

  Jane stared up at her. She was past the stage of keeping the tears at bay. They were going to escape no matter how many times she tried blinking them away. “Did you just say you loved me?”

  “Yes,” Harper said, running her shaking hands through her hair. “I did and I’m not taking it back just because it scares you or makes you nervous. This is how I feel and I’m tired of trying to keep it hidden from you because you don’t like feeling all the fucking feels.”

  “Even if I can’t say it back?” Jane’s eyes blurred and her face stained with tears. Harper’s honesty was a hot iron rod sticking in her gut that she wanted out so she could inhale one more breath. “I don’t know if I can ever say it back.”