Exit Wound by Alexandra Moore Page B

inside, I was still crying into the void.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    The tour was coming to an end, and I was remembering little things we did together when the band was still whole. Like playing Twister on the moving bus as we left Tennessee, shopping in a mall in Minnesota and eventually running away from rabid fans, and watching Rian and Grayson make Vines together that often involved makeup, wigs, and silly sunglasses. My memories were slowly fading, and as the days passed, I wondered if it was possible to make any more memories that didn’t have Everett somewhere in them.
    It was late when I had gone to bed last night, and I was hoping to at least get an extra hour of sleep.
    Much earlier than I had hoped, I felt a nudge.
    “Bea, we’re here,” Ben whispered to me. I woke up and then remembered I wasn’t in my bunk. I had fallen asleep in the back room with Ben, and I didn’t even care. We were cuddling, which for most siblings would be weird—though for us, it was second nature. I detached myself from him and sat up, running my fingers through my hair. I needed to run a comb through it or use some detangling spray. The knots in my hair were to die for, and not in a good way.
    “Where are we, again?” I asked him.
    It was quiet in the bus, and I wondered if we were the only ones up.
    “We’re in Arkansas. We’ll be headed to Little Rock in an hour. You should go shower before everyone else wakes up.”
    I nodded and did as he’d asked me to do. It was nice of him to offer me the shower first and to wake me up when he did. That way, everyone else could sleep in, and I could take advantage of the shower and all of its mobile glory. Of course, this was before I saw the time. It was four in the morning, and I couldn’t believe that I was even awake this early.
    I showered and used the last of my detangler in my hair, and then I dried off and went to get dressed. Since I thought everyone was still asleep, I went into the bunker area in my bra and underwear to grab clean clothes. I had grabbed a shirt when I heard a whistle, so I rushed to cover myself and saw Rian poking his head out of his bunk.
    “Rian, what are you doing up?” I asked harshly.
    “I heard someone in the shower, and it made me need to pee.”
    He got out of his bunk shirtless and clad in boxers. He slid right past me, our bare skin brushing against one another’s for just a brief moment. Rian had the tendency to cross many lines and break every rule; sometimes, I often thought that if I wasn’t his bandmate’s little sister, he would treat me as a groupie. He treated every pretty girl he saw like a groupie.
    After I pulled my shirt over my head and put my hair up in a bun, I slid on a pair of pants. Buttoned and zipped up, I was in the clear; no one else was going to see my pink polka dot bra and matching undies. When Rian was done with the bathroom, I managed to squeeze back in to do my makeup, and when I was done, everyone was waking up and wanting their bathroom privileges.
    One of the times Everett and I were left on the bus alone, I had come out of the bathroom right as he was passing by, and we had collided into one another and collapsed onto the floor on top of each other. We laughed and stared into each other’s eyes the way lovers do, and I wished I had known then what I know now. It wasn’t love; it was affection. A really strong form of affection. I wish I knew what love was and that maybe he could have stuck around long enough to show me. I’m eighteen, though; I have plenty of time to fall in and out of love with people. I didn’t know if it was worth the risk.
    When everyone was ready, we all decided to get breakfast at a drivethru. Unfortunately, our bus didn’t make the clearance mark for the drivethru canopy, so we had to pile ourselves inside and order from the front counter. It wasn’t normally such a big deal, but with all the cameras following us around and our now easily