Losing Track (Living Heartwood #2)(71)

Dar and I checked out Manhattan once, to say we did. The memory is bittersweet. We stayed a couple of days in the worst hotel, this totally shoddy, dirty, little room. But we made it work. We always made it work.

Nodding to the checkout clerk, I head to the back of the gas station. I barricade myself in the tiny bathroom, my heart palpitating out of control. Throwing the lock, I press my back against the door. Breathe in, breathe out.

I can’t go a minute without thinking of her. And it’s becoming paralyzing. I don’t understand why I’m falling apart now—why not when she first died? Fuck it; I was in shock. It’s taken this long to finally hit, and hit like a mallet.

Somehow, maybe, I have to stop seeking that elusive inner strength from her. Maybe I have to find it within myself. That’s what this solo mission is about. As long as I had her to follow my lead, I was strong, in control, brave. I feared nothing and no one.

But in reality, she was my crutch. I’ve discovered I have a few of them. I depended on Dar to need me. As long as she did, I had a plan. Never more than our next stop, or the next score. I never planned anything long-term, but I could be strong enough for the both of us when it came down to it.

Staring in the grimy mirror, I want to punch the girl looking back at me. Just reach right through the glass and strangle her. How could I fail the one person who counted on me the most?

How could I not change the chain reaction before Darla’s domino toppled over?

Simple.

Because really, truly, honestly…when it’s all said and done, I don’t have the discipline that Boone does to find a new way of life. I only know one way; mine. Only it’s no longer working.

With that gloomy thought, I leave the bathroom, buy a pack of cigarettes, and take off toward the one safe haven where I can crash and burn.



Someone’s checking me out through the peephole. Then the door swings wide open.

“Holy shit!” Sam’s arms surround me, pulling me to her petite body (she’s smaller than me, if possible) in a tight embrace that nearly crushes the breath from my lungs.

I return the hug, inhaling her lavender scented shampoo mixed with the smell of paint thinner and some other acrylic paint smell. When she pulls away, she blinks to clear the fresh tears in her eyes, and I roll mine. Really, to prevent myself from tearing up also. But she doesn’t need to know that.

“Surprise,” I say, fanning my hands around like I just poofed into existence.

“No shit, surprise. What are you doing here?”

I give a partial shrug. “Um, visiting you.”

She laughs and shakes her head, her dark hair with strategically streaked blue bangs falls across her forehead. Then she smacks her hand right over it. “Oh, right, come in! Oh, my God, I can’t believe you’re here, Mel.” She waves me into her apartment, and before I’m even fully through the doorway, she turns and says, “Where’s Darla?”

The question hits me like a direct punch to the gut. The little air left in my lungs after her hug completely depletes. I suck in a much needed full breath and don’t hold back. “Sam, I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you before…but Darla—she died.”

Sam goes sheet white. The blood drains from her flushed cheeks. Her thin mouth opens, closes, and opens again, seeking words I know she can’t find. Somehow, she manages. “Sorry? Mel, what…why?” She shakes her head again. “Jesus. What happened? Are you okay?”

I shrug off my pack and let it land on the hardwood floor. I haven’t even gotten the chance to look around, but as I seek the best way to spill everything to her, I take a quick glance. Paintings everywhere. Of her and Holden, of their trip—the one where they worked things out and somehow found each other again. It’s all documented in colorful paint along the brick walls, telling their story.

And featured on one canvas, a painting of me and Dar. I can’t f*cking believe it. I smile and head straight toward the canvas. “Is this the Bitchfits show?” I ask, reaching out to touch it, but then think better. Not knowing if her paints are sensitive to skin oils or some shit. I heard that somewhere.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice too soft, fragile. “We had such an awesome time, I couldn’t not paint it.”

“You captured her perfectly.” Darla’s standing beside me on the railing, all three of us with our hands raised in the air, our fingers formed in devil horns. Her frosty blue eyes blaze through the darkness of the painting, clear and capturing the scene, aware. Alive.

I wrap my arms around my tightening chest and face Sam. “It’s beautiful. You have some mad talent, girl.”

Sam doesn’t respond. She marches over to me and links her arms around me once more, and before I can even process it, I’m breaking down into sobs. No words. No explanations. Just acceptance.

I cry until the pain consumes, becoming a living, separate entity that devours me, until it’s all there’s left to feel.



Sam sets a cup of coffee in front of me on the small, rickety table. Her place is great; college kid chic. Cheap furniture and some just scooped right off the street corner. Holden’s engine parts—headers, gaskets, carburetors—turned into art along the walls. A mixed array of artsy and modernism turned Rom Com.

This place is so them.

I’ve somehow managed to get the whole story across to Sam without making any accusations against Boone. Well, I might have called him a sobriety peddler at one point—but that was early on in the story. I’m allowed a slight poke at him on occasion. It keeps me…me. Real.