Page 118 of A Duet of Darkness and Dreams

I grab the licorice and kick off my shoes, then I stretch out on the bed with my back up against the headboard. “It’s no problem. Besides, I’m always happy to come to your rescue.”

Her lips twitch as she pulls her knees up and sinks back against the pillows. I grab the remote and turn the TV on. “Any preferences?”

She shrugs. “I thinkTheTonight Showwill be coming on.”

“Okay.”

Sure enough, when I flip through the handful of channels, Johnny Carson appears doing his opening monologue. For a while we just contentedly watch TV together, even if I can’t help but think about how bad I want her head to rest on my chest.

“Just think,” she says, breaking the silence. “One day maybe you guys will be on there.”

I fight the urge to scoff. “I doubt it.”

She frowns. “Why not?”

“There’d likely be a riot if thrash metal made it on prime time TV.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“We’re not exactly Journey.”

“Well,” she says, turning to lie on her side and propping her head up on her hand to speak to me. “You managed to turn me into a fan. And all I listened to was disco.”

I sidle down next to her on the bed. “Well, when your taste in music is that bad, you really can only go up from there.”

Her eyes widen, but with my smirk, her lips pull into a toothy smile. Shoving my shoulder playfully, she sighs then nuzzles down into the pillow. “Why metal music?”

“Hmm?”

“What turned you into a metal fan?”

I scooch a little closer and tuck a pillow under my head. “I never really felt like I fit in. I wasn’t athletic in the way other kids my age were. I wasn’t a brainiac. I wasn’t handy with a hammer. I guess I felt like metal music understood me because it was made for outcasts.”

“And you found your little family from that?”

“My first band . . .” My throat goes dry. “Sam was like a brother to me. Charlie and John too. I would’ve done anything for them. Then they—”

I pause and wet my lips, Izzy’s eyes holding mine as she listens to my story. Moving a little closer again, I lower my voice as I push through the nervousness that I’m about to tell a journalist my darkest secret. Will she leave when this is over? Will she think differently of me?

“I tried so hard for our little band to make it big. Put all of my money into getting studio time, playing gigs anywhere that would have us, working just enough so we could spend all our spare time playing and writing music.”

“So what happened?”

“The day came when we were finally going to record our demo. I had never been more excited or nervous than that day. But just before we left—”

I pause, my heart racing in my chest. Is this the moment? I haven’t even told the boys about Emily. But Izzy’s watching me with such compassion in her eyes that it makes me want to spill all of my secrets into her hands for her to hold and keep safe.

She reaches out and places her injured hand on my chest. I’m sure she can feel the way my heart pounds, and the subtle pressure is soothing. I take one last long deep breath, then continue on.

“I was dating Sam’s cousin, Emily, at the time. At first, everything was perfect. She was great and fit into my life without it changing too much. I thought I was so lucky. I’d hit the jackpot.Then she changed. She started saying I should give up on what I wanted. That I’d never make it. That I should just get a job like everyone else because my dreams were nothing but that . . . dreams.”

Izzy’s fingers clench on my chest.

“She was an alcoholic,” I admit. “At first I thought she just liked to party and that she was super cool. Then she started drinking more and more. Then stealing money. Then was fired from her job. Maybe it really is my fault. I should’ve done more to help her, but I was eighteen. I was a kid with no real concept of how fucked up she was. The day we were supposed to record the demo, I got a call from the diner where she used to work. She was at her old job causing a scene and they asked if I could come get her. I told Sam and the others I’d meet them at the studio, but I never made it. She . . .”

My face burns with the memory of that day.

“She was wasted and told some cops I was abusing her. That she was scared I would hit her. Izzy, I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in any violent way, ever.”

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