Which was another reason why I was torturing myself with that song, that dance—a song I picked to a dance I put together to say things to Axl Pantera I wished I could in real life say because I knew he was going to be there.

And I was thinking all this, listening to that song, because if I thought about what I should be doing right then in order to get where I should be going that night, I’d break down, blubber like a child and probably get into an accident.

So yeah.

There it all was laid out, messy and unfun.

My life.

I had an abusive father that I, as a twenty-six-year-old woman, kept going back to and enduring his abuse.

I had Axl, a handsome man who’d asked me out, I’d turned him down, he started seeing someone else, but in the interim he saw me have a mini-breakdown, so then he tried to befriend me, which was worse than him just moving on to some other chick.

And I had a pack of friends I was avoiding because they all wanted me to go for that handsome man, even though now he had another woman, and he just wanted to be my friend. A pack of friends it had long since stopped being semi-kinda-rude (but understandable, considering how embarrassing the event was that started it) to constantly blow off and avoid them and now it was just ugly.

And that night was Lottie’s pre-bachelorette-boards-at-Elvira’s party, and Lottie, Ryn, Evie, Pepper and Elvira had all texted me to tell me they wanted me to come. And I didn’t even know Elvira. I just knew she worked with the guys (that being Axl’s guys, or more to the point, Hawk’s guys (since Hawk was their boss): Mag, Boone, Auggie and Mo).

I’d heard Elvira’s charcuterie boards were everything.

But no.

Nope.

Not me.

I wasn’t there, enjoying life and being with my friends.

Instead, I did what I had to do to make certain my father lived another night. I tortured myself with a cool song that was a stark plea to take a chance with your heart. And I was going to go home, and I didn’t know, binge I Am a Killer or something on Netflix, while all my friends were beginning celebrations to herald in one of the happiest times in life.

What was the matter with me?

I should go to the studio.

I should get some work done.

But that wasn’t helping like it used to.

Because if I didn’t have the guts to tell my father to take care of his own damned self…

And if I didn’t have the courage to say yes to a handsome guy when he asked me out, further not having the backbone to accept him as a friend when he gave up on me…