Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
“It’s not a death wish,” she says, her voice small. “I want to feel them. They’re always too far away, and no matter how much they call for me, or come for me, I… I can’t ever connect with them. Not really. I’m like the fox that could never eat the grapes.”
“If you want connection, you have that intimately with another person. You don’t get it from masses of people all at once. A crowd can never give you what you’re looking for.”
“Neither can other people,” she mutters, more to herself than to me.
We are stuck in this contract, this relationship of obligation. We are playing our roles, and I have to admit that we are both playing them to the hilt. She is so concerned with rebelling against the limits set on her she doesn’t think. And I am so concerned with controlling her, I don’t think either. We’re puppets, and we’re playing roles we agreed to play when we signed our lives away. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
“Lyric,” I say. “I care about you very much.”
She looks at me. “But you’re angry at me.”
“Yes, I am. I’m angry because I care. Because it matters to me what happens to you. I watched you fall.”
“I know,” she sighs. “It was stupid. But the whole point of being a singer is to reach people. It’s not just to sing at them and make money. It’s to mean something to them, and to make them feel like they matter too.”
“Noble goals not achieved by collapsing a stage and breaking your leg.”
“Yeah. I know I fucked up. You don’t have to keep telling me. I get it. I’m a product. And I’m…”
“Lyric,” I say sternly. “Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself.”
“My leg hurts,” she whimpers.
“I bet it does.”
I want to comfort her, but I can’t touch her without risking moving her, not more than reaching out and patting her head, which I do, but which does not feel much like comfort at all.
“Sources say bad girl starlet Lyric Walker has been remanded into the care of a physician after breaking a leg at the much awaited and several times delayed concert. Is Lyric Walker the most controversial starlet of all time?”
“Can you turn that off?” she sighs.
I suppose I can. It’s not as though I do not know what is going on with her. She is directly in front of me, after all.
“Prepare for docking,” the captain announces over the intercom. “We have arrived at Metropolis. Medical transport is standing by to conduct the passenger.”
“Alright. Here we go.”
“I’m scared.” She grabs my hand with hers, and her fingers are just so small and her voice is shaking. I cannot stay angry at her. It’s not mentally or physically possible to do so. I am a protector, and she is my ward.
“You are safe,” I tell her. “No harm will come to you. I will be by your side throughout, as I have been since we first met.”
I intend my words to be comforting, but they make her immediately burst into tears.
“You’re so nice to me,” she wails. “And I don’t deserve it, not even a little bit. I make your job so hard, and I get hurt just trying to fuck with you.”
“I know, but for now all that matters is helping you get well again. I’m here, Lyric. I’m always going to be here.”
At this point, she is sobbing and white uniformed medics are entering the room, ready to move her to a stretcher. Everything is happening professionally and properly. She’s in the best of hands. She’s also in the worst of clutches.
Lyric
I have fucked up big time. I have fucked up bigger than I thought it was possible for me to fuck up. The memory of falling keeps playing through my head. The sound the stage made as it fell, and the sounds of the people it fell on. I know I will not be the only one going into surgery now. I’ve hurt the people I claim to care about most, and I did it for the pettiest, brattiest reason possible.
I am ashamed. Deeply ashamed. And I am scared, because I know I don’t deserve to be okay. I definitely don’t deserve to have Zayne beside me. It almost felt a little better when he said he was mad. He should be mad. I’m mad.
He walks beside my stretcher, his tail arching out around me, laying over me like a comforting fifth prehensile limb.
Someone gives me something. I feel the prick and I slide gratefully into the warmth of sedation. It’s all going to be okay. It has to be okay.
When I wake, I hurt. A cry rises involuntarily from my lips as I wallow in the sudden curse of consciousness. The amnesia of surgery does not last as long as I’d like. I can’t remember the details, but the guilt comes immediately and swiftly, wrapping itself around me and sliding down my throat.