The question—and the way he asks it—melts anotheryer of ice deep inside me. It’s what I used to ask Jarrod when he let himself get too out of control and I had to try to reel him back in.

    “When we first got together, he stopped a lot of his not-so-savory habits. We were happy, and—for a while, anyway—he didn’t seem to need all that anymore. But then our careers started keeping us apart more and more and he started doing all that crap again.

    “He always told me I didn’t understand, and he was right. I just wanted to be with him, but he…he wanted to be with everyone and be at everything and go to every kickback in L.A. One with the universe, he used to say.”

    “One with the universe?” Sly looks skeptical. “How exactly does one go about doing that?”

    “Pretty much as you’d expect,” I answer. “A lot of alcohol, a lot of meditation, a lot of extreme sports and mind-expanding drugs. And, as it turns out, a lot of sex with a lot of people who weren’t me.”

    His eyes go wide. “Ouch.”

    “That’s one way of putting it,” I tell him. Because ouch barely scratches the surface.

    The trail gets wider, affording more room, but I keep my hand in Sly’s anyway. I like the way his fingers feelced with mine and how he rubs his index finger gently along the length of mine in a way that feels both familiar and brand new.

    The small, gentle touch grounds me in the here and now, and I smile gratefully at him. The story so far has been a literal walk in the park, but that’s all about to change.

    We pass a bench, and I think about sitting down for this part, but I’d never get it all out. Something about being able to admit something while moving keeps me walking forward, even though a part of me can’t help being dragged back to a past I’ve been running from for five long years.

    I want to say it’s the tourist flip-flopsbined with the rocky trails making me so ufortable, but I know better. Besides, the pinpricks of pain from the rocks that keep wedging themselves between my feet and the cheap rubber shoes is the only thing keeping me focused.

    “I knew about most of it. Not the sex, obviously—I found out about that when my manager told me about a rumor she’d run down as fact. But I knew about the rest. The meditation, I encouraged, at least until it led to a whole bunch of experimentation with mushrooms and ayahuasca and jimsonweed andter on—a bunch of other stuff he had horrible reactions to. The excessive drinking, I discouraged for so many reasons, including the fact that I had lost thest man I loved in a drunk driving ident that had nearly killed me as well.”

    “Hayden?” Sly asks quietly. His face is nk, his voicecking its usual warmth and inflection. I don’t know if that’s because he’s judging Jarrod or because he’s judging me.

    Either way, it makes me wary because Sly is a lot of things—light,ughter, kindness, warmth—but he’s never, ever nk. Seeing him like that now makes me wonder if I’ve already done what I set out to do.

    If I’ve already driven him away.

    The thought makes me hurt in a way I promised myself I never would again. Part of me wants to stop right here, to run away and forget this—forget Sly—ever happened.

    But I’m not a runner, and it’s toote to stop now anyway.

    “Yeah. He—” I break off, because now isn’t the time to get sidetracked by that story. One disaster at a time—that’s my motto. “Anyway, I knew there was a problem even before I found out about the other people. Toward the end, every time I came home, he would be acting stranger and stranger.”

    “Stranger how?” There’s a watchful look in Sly’s eyes now, and I tell myself it’s okay, he’s not judging me. Then again, he doesn’t have to, because even after all these years, I still judge myself.

    Every time I think about those days, I wonder if there was something else I could have done, something else I could have said, that might have actually gotten through to Jarrod. I’ve been through years of therapy, but I still hate myself for never figuring out how to suppo—

    I cut myself off before I can go there, repeating the mantra my therapist has told me a million times.

    Jarrod’s death is not my fault. I did note into this world to carry him through it.

    And it’s true. I exhale. I did everything I could for Jarrod. The choices he made were his own.

    “He went from taking careless risks to being t-out reckless. Free soloing dangerous cliffs without a rope. Jumping out of nes and then waiting almost too long before opening his parachute. And the drugs… It started with tropical vacations and ‘sacred ceremonies,’ but before long he was a regr user of too many to name. He imed they helped him write, but they also made him unpredictable and scary.

    “We’d be having dinner and I’d only figure out he took something when he started hallucinating. His hallucinations were almost never of the chill, mind-expanding kind he was chasing. They were terrifying and violent, and more than one trip ended with me newly injured.”

    “He hurt you?” Sly’s face is still nk, but now there’s a tension to him I can’t miss. “How?”

