Page 119 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

There’s still so much I have to say. “No,” I whisper. It can’t be over like this.

I reach out for her again but she’s gone, disappearing through a black door where I can’t follow. My chest feels like it’s caving in, the pain so excruciating that for a moment I worry I might be having a heart attack. It feels like that awful night all over again. Her choosing to leave me behind. Then the panic sets in as I’m carried out into the gutter behind the club, and as I’m tossed into the street, I search around for men in white uniforms who might pop up out of nowhere to take me back to Samson Academy.

They don’t come. I’m safe from that at least. The tears start next and everything hits me at once. She never really loved me. It’s the only explanation. How else can someone be so unfeeling and cold? I brace my hands on my knees and throw up into a sewer grate.

Forever passes before I pull myself up. Part of me hoped Joel would come find me, but he must have met a distraction, and I can’t fault him for that. All I want to do is curl up in my bed at the motel and cry, so I stumble back down the Strip toward the chapel where our night started so happily. I suppose part of me always thought that maybe if I ever saw Dusty again it would be like it is in my dreams. That she would realize we were meant to be together. That she hadn’t really meant it when she left me. That there’s a better explanation.

Our history says differently though. She was always leaving me and I was always too stupid to think she might finally stay. That she only ever left because she had to. And is she right? Was I only ever in love with her because she was someone for me to fix? So I could play the hero because I couldn’t even save myself from my own life?

I’ve swallowed a hard truth tonight: She’s no damsel. And I’m no hero.

CHAPTER31

Love Will Tear Us Apart

JOEL

“Dusty, are you okay?” I ask. “Hey, you—you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Her chest rises and falls rapidly. Is she hyperventilating? Eyes wide and terrified, she’s trembling like a leaf. Maybe she’s dehydrated from earlier.

“I’ll get you some water, okay? Actually, maybe I’ll grab you some juice,” I correct myself, thinking maybe her blood sugar is low. We were in the bedroom for quite a long time and I was so excited to finally have her in my bed that I didn’t ask her when she last ate.

She doesn’t respond, but gives a kind of shaky nod of her head, so I take that as a yes. Shit, I shouldn’t have pushed her so hard. Why did I insist we do that for our first time together? I’m such a selfish idiot. I walk toward the fridge and grab the bottle of apple juice and a glass from the cupboard. Mid-pour, I’m startled by the sound of the door opening.

“Joel?”

I look up and feel the most intense relief of my life. Key’s here. He’s back. I look him up and down, making sure he’s okay, my heartbeat galloping in my chest as I fight back tears. I thought I lost him for good. But it’s short-lived by the rage that follows. Maybe I need some juice too, because I’m suddenly lightheaded.

“Key?”

He’s really here. What the fuck has he been doing?

“Joel,” he says, shaking his head. “Listen man, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so—I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for just taking off like that.”

“You’resorry? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Do you have any idea what’s been going on?”

He runs a hand through his tangled curls. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

I lean forward over the counter and lower my voice. “We’ve been looking everywhere! I called hospitals. We thought that you might have . . .”

His eyebrows lift. “Might have what?”

“We thought you might have tried to kill yourself,” I finally rush out.

For a moment he looks like he’s going to argue with me. Like he’s upset we could ever think that. That the situation wasn’t that serious. However, he must see the look on my face. Must understand that it’s exactly that serious.

“Oh, god,” he murmurs. “I didn’t . . . I would never?—”

“That means nothing! It’s what we all thought,” I say, my voice rising. “Where the fuck have you been anyway if not dead in a fucking ditch?”

He flinches, but I don’t care. I’m furious with him. Relieved, yes, but mostly furious.

“Look, I had to do something,” he says softly. “I couldn’t just sit around and wait for shit to hit the fan.”

“Shit already hit the fan, you asshole!”

“Will you just fucking listen to me?”

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