“Up. She wanted to hike Cahuenga, so we did. It was … nice. Like the old days.”

“The thrill isn’t worth the fallout.”

“You say that like I don’t know.”

Kash huffed. “You didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

I shrugged. “It’s Wendy,” was all I said. Which, of course, meant yes.

That earned me a roll of his eyes. “You’re so predictable.”

Rather than argue, I ran a hand over my mouth. “You know how it was with her. I loved her—or who she was when she was lucid. And when she wasn’t…”

“You wanted to save her. Help her. I get it. But man, you are a glutton for punishment, getting back in bed with her.”

“It was the last time. She told me afterward she had a boyfriend.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” he said flatly.

“Don’t worry. Lesson learned and all that. At least she’s consistent.”

This time, his eye roll was accompanied by a snort.

A rumbling came from the hallway, the unmistakable thunder of someone running up the stairs.

“Dinner!” Laney called, the word trailing down the hall and up the next flight.

“Who knows?” Kash asked, hauling himself out of the bed. “Maybe Wendy’ll actually use whatever lives between her ears and stay away.”

“Let’s not press our luck,” I said on a tight laugh, following him out of our room, thinking of her.

Five years ago when I’d met Wendy, my orbit had shifted, centering around her. She had the energy of the sun, warm and bright. It was intoxicating, the vitality radiating from her, and I siphoned it off to fuel my own.

But that’s the thing about a star. Get too close, and you get burned.

Whatever I schemed, she was down for. Whatever I wanted to do, she was in. I thought I’d adventure through a lifetime with her. So when she hit lows, there I was, stable and steady, a lifeline in the storm.

She needed me. So I gave her everything, heart and soul.

I told myself it wasn’t her fault when she refused meds, dropped out of therapy. I blamed her parents for their neglect, their irresponsibility, for the lack of love she received. I wanted to save her from them. From herself. I wanted to give her the life she’d never known.

So I used my trust on our house in Santa Monica. Let her shop without constraint. The debts grew, and my trust dwindled. My odd jobs wouldn’t pay for Hermès purses anymore, wouldn’t fund the house. So we packed up, headed into the Valley where it was more affordable, and found an apartment in Reseda. My thought was that when things turned around, we could settle down there and raise kids, despite the fighting it had taken me to get her off the west side. And that fight seemed to bleed into everything. The good times quit outweighing the bad, her lows longer, harder. I thought we’d never make it when I found the Vicodin, when I uncovered her addiction—that fight was so intense I left the house when she started slinging plates at me like frisbees. When I came home, every ceramic in our kitchen had been reduced to rubble, the room a wreckage of porcelain bursts and nicks slashed in the walls.