The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(26)

My eyes widened. “Oh, shit. You sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything.” She waved a hand. “It’s fine. If it’s true, I’ll deal with it. I’ll apply for scholarships and make the best of it.”

“Don’t try to gloss over it, Vi. It’s a big fucking deal. To go from home-free to two hundred K in debt? More, since you’re going to be a surgeon. Be mad if you’re mad.”

“I can’t be mad at them for that,” she said. “That feels tacky and what good does it do? I said I’ll apply for loans—”

“You’ll have to apply for every loan under the sun to cover med school, but the low-interest kind are for poor schlubs like me.”

“You’re not helping, Miller,” she said, tears building in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t even know if it’s true, so no point in dwelling on it.”

I bit my tongue. Violet faced everything with hope and a smile and even more hard work. I admired that about her. Hell, I envied it. But it made the desire to protect her from anything that would hurt her even stronger.

I’ll pay for her college. Every damn penny.

After a moment, she asked brightly, “Have you thought about what you’ll do after you graduate?”

I shrugged as if I hadn’t been thinking of exactly what I’d do after high school. “I’m going to get the hell out of here and make my music.”

Her smile faltered the way it always did when I mentioned leaving Santa Cruz. “You realize you have to play for actual people before you can make it as a musician?”

“I will. When I feel like it.”

“How does this Saturday sound? Chance Blaylock’s party?”

I set down my food and gave her a look. “You want me to be the douchebag asshat who brings his guitar to a party he’s not technically invited to? Solid plan.”

She laughed and nudged my knee. “Shut up. People will flip their shit to hear you. You’re a diamond in the rough! They’ll never see you coming!”

I grinned, took a pull from my water. “Uh huh. Next, you’ll suggest I wear a fedora and announce my presence with a loud, pretentious cover of ‘Wonderwall.’ That should solidify my stellar reputation.”

Vi’s laughter rose and then her voice turned soft. “If you let them hear you play…if they hear your voice, they’ll love you. How could they not?”

I don’t know, Vi. Why don’t you tell me?

I stiffened with sudden bitterness and looked away. “I don’t owe them anything.”

Violet started to protest, but the bell rang, ending lunch. Students began pouring out of the cafeteria area.

She got up and brushed the grass off her butt. “Walk with me to class?”

“You go head,” I said. “I gotta finish my food or else my CGM will go off in Calculus.”

“Okay. And I know you hate this stuff, but promise me you’ll at least think about coming to the party? Even if you don’t play, I want you to be there.”

No chance.

“I’ll think about it.”

She beamed. “Great. See you later. Or tonight? Are you coming over?”

No chance of that either.

“I have to work tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.” She smiled faintly. Sadly. “Well…don’t be a stranger.”

“Nope.”

She walked away, almost reluctantly. I wanted to follow her. I wanted to spend every fucking second of my day with her. But after last night, everything changed. The hopelessness of us…

It’s already too hard.





The next few days of the new school year were blessedly uneventful. So far. I’d gotten into fights at least once a month since middle school. The rumors and whispers had been waiting for me when I got out of the hospital.

Frankie Dowd and his gang of assholes had been waiting for me.

Violet felt terrible that everyone knew I’d been living in a car. “But what was the alternative?” she’d said. “Let you die in my arms?”

That didn’t seem so terrible to me.

The first time I came home with a split lip and swollen eye, Mom looked up from watching TV on her short break between her job at the dry cleaners and her job at the 24-hour diner up the street and then went back to the TV again.

“Fight back, Miller. Fight back, or I don’t want to hear about it again.”

So, I fought back, even though I risked smashing my fingers and losing the dexterity I needed to play the guitar—my ticket out of this shit life.

A life that had, thanks to Chet fucking Hyland, just gotten shittier.

As I feared, he’d become a permanent fixture on our couch and in Mom’s bed; I had to sleep with a pillow crammed over my head to block out the squeaking bedsprings.

Worse, Mom seemed to have ditched her second job to hang out with Chet, who was a drain on our already delicate household economy and contributed nothing. Despite his promise, he didn’t stop pilfering from my meal plan, and Mom seemed helpless about how to replace it all. Beer became the top import in our apartment, with cigarettes a close second.

“How long’s he going to be here?” I whispered to Mom on the morning of the fourth day of school. I’d snuck into her room as she got ready for her dry-cleaning job while Chet watched The Price is Right in the living room.