Sing Your Heart Out by Crystal Kaswell

Author:Crystal Kaswell [Kaswell, Crystal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: alpha hero, strong feisty virgin heroine, rich player playboy hero, new adult and college, rock star romance, friends with benefits, friends to lovers, first time love story first love
Published: 2015-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Routine washes away any hint of Miles. I go to class. I go to work. I go to Kara's on Sunday and try to avoid any topic related to men or music—especially men who make music.

The goal proves impossible. She turns twenty-one at the end of October, and she's throwing a birthday- slash- Halloween- slash- week-before-midterms party at the Sinful Mansion in Hollywood. I consider calling Drew and begging him to take over my duties as best friend.

The next two weeks are miserable. Sinful Serenade launches their new single—the song about me—and it's everywhere. I can't listen to “Loveline” without hearing it once an hour. Hell, I can't step into the mall, walk past a café, or even pick up a snack at the grocery store. He's there in my ears, my head, and my heart.

Every time I hear the song, I check my phone, but that's the one place he isn't. There's nothing from Miles. Not a peep, not an apology, not even a plea for me to cash in some of those benefits.

He got what he wanted out of me. He has a new song. I'm sure he has a new plaything. He probably doesn't think about me at all.

I mean nothing to him.

***

It's the Friday before Halloween, the day before Kara's big party. Like I am every Friday, I'm dead tired. About ready to clock out and go home.

A teenage girl is rushed into the ER. She's unconscious, barely breathing. Her lips are blue. She's thin, like she's about to break, and her arms are covered in track marks. One is fresh.

Her mother is at her side with this clueless look on her face. The girl is covered in needle marks, and most of them are old. How the hell did Mom miss that?

The girl is dying. Doctor Anderson, the doctor I scribe for, pushes me out of the way.

"Take five, Meg."

But I stand there. I watch the doctors and nurses attend to her.

I know how this goes. The paramedics should’ve given her Naloxone. It's supposed to counter the opiates in heroin. It's supposed to restart her heart and her breathing.

The sounds around me swirl together until it's this awful mix of orders, air conditioning, squeaking rubber soles on the tile floor, and the erratic beep of the heart rate monitor as the girl's pulse faces away. Nothing they're doing is working. This girl is too far gone. There's nothing anyone can do.

Just like Rosie.

I hide out in the one of the single-stall bathrooms, trying, and failing, to will myself to go home. I can't sit in my bed alone. All I'll feel is her absence. We used to live together in a two-bedroom place in the same building. The super was understanding when she died—helped me move all my stuff into a studio and offered a discounted rent.

I miss my big sister so much. She was so good at all the things I barely understood. She’d know what to do about Miles. She'd take me out, get me drunk, and send me home with the perfect guy to wipe my memory clean.

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