21
Tessa floated in the darkness, her head swimming with disjointed thoughts. She remembered that there was something she needed to do. Something important. Something she needed to tell someone… But what? Her mind wasn’t working properly. From somewhere far away, she could hear a voice, but she couldn’t understand what it was saying.
“Tessa…”
Her head began to throb. She moaned low in her throat.
“Tessa, can you hear me?”
Who was that? Why wouldn’t he let her sleep? Her limbs felt like she’d been weighted down with rocks. Like she was sinking. Slowly. Down, down, down through the depths of a bottomless ocean. So deep that she might never return to the surface. The weight of the water so heavy that it took a monumental effort to draw a single breath. But the weight felt strangely comforting, even as it crushed her. It would be so easy to let go. Stop breathing. Stop trying. Stop fighting and be at peace…
But she could hear his voice, calling her back.
Eric. That was Eric’s voice. The pressure of Eric’s palm squeezing her hand.
“Tessa, please wake up. Please. Please don’t go…”
There was something else desperately important. Something she needed to tell him.
• • •
Eric sat at Tessa’s bedside and stared into her face. She looked so peaceful. It was hard to believe that she was fighting for her life. He willed her to show some sign that she could hear him.
The nurses had removed the network of wires that had cocooned her last night. No more tube down her throat. She still had an IV poking out of her arm, but she looked fully human again. They’d filled her stomach with charcoal to soak up most of the drug before it hit her bloodstream. The doctor had seemed pleased when he’d emerged into the waiting room this morning.
“Vital signs look good… Kidney function intact…”
Eric had tuned most of it out until the doctor said the words that he’d been waiting for all night.
“You can see her now.”
He’d taken up his vigil at her bedside two hours ago. So far, she hadn’t responded. With each passing minute, Eric felt his worry grow. He spoke to her again, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep. “Tessa, I love you. Please open your eyes. That’s all you have to do. Just open your eyes.”
What if the doctor was wrong? What if they’d missed something? Eric couldn’t escape the thought that she might never answer him. She might stay like this, unconscious—or slip away for good.
He would never forgive himself if that happened. It was all his fault. Everything bad that had ever happened to her, he’d done to her himself. He’d put her in harm’s way, not once but twice. He led Blair to her doorstep through his carelessness last winter… And he’d left her vulnerable to an even more insidious predator this time around.
Maury. The worst kind of enemy. The kind that smiled like a friend.
How had he not seen it sooner? His manager had been double-dealing the whole time. It blew Eric’s mind when he thought of all the privacy lapses over the years. Pictures that mysteriously went viral…songs that popped up on SoundCloud before the official release…
Eric had always blamed the paparazzi and the fans, but he’d missed the truth staring him in the face. It was all Maury. The pictures in the Daily Mail were merely the latest example. His manager had acted like he supported Eric’s relationship with Tessa—but the whole time, he was secretly undermining them. Leaking pictures. Putting Tessa in the public eye. Playing on all her fears.
Eric saw the truth now. Maury wanted Tessa gone. Eric had finally found a girl he could trust, and his manager couldn’t stand it. Some girl who couldn’t be bought? Who had more influence over Eric than Maury himself? No way. He’d done everything in his power to drive Tessa away.
Eric jammed his hands in his armpits to stop them from shaking. The more he thought about it, the deeper the betrayal went. But was Maury really capable of murder?
Impossible.
And yet the evidence lay before his eyes. Tessa. So pale. So fragile. Barely hanging on to life by the slenderest of threads. Maury was the one who had put her in that hospital bed. And there was nothing Eric could do about it but sit here and whisper words that she probably couldn’t hear.
“Tessa, please. There’s so much I need to tell you. Please wake up so I can tell you.”
She was lucky to be alive. Once she swallowed the pills, it was a race against time to empty her stomach. If the paramedics had arrived five minutes later, it would have been too late.
Eric pressed his eyes closed and wiped a weary hand across his lids. He hadn’t slept at all last night. She had still been in the ER when he’d arrived. He’d only snatched a glimpse of her hooked up to all the machines before they whisked her out of sight. He’d sat in the waiting room for hours, with no news on her condition. It was midnight before he’d finally gotten some secondhand information. Tessa’s mother had flown in, and the doctors had addressed their updates to her. Eric hoped he’d done the right thing by notifying her. He wasn’t exactly sure where things stood between Tessa and her mother, but it didn’t matter anymore. It all seemed so trivial.
As if on cue, the door of the hospital room creaked open. Mrs. Hart shuffled in, carrying a cup of coffee and a box of Krispy Kremes. Eric studied her in silence. She looked like Tessa, with the same heart-shaped face and almond eyes, although Tessa didn’t have those bags beneath hers—or that sullen set to her mouth.
