Page 3 of All the Forbidden Things
“I’m moving in with Alix.”
I pause as I pull on a pair of jogging bottoms and almost lose my balance as I stand on one leg while the room spins.
“You’re what?” I come out of the dressing room to find Whitney now standing on the other side of the room with the bed between us. She folds her arms across her chest and lifts her chin in what I know is a defiant move.
She swallows then licks her lips before speaking. “Alix. I’m moving in with him.”
“Alix?”
She nods slowly.
“Alix Gardener?”
She continues to nod.
Alix is the twenty-five-year-old junky son of our band's manager. I feel like white noise is filling my head and ears, not just the sound but also that grey fuzzy image of static you used to get on your old television set before blue screens were a thing. It creeps like a fog up my spine, crawls across my skull, and seeps into my brain, making it hard for me to think straight and form a coherent response.
“Why?” I eventually ask.
She shrugs—fucking shrugs—then adds, “I love him. I’minlove with him. I’ve always been in love with him. I tried Max, I wanted—”
I hold up my hand. I need her to stop talking while I process what she’s telling me. Alix is a spoiled, worthless, piece of shit who’s been bailed out by Daddy more times than I can remember.
“I warned him. I told him if he didn’t get his shit together I’d find someone else . . .” She continues, and I grip my hair with both my hands and fight to stop my knees from finally buckling.
“Wait...What? I don’t understand?” But I think I do.
Fuck. Me. I think I do.
Whitney lets out a long slow breath. “I was with Alix before I was with you, but he kept fucking up.” She looks around the room before her emotionless glare lands back on me. “The night I met you, I arrived at the party and could tell he was high, totally fucked up. I thought if he saw me with you . . . if we hooked up and he thought we were serious, he’d get his shit together.”
I can barely breathe. My chest feels as if it’s on fire, as if my vital organs are being scorched, and I’m about to combust.
“Ifhethought we were serious?I thoughtwe were fucking serious, Whit,” I tell her, my voice sounding incredulous.
“We got married, we had a baby. How much more fucking serious does it get?”
There’s nothing. No remorse, not even pity as she looks at me.
“I thought by going on tour with you, getting away from him, it would change the way I felt about him, but then he turned up in New York, and nothing had changed. I still love him.”
I close my hands together in a prayer pose and cover my nose and mouth with them as I try to steady my breathing.
“So, why stay with me? Why fucking marry me, Whit?”
“I was pregnant, Alix was back in rehab, you sprang the wedding on me, what was I supposed to do?” she asks in a high-pitched shriek.
“What were you supposed to do? Say no, Whit. Turn me down, go be with Alix, be fucking honest. Jesus fucking Christ, who are you? I don’t even know you anymore!” I slam my hand against the wall in an attempt to ease some of the anger raging inside me. It doesn’t work, and I only calm marginally when Layla begins to cry from her crib.
I move towards her. Whitney doesn’t.
I lift my daughter and hold her against my chest where she instantly pulls up her knees, pokes her bum in the air, and settles.
“If you think for one fucking second that I’m letting you take Layla to live with that fucked up junkie, then you best think again. He can’t look after himself, let alone a kid.”
It’s the first time during our entire exchange that Whitney actually looks contrite. Her shoulders slump, and she breaks eye contact because she knows I’m fucking right.
I watch, waiting on her response as she again looks around the room, anywhere except at me.
