Missing Dixie (Neon Dreams #3)(32)

Just like when I was a kid, I make the same, stupid wish I always do. That she’ll stop this and get better, be better. But I’m not a na?ve kid anymore and I know this is unlikely.

The sun is coming up and I need sleep, but I decide it’s not just time for me to get my shit together, but way past time for her too. I pull out my phone with the intentions of searching local state-funded rehab centers and see several messages that nearly cause me to drop it.

Dixie: Where did you go? I looked for you after . . .

Dixie: Your boss said you left with a woman. So . . .

Dixie: I hope you had a good night, Gav. I’m worried about you but maybe don’t call me or stop by for a while, okay? I need some time.

Fuck. Me.

And just because the shit cake of life always has additional hidden layers, there are more.

Dallas: Robyn and I came home early to see Dixie’s show. Where were you? Did you know she could sing like that?

Dallas: Call me, man. 911.

And one more.

Unknown Number: You’re an *, Garrison. Plain and simple. Tonight was the final straw. I’m done watching you pull this shit on her.

I know that the last text is from Jaggerd McKinley, just like I know the sky after a night of rain is the same shade of stormy blue as Dixie’s eyes.

I will deal with him later. In person.

Right now I need to call Dallas, so I do.

It rings and rings until his voice mail answers.

When the beep comes, my mind blanks and I’m at a complete loss for words.

“Hey, man. It’s me. I . . . it just, shit got crazy last night so I had to leave early. Hate that I missed you. Call me later.”

My voice sounds like I had gravel for breakfast but I’m too tired to care. Dallas might think the worst, which sucks. Thanks to McKinley, Dixie will probably think the worst now, too, which sucks far more than Dallas possibly being pissed at me.

I lower my battered and exhausted body into a kitchen chair and place my elbows on the sticky table. Propping my head in my hands I decide the only thing I can do is just wait for Dallas to call me back. Maybe he can figure out a way to get Dixie to talk to me. Maybe he can tell me what I should say, help me figure out how to tell her that I love her more than anything in this world but that I love her enough to know that I am not what’s best for her.

She was beyond amazing, the epitome of an incredible performer last night, and she needs to follow her dream, not stay here in this nothing town waiting on some local piece of shit who will never get his act together. But I know her. I know exactly how deep she is capable of loving and forgiving. She would wait. For me. Forever if needed.

When we were kids, my stuff tended to break on a regular basis. My bike, my shoelaces, my book bag. You name it, mine was crap. It wasn’t secondhand, it was fourth or fifth or sixth hand, usually donated from the local Junior Leaguers, Goodwill, or a counselor digging through our school’s lost-and-found box.

Dallas is one of those people who are constantly in motion and typically he slows down for no one—though I suspect that is changing these days. But Dixie always waited for me without fail. She never once left me behind.

I’d tell them to go on without me while I dealt with my mess and time and time again, I’d look up to see her bending down to help me.

Acidic pain stings my eyes at the montage of memories playing in my sleep-deprived head. Dixie at nine years old handing me food from her parents’ funeral reception. Thinking of me, a stranger, in literally her darkest hour. Dixie at eleven, giving me half her sandwich at lunch when she found me smoking to cure the edge of hunger behind a rotting oak tree. Dixie at thirteen helping me fix the chain on my bike when it broke and Dallas sped off without me. Dixie at fourteen, leaving a party with her friends to come hang out with me while I cried and raged on like a lunatic when my mom nearly OD’d for the second time. Her face, her beautiful heartbroken face a few months ago when she realized I was home and hadn’t called her.

It dawns on me that that night was the last time she played music live until now. And I ruined this show, too, by bailing on her when she needed me. She’s always been there for me and I’ve done nothing but cause her pain. I’ve used her like the other women in my life, just in a different way.

I drag her down.

I drag the band down.

The only two people in the entire world who try to pull me up, and all I do is yank them into the pathetic pit of Hell that is my world.

I saw the love shining in her eyes at the bar, the excitement glowing on her face, and the joy beaming out of her eyes. She loves to play music. She loves to perform.

Worst of all, she loves me.

She’s the only reason I even know what love is.

And I have to break her into a million pieces.

Sitting there at the dirty kitchen table, I know it as sure as I know my own name. It will be the only way to make her let me go. To make both of them finally let me go so I can slink back into the gutter, where I belong.

I’ll have to use her one last time.





13 | Dixie

“SO YOU THINK it was the blonde? The same one you saw him with a few months ago?” Robyn sits on my bed hugging a pillow to her chest and waiting for me to answer.

“That’s what the barback said. His boss said he left with a woman; the barback piped up and said a belligerent blonde he knew was making a scene and asking for him.”