Page 12 of Noah
The problem was, my temper was bigger than my heart, most days, and right now it was screaming.
I slammed the door shut behind me and leaned against it, my chest heaving. I needed to calm down. Look at why I was so upset. Find a way to be happy for her rather than so angry. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out why I was so angry. I’d known she was applying to that magazine. Hell, I’d practically forced her to do it, because I’d been tired of watching her waste her talent taking pictures that no one ever saw. I’d felt guilty that she was stuck on the road with us rather than out there living her best life. And part of me had really thought that getting a job with a big magazine was the best thing for her.
Of course now that it was actually happening, I felt differently.
I felt like she was running out on me. Like the girl who’d felt like home my entire life was abandoning me here while she went off to make new friends. Find a new guy to idolize.
“She’s too good for this life,” I told myself firmly. “Too smart to be stuck here towing equipment around and keeping your schedule in order.”
Speaking out loud seemed to help calm me down, and I pushed off the door and started walking for the mini fridge, dredging up more ways to be happy for Molly. The girl colored every single memory I had, and that was saying something. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d found her in some scrape or another, talking shit to someone twice as big as her because they’d been unkind to an animal or something. I must have saved her at least a thousand times.
Until we grew up and something changed. Rivers, Matt, Hudson, and I formed the band and brought Molly along for theride, and out on the road during our first tour, something had shifted between us.
She’d started taking care ofme.
And now she was abandoning me. Just like my mother had done a thousand times before I moved to the orphanage.
There it was, I realized. I wasn’t angry because Molly had landed a job with a big magazine. I really was ecstatic for her. This was huge news, and she was going to be brilliant. But leaving me in the lurch like this... That, I was angry about. It put me right back into that tiny trailer, watching my mother close the door behind her as she left to go find her next hit. Knowing I would have to find my own food for the night and sleep alone, the trailer dark and terrifying around me. It made me feel empty and somehow terrified.
Like a five-year-old who didn’t know when he was going to see another adult.
I was being unreasonable and unfair, and I knew it. My mother’s actions weren’t Molly’s fault. She had spent most of her life proving to me that I could count on her when I needed to. Mending the broken pieces my mother had left behind. She didn’t deserve my anger.
But I didn’t know if I could stop the tide, now that it had started flowing.
I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the mini fridge, called room service to have them send up something bigger, and headed for the shower. Maybe it was better that Molly was leaving now. I was starting to get too dependent on her and let her in too deep, and I didn’t need that. I couldn’t trust it. I would be better off on my own.
That tiny voice tried to pipe up again, telling me that I didn’t mean any of that and that my heart was breaking in real time at the thought of her getting into a cab and heading for the airportwithout me. The idea that she was starting a new life that didn’t include me...
It would break me.
But only if I let it. And I was well versed at ignoring things I didn’t like.
After all, I’d spent my entire childhood learning how to do it.
7
MOLLY
Four Days Later
Iwalked down the hallway, trying very, very hard to look like someone who knew what the hell she was doing.
I mean, I didn’t. Not even close. But I thought I wasdoing a good job of pretending. I’d been here all morning and had managed–so far–not to put my foot in my mouth or piss anyone off. Sure, I was dressed like I’d come from Nashville, in dark jeans and a plaid shirt that didn’t stand up to the smooth skinny jeans and pants suits of the office, but I was putting that to the side. What did they expect? They’d hired a girl from the south, and that was what had arrived on their doorstep.
I already knew I was twice as talented as anyone else at my level, and that was doing a lot to make me feel better.
I’d spent the morning in the set of rooms dedicated to the photography team, going through the work of the other photographers so I could learn the magazine’s preferred style, and so far I was feeling pretty damn confident. I hadn’t even gone to school for this shit and I was still better at shootingwith depth and texture than some of the other people. I’d mastered the ability to take close-up photographs that showed only enough of a face to convey the emotion the person was feeling, and from what I’d seen, no one else could do that. I’d taught myself to blur things when they needed to be blurred and sharpen them when they would do better that way, and my mastery of depth of field was next level.
Yeah, I know that sounds cocky. But it was the truth.
And I never would have been able to admit that back in Nashville, with the boys and their instruments surrounding me. If anyone had complimented me, I would have played it off like it was no big deal. Just a bunch of lucky shots. But something had happened to me the moment I stepped onto that plane on my own, and then landed in LA. I’d spent the entire flight somehow filling in the corners of myself and left the plane feeling like I was growing with every step. Somehow shining brighter than I had before.
Unapologetically stronger.
I sort of loved it.
Then I was called to my new boss’s office.
