Page 89 of Rescue

Chapter Sixteen

Haylee

I don’t really know how I manage to get through sound check. It’s the last show of the tour. In two more days we’re all going back to the States. When I try to imagine how things will be then, I draw a blank. I assumed that Lennon and I would figure it out together—where we’d be, what we’d do. The one thing I never wondered about is whether or not we’d be together. That, at least, seemed to be a given.

But now… the truth is, I’m terrified. Lennon is going through something I can’t understand. And he’s not letting me in. I know he didn’t sleep at all the night we returned from France. He’s not talking to me, not talking to anyone as far as I can see. And his eyes, those beautiful, expressive eyes that I always thought were so familiar—they’re closed off to me. Like shutters pulled tight over windows during a storm. He’s here with us in London, doing promo, eating meals at my side, talking to his brothers, rehearsing. But he’s absent. And it scares the hell out of me.

I don’t know if the rest of them can tell. In the two days after our impromptu trip to France, I’ve been watching his brothers and Levi, watching Daisy and Paige, even watching his dad, trying to figure out what they see when they look at him. Are they worried? They watch him a lot, eyes constantly flicking in his direction at every meal, trying not to be obvious about it. But have they always been like that? Knowing what I know now, about what happened in August, I realize what he meant when he told me they were overprotective and suffocating. They’ve been scared for him. They’re scared still.

But are they as scared as they should be?

He made me promise not to tell them where we went. I expected everyone to be pissed about our unexplained trip until I realized that we were only gone for a day. We didn’t even spend the night in France. But it felt like we were there for days, not mere hours.

“You doing okay?” James asks me as we finish our sound check.

I can’t muster the energy to lie to him. “It’s been a rough few days.”

His eyebrows come down. “I knew this was going to happen.” I bristle, sure that I’ll lose it if he criticizes my relationship with Lennon right now. I’m surprised when he continues. “I told Louis that we needed to cool it with all the media requests after the concert went so well. I knew you weren’t ready for that kind of exposure.”

He thought I was having a rough time with the increase in fan and media attention. Funny, I haven’t spared a single moment of concern over that. “No, it’s been fine. The attention stuff, it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Before I can answer, Ransom comes out of their dressing room on their way to the stage for their own sound check. My gaze immediately goes to Lennon, all thoughts of my conversation with James flying from my head. How does he look this afternoon? Has he slept at all? Is that terrible bleakness still in his eyes?

“Give me a minute,” I say to James after we exchange pleasantries with the band. I grab Lennon’s arm and pull him a few feet away from his brothers as they continue down the hall.

“Hey.” I link my fingers through his. He mimics the action automatically, and I squeeze his hand. “How’s it going?”

For a moment I think he’s going to brush me off, give me the standard “I’m fine” that I’ve heard him throw at his brothers whenever they ask this question. Instead he closes his eyes, letting his forehead drop down to mine. “I’m exhausted.”

“I know,” I whisper, bringing my hands up into his hair. “You haven’t slept since we’ve been back.”

He laughs, a bitter, tired sound. “I wasn’t sleeping before that, either.”

I remember what Daisy said, and worry shoots through me again. “We should talk to your dad, Lennon. Or Levi.”

“I know. But I just…” He lifts his head and opens his eyes, his fingers coming up to play idly with a strand of my hair. “I just want to get through this show, you know? Get the tour behind us so I can concentrate on… whatever the hell is going on right now.”

“I still think they should know.”

He sighs. “Haylee, when I tell them that I went to see our mother… it’s not going to be good. I don’t think you understand quite how angry they are at her.” I picture his face on that awful day in the bright little living room in Giverny, his voice ragged and furious. I wonder if he understands how angryheis. “I don’t want to do that to them when we still have another day of work, you know?”

“So you’ll just suffer through it alone?”

He gives me a ghost of a smile. “I’m not alone. I have you.”

But you’re not letting me in either, I think.I can’t read your eyes anymore, Lennon.

“I should get going,” he says, nodding toward the door to the greenroom.

“When this show is over, you’re going to tell them? You promise?”

He nods. “I promise.”

“And you’ll let me be there for you when you do?”

He blinks, apparently surprised. “Why wouldn’t you be there?”