    “It was never on purpose. It’s not like he would get mad and hit me or something. When he wasn’t high, he was one of the most gentle men I’ve ever met. That’s why it was so hard to leave, because most of the time when he hurt me, he thought he was keeping me safe.

    “One time, he thought someone hade to kidnap me. He threw me to the ground to try to save me and identally mmed my head into the kitchen counter on the way down. I passed out, then woke up bleeding profusely several minutester while Jarrod watched, doing nothing to help.”

    “He did what?” The nkness disappears, and in its ce is a simmering fury that has Sly’s jaw clenching and his eyes turning a molten chocte brown. “Are you fucking serious? And nobody intervened? That’s horrific.”

    I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help being warmed by his anger. Of all the emotions the people around Jarrod felt while this was going on, none of them was anger—at least not on my behalf. To be fair to them, even I wasn’t angry then. I was devastated, terrified, and desperately lonely. The anger didn’te untilter—and by then, it was toote.

    “He wrote a bestselling song about the experience. ‘Your Love Rains Down On Me.’”

    I shrug, because as horrible as it is, I came to terms with it a long time ago. “After that, there was no reasoning with him. He had a song at number one for months. In his mind, whatever he was doing was working, and he didn’t want to hear otherwise. Not from me. Not from his manager or his agent. Not from his family or friends. We tried everything—interventions, rehab, therapy. Nothing worked.

    “After one of his stints in rehab, which thebel forced him into, Jarrod released a song that didn’t do as well as he’d hoped. One he wrote without the help of any drugs or alcohol. Its failure—and by failure, I mean it hit number five instead of number one on the Billboard charts—only served to convince him that these drugs and experiences were the only way he could truly ess his art. When I tried to convince him otherwise, he would scream that I was jealous and afraid he’d outgrow me.”

    My breath hitches in my throat, and Sly squeezes my hand. He doesn’t suggest that I stop this time, and I appreciate that. I can’t fight him and the memories all at once.

    “Things got worse after that. I tried to never be home when he was high, but it got to the point where that was impossible. And that meant that I got hurt—not every time or even close to every time. But twice I had to go to urgent care for stitches, and more than once I had to cover bruises with makeup.”

    “What—” Sly starts, but I interrupt him.

    “And I know I should have left the minute he decided his drugs and the art they helped him create were more important than my safety. But when he was sober, he was still the amazing guy I had fallen in love with when I was neen years old. That doesn’t make it okay—I know that. But I just kept telling myself I’d eventually find the key to get him to stop using and then things would go back to normal, whatever that was. And also, I was the only person who could help regte him, keep him somewhat steady. Everyone—his family, his managers, me—was afraid of what would happen if I actually left.”

    “What about you?” Sly asks, his voice low and gruff. “Did no one wonder what the fuck would happen to you if you stayed?”

    “He was a genius, making important music that changed the world. I was just a pop star. Of the two of us, he was definitely more important.”

    “To whom?” Sly asks, and when our eyes meet, I can’t miss the shattered look in his. Like his heart is breaking for me. Because I don’t know how to feel about that, I focus on his question.

    “To everyone.”

    “That isn’t true,” Sly tells me. “People love you—”

    “No. People love to objectify me. They love to measure themselves against me and ce the weight of their expectations on my shoulders. No matter how bad or stressful their lives are, theye to my show, and they listen to great music and they dance it out, confident they’re never the most fucked-up person in the room. Because at the end of the night? They haven’t killed two men. And that would make anyone’s sins look small byparison. At least they aren’t the ck Widow of pop. At least they aren’t me.”

    Again, he looks like he wants to argue, but I know if I stop speaking now I’ll never finish. My stomach is churning, my head aching, and five years of therapy feel like they’re dripping down the drain with each word I say.

    “Don’t,” I tell him, pressing my fingers to his lips. “I’m okay with him being the legend who died too soon. I’m content to be the woman who drove him to his death.”

    “No one has to be okay with that!”

    “Yeah, well, I’m not no one.” But even as I say it, the memories rise up around me. They drag me down, drag me under, until it feels like I’m right back in that bedroom with my life shattering around me and no getaway car in sight.

    This is the part I’ve been dreading from the moment I started telling this story. This is the moment when my whole life crumbled.

    “You’re shaking,” Sly almost whispers. “We should get you somewhere warmer.”

    “I know this isn’t what you nned for this date,” I tell him. “But I want to finish this.”

    “The only thing I had nned for this date was getting to know you. And I want to hear whatever you want to tell me. I just don’t want you to have hypothermia by the time you’re done.”

