He then moved away from me and walked back to his jeans, which in the drama, he’d dropped.

He tugged off the towel, dropped it to the floor and yanked the jeans on without underwear. He found a tee and tugged that on. Then he put on a pair of his running shoes.

After that, he started to walk out but stopped and turned back to me.

“And if you ever, fuckin’ ever, Lyla, go to Tom or Jess about me again, we will be so done, you won’t even be a fuckin’ memory.”

Then, after that, without a backward glance, he walked right out.

Lyla:

Outside Preacher saying those things to me, the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced in the whole of my life was calling my sister to ask her to buy me a plane ticket and then stealing cash out of the wallet Preacher left behind because I didn’t have any on me.

[Shoulders slide forward]

Strike that, I just didn’t have any.

I didn’t leave him a note.

I didn’t know what to say.

I flew to Indianapolis, and the next day, my aunt was up from Georgia.

She picked me up and she drove me back down south.

My family was having an expensive week, seeing as I’d barely driven away with my aunt when Sonia and Julia were off to the airport to fly to LA to get my stuff.

And I’ll note they got my stuff.

My high school yearbooks and the plastic talcum powder box Mom used to keep her jewelry in, pictures, scrapbooks.

The clothes, the shoes, the handbags, even stuff I came into the relationship with, they left behind.

They boxed it all up, posted it home and got back on a plane.

I was unsurprised that Preacher and the band finished out the tour.

Tommy wouldn’t allow it to happen any other way.

Los Angeles

Jesse:

I don’t think I gotta tell you, we were all freaked way the fuck out that Lyla was gone.

The band slid straight into a détente the minute we realized she’d vanished.

And I’ll tell you what, the minute Preach gave the slightest inkling he was open to a reconciliation, we all woulda been there.

The problem with that was, Preacher had no idea we were in a détente.

And if he did, he wouldn’t care.

Because he had other things on his mind, seeing as he was in hell.

Tommy told me later that when whatever went down between Preach and Lyla went down, and Preacher got back to his room, he had no clue she was gone.

She’d left all her stuff.

As in all her stuff.

Even her purse.

He thought she was off somewhere, cooling off after whatever went down.