Open Road Summer(74)

She flubbed the lyrics—something I’ve never seen her do, not even in rehearsals. Her face registers the mistake for only a moment. The Lilah stage presence drops and, for a split second, it’s just Dee and her horrified expression, magnified on the huge screens at either side of the stage. She self-corrects, but not before I know in my gut: this is my fault.

“Sunglasses, a country song, and a steering-wheel drummer, y’all, turn up the volume—it’s an open road summer.”

I press my face into my palms. It’s too much—sweaty and claustrophobic among all these people—and I push my way out. In the nearest restroom, I rest my back against a stall door until the sick feeling eases. The groups of girls come and go, and I wait until they leave to splash some cold water on my face, which looks as bad as I feel. If I had a Sharpie, I’d write it on the stall door myself: Reagan O’Neill is a bitch.

My guilt overrides my hurt feelings, and I know I need to apologize as soon as possible. Maybe Dee will be furious. Maybe she meant everything she said. Maybe I’ll be riding with Matt for the rest of the tour. But I have to try. Outside, the venue has mostly cleared out, and I’ve obviously been hiding in the restroom for longer than I thought. I rush upstairs to Dee’s dressing room, but she’s not there and neither is her bag. She must have boarded the bus already. I doubt I’m welcome on it.





Matt’s dressing room is at the other end of the hall, and I take long strides, trying to calm myself. I’ll ride with him and apologize to Dee when we get to Indianapolis, in person.

“Did he go downstairs already?” I ask the guard near Matt’s door.

The guard glances at my VIP pass and considers this. “Not yet.”

I pull the handle, and the moment the door swings open, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

No, no, no.

I was right, I knew I was right, but I can’t believe I was right. The world halts, suspending this scene for what feels like a lifetime.

This isn’t real—Corinne’s mouth pressed against Matt’s.

I go cold. It starts in my core but spreads quickly to my limbs, my feet, my fingertips. I assume this is because my heart has stopped beating. My feet back up, stuttering against the carpet, and Matt’s head jerks up at the sound of the door, caught. Of all the familiar impulses in my body—anger, jealousy, hurt—there is only one that prevails: run.

The door slams behind me as I take off down the hall. Reaching the elevator, I slap my palm against the Down button again and again and again, its plastic face red from my abuse. I don’t have time to wait. The venue only has two floors, and I’d rather jump off the building than face Matt head-on. I duck down the stairwell, just in time for Matt to rush out of his room.

He calls out to me, but I’m already charging down the stairs. My hands clutch the rail, straining to keep balance as my heels clack like typewriter keys against the concrete steps. It feels like my legs are moving automatically, bending beneath me using only momentum.

“Reagan!” Matt’s voice echoes from one flight above me. “Stop—please.”

These words are meaningless to me. They’re a foreign language spoken by a foreign person, someone I don’t know at all.

“Reagan, please just hear me out! It wasn’t what it looked like.”

Oh, the hell it wasn’t. How insulting, that he’d try to pretend like I didn’t see something that was right in front of my face. I keep moving, putting as much distance as I can between us. He’s undeterred; I can hear his footsteps quickening somewhere above me.

“She kissed me out of nowhere one second before you opened the door. . . . I didn’t even kiss her back; I would have pulled away if I’d had another second to react, and . . .”

He keeps talking, but the sound sizzles in my ears like static. I don’t care what he has to say about it. My feet fly faster and faster down the steps, to the rhythm of my only thought: I can’t believe I told him, I can’t believe I told him. I can’t believe I told him about Blake, about my mom, about everything. I might as well have drawn a target on my own back, handed him a knife, and turned around.

As I reach the last flight of stairs—so close to the ground floor now—I can hear Matt catching up with me. “Reagan, please, this is a horrible mistake. Please.”

Damn right, it’s a horrible mistake—my horrible mistake for trusting him. As I hit the bottom of the stairs, I nearly trip. Pressing my palm against the side wall, I pause to steady myself. The last thing I need is another broken bone, another souvenir from another betrayal. When I turn back, Matt is a few steps away from the ground floor, a few steps from being close enough to touch me.

“Don’t you dare come closer.” I point my finger at him in an attempt to look threatening, but my whole arm is shaking. “And don’t pretend like you actually care. I fell for your whole routine, so just go ahead and do your victory dance.”

He takes a gasping exhale, as if I’ve jammed my fist into his stomach. “That’s not fair.”

I throw my arms out. “You want to talk about fair? Screw you, Matt.”

Turning on my heels, I grab the door handle, but he calls out to me before I can open it. “Reagan, you have to believe me. It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Bullshit.” My heart is splitting like dry campfire wood, and I’m desperate to hurt him half as badly as he hurt me. “You know, I’m not even surprised. Mr. Celebrity thinks he can do whatever he wants with as many girls as he wants. Oh, don’t give me that kicked-puppy look. You surrendered any right to have feelings about me when you . . . when you . . .”