The Spiral Down (The Fall Up #2)(51)

Blood boiled in my veins, but guilt overwhelmed me. I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed the phone painfully tight as I ground out, “How much?”

She blew out a relieved breath. “Twenty-two hundred.”

I clenched my teeth together, but my hands began to shake. Marching from Evan’s room, I tagged my jeans and my shirt from his hall floor. Frantically pulling them on, I barked. “Where are you?”

“You can just transfer it to my bank account.”

And that was when I lost it. “Where the f*ck are you?” I roared.

She sobbed. “Please don’t send Carter! Please. I’ll do anything…”

Oh, I wasn’t sending Carter. It was time I handled this shit with her myself.

“I’m in town.”

She gasped, “No.”

“Where are you, Robin?” I repeated, barely keeping it together.

“Henry, no! You can’t come down here.”

I was searching for my other shoe when I caught sight of Evan walking from his room fully dressed. He was eyeing me closely, but he didn’t touch me as he walked to his hall closet and dragged a hoodie out.

“Last chance,” I growled. “Either you tell me where you are or I’m hanging up.”

“Send someone else—”

I closed my eyes so tight it’s a wonder I didn’t disappear. I wished I had. Because, one second later, I felt the jagged pain of my heart shattering.

I hit the end button and dropped my phone to the floor. My knees quickly followed.

“Oh, God,” I breathed when the reality of what I’d done consumed me.

Evan was there immediately.

Kneeling, he pulled me into his arms. “Jesus, what the hell is going on?” he asked as I broke down.

It had been a long time coming. I’d barely been fighting off that breakdown for the last five years.

“I’ve…I’ve never hung up on her,” I stuttered, trying to catch my breath, but it was one race I wasn’t going to win.

“Okay, let’s calm down.” Tucking my face into his neck, he counted into my ear. “Ten, nine, eight.”

If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. But that was the problem. Something had already happened to her…because of me. She was probably in some dirty crack house, track marks running up and down her arms, scared to f*cking death, and I’d hung up on her.

My throat nearly closed, and I struggled away from him, but he moved with me.

“Shhhh. Seven, six, five.” One of his hands was anchored on the back of my head, and the other smoothed up and down my spine. “Take a deep breath. Four, three—”

The Sesame Street theme interrupted him.

We both looked down at my phone vibrating on the floor as if it were some kind of ticking time bomb. But what he couldn’t possibly have known was that, for me, it was.

“Who is she?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure I could do that question justice. I could write a love song that would make grown men cry, but I’d never be able to find the words to explain who Robin Clark was to me.

When I’d told people that I was going to be famous one day, they’d all laughed. And then, a few years later, they’d nearly blown my phone up. Some called with genuine congratulations, but most greeted me with their hands held open. Whether they were asking for money to buy shit they refused to work for, a shout-out on my record to give them five minutes of fame, or me to put in good word with my recording company so a talentless, lazy * could get a deal, they all wanted something.

It didn’t matter that they hadn’t supported my relentless climb to the top or that they discouraged me at every turn. Seven degrees of separation was all that was required for them to feel entitled. People I barely knew scurried out from the woodwork.

With Levee at my back, I donned a steel spine and told almost all of them to f*ck off. And lost not a wink of sleep over it.

But it was the “almost” percentage of that equation that kept me up at night for the majority of the following five years.

I adored my life, but if I could turn back time, I’d be willing to accept a dead-end job teaching guitar lessons at the local music store if it changed her path.

Staring down at the picture of her wide smile flashing on the screen of my phone, I replied into his neck, “She’s my sister.”

“Shit,” he breathed just as the ringing fell silent. Using my shoulders, he gently shifted me away so he could catch my gaze. “What’s going on?”

There was no point in trying to explain. He probably would have just laughed at me if he’d known how many times I’d gotten that exact call over the years. I could only imagine his face if I told him about the hundreds of thousands of dollars I’d spent supporting her, sending her to rehab, or, in cases like this, paying some dealer who no longer accepted her word as credit. The money didn’t matter. However, the hollowness in my chest that expanded each and every time she used me was embarrassing. After all of this time, it shouldn’t have hurt anymore, but a pain like that never went away. And, one day, when I inevitably lost her, it would devour me.

I decided to give him the abridged version. “She’s an addict and needs money. I refused to put it in her bank account, and she refused to tell me where she was.” I pointed to my phone and tried to crack a joke. “Tough love. Doctor Phil would be proud.” My voice was the only thing that actually cracked though.