    I shake my head. “I’m not cold. I’m just…”

    “Overwhelmed?” he supplies. “Exhausted?”

    “Sad,” I answer with a sigh. “But I want to get it out now. Who knows if I’ll work up the courage to do this again.”

    “Okay.” He nods, then squares his shoulders like he’s preparing for a long drive to the end zone. Maybe he is. God knows, it feels like I’ve been trying to make my way to the other side of this for centuries. “What do you need from me?”

    “You’re already doing it.” This time, I’m the one who takes his hands.

    I close my eyes, and for a second that one horrible nightes back to me in perfect detail. I feel the breeze from the open balcony door, hear the rain pattering against the windowpanes, taste the sweet raindrops against his skin.

    I think I always will.

    I take a deep breath and hold it for several seconds before blowing it back out. And then I tell Sly…everything.

    “Five years ago, I came home to L.A. from a quick Chicago trip only to hear from my manager that he had gotten another girl pregnant. He hadn’t even had the guts to tell me himself. I remember feeling angry… So fucking pissed and hurt and betrayed. And vited. He hadn’t even cared enough to wear a fucking condom when he was screwing around on me. I just…couldn’t believe it. Except, I also totally could.

    “I’d put up with everything he’d pulled, everything he’d done, and he’d cheated on me for what? A quick fuck?”

    The story is pouring out of me now, the words—and old emotions—barreling through me like a freight train. “I knew even before I got home what he was going to say. That it didn’t mean anything. That he was just following where his muse took him. That I was the only one he loved and nobody else mattered.

    “But when I got home to confront him, he was already high. He’d done a massive dose of something—part of histest quest for enlightenment—and I was done. With him, with the drugs, with the excuses everyone, including me, made about his unbelievably selfish behavior. I told him as much, but he wasn’t even cognizant enough to pay attention to the fact that I was leaving him.”

    My voice shakes nearly as much as the rest of me as I approach the climax of that awful, horrible night. “Instead, he dragged me along with him as he danced around the patio. He was so happy, because he’d just written the chorus to ‘the most brilliant song ever.’ He tried to show it to me, but at that point I had no interest in having anything to do with him. I just wanted to pack my stuff and get out.

    “But he cornered me by the edge of the pool, exining to me that monogamy was a limitation of our society. And that we shouldn’t let anything limit us. That we could do anything we wanted, be anything we wanted to be. And right then, what he wanted more than anything was to prove that I was the problem. Not him. Not the drugs that made him capable of ‘superhuman’ things. Me.

    “He could break all the rules and still win if I would just stop holding him back.” My voice threatens to break, but I keep it steady with sheer will alone. “To this day, I don’t know if I fell in the pool trying to get away from him or if he pushed me—or if it was a little bit of both.

    “All I know is we were both in the pool and he was tripping, seeing things in the water that weren’t there. He wanted me to see them, too, and when I couldn’t, he shoved me underwater and held me there. I kept trying to get up, to get a breath, but he’d just shove me back down, telling me to look. Asking if I could see.”

    I shudder now, my lungs constricting like they did that night when they were filling with water, when I was so sure I was going to die. “In the end, I got my head above water long enough to talk him down. I got him in the house so he wouldn’t hurt himself. And then I called his manager toe deal with him and I left.”

    “I’m sorry you went through that.” Sly’s voice is filled with so many things, I have trouble picking them all out—sorrow, concern, fear, even disgust—but that disgust doesn’t seem to be aimed at me, which is refreshing after the fallout of thest several years. “But I’m so d you’re okay.”

    But despite all those emotions roiling around in him, his eyes are steady on mine. Safe. Warm, like dawn slipping through the cracks of a tunnel that never seems to end.

    I think about all the things that happened after—wrestling Jarrod into the house because I wasn’t going to leave him in that damn pool to die. Calling his manager toe be with him because I couldn’t be. And then fleeing with nothing but the wet clothes on my back.

    I lean into Sly’s warmth and safety to get through thest bits, keep my eyes on his so I can get the final words out. “The next day, he called me about a hundred times, but I refused to pick up. After that, he sent me a recording of a new song he wrote for me.”

    “‘No More’?” Sly asks darkly.

    I nod. Because for once there’s no stage, no glitter, no spotlight. Just the truth and the man who refuses to look away from it.

    “I didn’t text him back. Four hourster, his manager went to take a shower. And Jarrod, high as a fucking kite, took one risk too many.”