Page 70 of Echoes in the Storm

“Put it down.” I lunge and grab her wrist, forcing her to drop the damn thing before she has to fork out a grand to replace it.

“Why?” she cries, her face utter betrayal.

“Am I going?” I ask, knowing she’s not asking why I told her to put the phone down. “You know why, babe. I’ve got counselling, a job to sort out …”

“No.” She shakes her head vehemently, ripping her arm from my hold. “Why am I not enough?”

Crap.Sheisenough. It’smewho isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. “You’re everything,” I tell her. “Too much.”

Her nostrils flare, the light catching her bullring as it moves. “Too much,” she murmurs angrily. “That’s bullshit, Duke.” Her small hands shunt me hard in the chest, yet I don’t move. I sit on the bed with her instead. The more she pushes me away, the closer I want to be.

“The space to breathe will do you good.”

She frowns, leaning in close to utter with so much hate it makes me hurt, “I’ll drown.”

Fuck—she will. But as much as it pains me to let her go, she needs to learn to swim on her own.

I rise from the bed, taking two steps toward the door. “Maybe I should just go now. It might be easier.”

She doesn’t answer me, turning her head to stare at the darkening sky outside.

It’s the loudest silence.

The hardest truth.

Cammie

He left me that night. Pushed my sofas back to how they used to be and walked out the door. I’m still sinking.

“Spot two.” Mary’s terse call breaks me from my daze.

Shoot.The light’s nowhere near my frustrated leading lady.

“Sorry.”

“Come see me after. LX35, ready … and go.”

The lights change, the scene picking up pace as my gut sinks. I’ve been in a funk since Duke went home. I realised too late that I don’t even know his number to call—never thinking to get it since I could always reach him at the house—and now I don’t have the kahunas to ask Archie what it is. He literally left my life without a trace, other than an overgrown lawn that still looks pretty in stripes.

I buckle down and manage to get through the rest of the Saturday night show without losing focus again, keeping my arm too close to the light in places so that the burn keeps me alert.

The crowd filters out as Susie crosses over from her platform, the frown on her face telling me she’s concerned before she even opens her mouth. “What’s going on, love?”

“Nothing.” I flick my hair out of the way, stashing my half-empty water bottle in my bag, knowing when I get home that I’ll stack it with the others just so I feel like Duke is still around.

“You can’t bullshit a bullshit artist.” She gives me a tight-lipped smile.

I slump down on the edge of my platform, my bag slung between my legs. “That guy who stayed with me?”

“Duke?”

“You remember his name?” I frown. She didn’t even talk to him when he came the other night.

“I think everyone in town knows his name,” she deadpans. “Nobody’s seen you that happy in years.”

Urgh.“He left.”

“Well, no duh.” She screws her top lip up. “He had to take the car home, right?”