The Fall Up (The Fall Up, #1)(10)

Henry brushed the idea off. “Thanks, but I think I’m gonna spend the night. I’ll call Carter if I need a ride. You can go.”

Devon growled in frustration but finally relented. “Yeah. Okay, I’ll lock up.”

As Henry lowered me onto my bed, I heard the beeps of my alarm being set.

Lifting my feet, he pulled off my heels.

“Slumber party?” I asked sleepily.

He chuckled, collapsing into bed next me. “It’s a shame you don’t have a dick. Because, for as much as I put up with from you, I should at least be getting laid tonight.”

I laughed, scooting into his side, all of my earlier anger muted by sheer exhaustion.

He let out a sigh as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“I’m worried about you,” he whispered.

I didn’t reply.

I was starting to worry too.

“You’re overdoing it, Lev. I know this job isn’t exactly nine-to-five, but it’s not twenty-four-seven, either. You have to stop being Levee Williams all the time and just be you.”

“I know,” I responded.

I didn’t though. I felt like a robot parading around in a lost woman’s body.

Smile.

Pose.

Turn.

Toss in the occasional song.

Repeat.

What little time I did manage to carve out for myself was spent at various children’s hospitals across the country.

Smile.

Pose.

Turn.

Watch a child die.

Repeat.

With every day that passed, the smile became less and less genuine, the pose more and more forced, and the turn took me further and further away from who I really was.

My career was soaring while, personally, I was plummeting. Every single day felt like a terrifying free fall in no particular direction. I was stuck in the middle with no way up—or down.

“You remember that girl, right?” Henry asked, tucking a hair behind my ear.

I nodded.

I did remember her. She was fun and carefree. She loved going out and dancing at nightclubs until the very last song played. She slept until noon if she could. Then, fueled by coffee alone, she’d spend the day with a guitar strapped around her neck and a notepad at her side. She had a huge heart, but she knew her limitations.

Oh, I remembered that girl. I just couldn’t figure out how to get back to her.

“You have one more show here tomorrow night. Then one in LA next week. After that, cancel New York. Stay here and rest up,” he urged.

I suddenly sat up. “I can’t cancel!”

“Yes, you can. It’s a stupid award show. I’ll accept whatever you win on your behalf.”

“I’m supposed to perform.” I sighed, flopping back down.

I couldn’t say that his idea didn’t sound appealing. Without New York, I’d have two glorious weeks off.

Which would leave me a full fourteen days to sit in a children’s hospital. My gut wrenched at the idea.

“You need a break, Lev. It’s not a concert. I’m not suggesting you let down thousands of paying fans. It’s one song…at an award show. You’ll be missed, but they’ll find someone to fill your spot. I swear.”

Not wanting to continue the conversation any longer, I simply nodded in agreement. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. After that night’s little fainting episode, I couldn’t argue that I needed a break. My mind and conscience just wouldn’t allow me to take one.

“Get some sleep, Levee.” He kissed the top of my head.

I lay there for several minutes as Henry’s breathing evened out. From my position on the bed, I could make out the dancing lights of the San Francisco skyline outside my balcony doors. I’d bought the house for that view, but as I stared at the bridge in the distance, my mind drifted to a completely different view altogether.

One of the tattooed variety.





I WENT THROUGH both packs of cigarettes I’d brought to the bridge with me that night, but six hours of pacing later, my Designer Shoes still hadn’t showed. To say it scared the shit out of me was an understatement. I was a swinging pendulum of emotions as I walked that side of the bridge more times than any smoker should be allowed. On one extreme, I was freaking the f*ck out that maybe she’d actually jumped at some point before I’d gotten there, but on the other end, I was celebrating the fact that she had found other ways to cope with her issues and didn’t need to go up there anymore. In between those two polar-opposite options, I chastised myself for being such a mental case, freaking out over a woman I hardly knew.

Then her smile would pop into my mind and sling me right back into a panicked state again.

By the time I left, the sun was peeking over the horizon and a slew of what-ifs were running rampant through my mind. None of which were good, and all of which ended with Anne.

I was a disaster.

With exactly zero hours of sleep under my belt, I started the next morning in the shittiest of shit moods.

And that was only the beginning of it.

“What do you want?” I greeted my visitor around a mouth full of apple as I opened my front door.

“Are you avoiding me?” Lexi asked, sliding past me.

“Well, come on in.”

I didn’t linger in the doorway. If Lexi was showing up at my door, she had something to say, and knowing her, she wouldn’t be letting it go until she said it—probably multiple times.