Then again, Eric thought, he probably didn’t look his best either after the hellish night he’d had.
Mrs. Hart set the doughnuts down with a thud, addressing him over her shoulder. “Why are you still here?”
Eric looked up, startled, and his long side-swept bangs fell in his eyes. He pushed them back behind his ear. “Tessa needs me.”
“She needs you like a hole in the head.” Mrs. Hart pointed a finger toward the door. “Go. You’ve done enough.”
Eric opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. He couldn’t argue. Tessa’s mother had a point. Tessa would still be safe at home in Texas, if @EricThornSucks had never tweeted his way into her life.
But he couldn’t abandon her now. He skidded his chair a half inch closer to Tessa’s bed. “Mrs. Hart, I just want to say… I want you to know that I care about your daughter. Very much. I’m so sorry this happened to her. This is all my fault.”
She turned away and went to the window, pulling open the blinds with a jerk. “You’re right. This is your fault.”
“I’m sorry.”
The window looked out over a parking lot, with the sun-drenched mansions of Beverly Hills rising in the distance. “She never should have been here. She wasn’t well. She needed treatment. I tried to get through to her. I tried to tell her…” She set down her coffee and buried her face in her hands.
Eric frowned. “No, she was doing better.”
“You call that better?” She lifted her eyes toward the bed. “She was off the rails. And you encouraged her! Social media consultant…” She shook her head. “I knew she spent too much time online, but it wasn’t an addiction until you people hired her.”
Eric’s mouth dropped open. Addiction? “Wait. Hold up a sec—”
Mrs. Hart rattled on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Internet addiction… I should have seen it sooner. It was bad enough when she stayed holed up in her room on Twitter all day long.”
“Because she was being stalked!”
“Is that what she told you?”
Eric rose halfway from his chair, leaning toward her. He didn’t know which misunderstanding to clear up first. “Mrs. Hart, don’t you know? She was being stalked the whole time.”
“Maybe that’s what she said, but you can’t take the word of an addict.”
“No!” Eric argued. “Listen to me. I saw him with my own eyes.” He gripped the arms of his chair and stared at her intently, waiting for her to return his gaze. “Blair is one hundred percent real. Tessa might have been too afraid to talk to you about it, but she’s not… Hell, she barely even goes near Twitter anymore! It makes her anxious. She has an anxiety disorder, not an Internet addiction.”
He could see from the tiny tic in her cheek that his words had come as a shock. Suddenly, the whole rift between Tessa and her mother made more sense. Tessa had never confided about Blair—or about her relationship with Eric either, apparently. No wonder her mother thought she needed that Chalet Santé place.
Hit Refresh…on your life.
Inpatient treatment in a technology-free setting.
It was a treatment program for Internet addiction!
Eric could almost laugh at the sheer absurdity. It was all a mix-up. A failure to communicate. It would all be cleared up once Tessa and her mother were talking again. Once Tessa woke up.
If Tessa woke up…
He looked down into her sleeping face and squeezed her hand for the hundredth time that day. “Come on, Tessa,” he whispered. “Please come back.”
• • •
Tessa could hear his voice more clearly now. Was he arguing with someone? He sounded so tired. Exhausted. His voice was all gravelly, the way it got when he spent too many hours in the studio.
“Come on, Tessa. Please come back.”
She heard the plea in his voice. Didn’t he have anyone here with him? He sounded scared. He needed somebody. Somebody to hold him. Somebody to tell him…
Tessa felt tears well up beneath her lids. One by one, they slid down through the fringe of her lashes and made their way across her cheeks. The tears formed two long streams, and she heard him gasp as his fingers brushed the wetness from her face.
“Tessa? Tessa, are you there?”
He gathered her into his arms. She felt herself pulled upright, her head limp against his shoulder.
And then she remembered.
Tessa knew what she needed to say to him. With a monumental effort, she pulled in a shuddering breath.
“Tessa,” he whispered. He pressed his lips against her lids, kissing away the dampness. “Tessa, open your eyes.”
She couldn’t find the strength to make her eyelids move, but she slowly raised her hand. She let it rest against his cheek, coarse with stubble and wet with tears. Her tears or his own?
He gripped the nape of her neck and turned her face toward his. Tessa blinked. Her vision was blurry. She could only see his eyes, ice blue but rimmed with red, as his forehead came to rest against hers. “Tessa,” he said softly. “Say something.”
She whispered her reply, barely louder than a breath, desperate to get the words out before she forgot them again.
“Eric, what happened to the baby?”