ONE

TESSA

“I think you’re making a mistake.” My best friend Lilah states while nervously twisting her dark brown hair around her finger.

I stare at her in disbelief. A mistake. Really? It’s been years. He’s had plenty of chances to make this relationship official. If he was serious about me, if he really cared, surely he would have done something about it by now. But that is the thing about Tyler. He's as carefree and laid back as they come. It’s one of his best qualities and his worst. He doesn’t take anything seriously, except his music and his band mates. I take that back. He takes his Groupies pretty seriously too. Sure looked like he was serious about that half naked blonde gyrating on his lap last night. My stomach lurches and my blue eyes roll reflexively just thinking about it.

“Tessa, can you hear me? I think that somethings wrong with the connection.” I look back at the small screen to see Delilah poking around on her laptop trying to fix the call and realize it’s probably because I still haven’t responded. “Tess can you hear me now?”

Yeah, I hear you. “Yup.” I reply. I just have zero fucks left to give. I glance around the terminal and find a spot to sit where I can people watch while I wait for my flight.

“Come back. You’re my best friend and the best tour manager around. I can’t do this without you. I’ll be so outnumbered with all these boys. I miss you already.” And this is why I didn’t leave years ago. We're a team. Sisters. Best friends since preschool. Joining the tour as their tour manager and traveling the world with my best friends has been epic and life changing, but all good things come to an end.

“You know I'll miss you too. I just need some time away. I can’t be around him anymore. It hurts too much.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. “Did you see the London Times this morning? He’s on the front page Delilah. AGAIN! Where’d he even find that girl? How’d he even have time? He was literally with me half an hour before these were taken. How does he even have the stamina?” Seriously. He was plenty satisfied when I left him and still managed to land himself on the cover of a magazine with some random girl plastered to him like an octopus.

Her face falls and I know she saw exactly what I’m talking about. “Maybe it's not what it looks like. We both know how deceiving tabloids can be.” She’s obviously referring to the chaos tabloids caused in her love life a few years ago, but that was different. Liam fought for her. Tyler will barely commit to lunch with me. I thought by now he’d want to at least be my boyfriend. Dancing around the whole friends with benefits situation we’ve had going on since we were 16 is killing me slowly. Every time I see him with another girl I’m tore up with jealousy. It’s exhausting and constantly leave me feeling like I’m not enough.

“I need a break. From all of it.” I have a plan and it involves being very, very far away from him. I’ll head to the city and start over where no one knows me. I’m so tired of waiting for him to figure out what he wants. Rockstar or not. We’re not 16 years old anymore. It's time to grow up. Who knows maybe my leaving will finally make him realize what we could have if he wasn’t such a giant asshat.

I have plenty of money saved from touring with Delilah and the guys for the past three years. Three years of my life spent waiting for Tyler to tell me how he really feels. Three years of pretending that being friends with benefits was enough. If he hasn’t figured it out by now, I’m not sure he’s ever going to. Or maybe he has figured it out and I’m just not good enough. That would explain the revolving door of groupies every single night. Maybe he’s been sending me a subtle message with each new hookup that he just doesn’t see us going anywhere.

Delilah clears her throat and wipes beneath her eyes. “I really am going to miss you like crazy.”

“I know. I’ll call you all the time. You’ll barely know I’m gone. I need to do this for myself though. I can’t get over him if I have to see his stupid handsome face every single day.” Not that I won’t still see it plastered all over the news and billboards and magazines. Ugh. Remind me to never date someone famous ever again.

“He’s going to lose his shit when he realizes that you’ve left.” She purses her lips and nods her head matter of factly, barely stifling a chuckle. "I hope I'm there to see it."

“I doubt that. He’d have to take his head out of his ass first.” I laugh to myself at that image. “I bet he doesn’t even realize I’m gone until he can’t find his lucky sticks for tomorrow’s show.”

She gasps. “Tell me you didn’t hide them. You’re so bad. He’s going to flip.”

I laugh. “Well, when he freaks out, they are in the bottom zipper compartment of his black backpack on the bus.”

She chuckles to herself. “I’ll be sure to let him know after I catch his meltdown on video for you. I have to go. Love you!”

“You too.” I click off the screen and decide to check out the tabloids while I’m waiting for my connecting flight. I'm sure I won't like what I see, but I can't help myself. Clearly I'm a glutton for punishment. I’ve already been gone for 8 hours and I haven’t heard a word from him yet. If the tabloid covers are true he’s probably just waking up with his latest conquest. Sure enough, he's on the cover with some red head sucking his face. Does he have no shame? Now that I think about it, maybe I should block his number just in case. I haven’t decided. If he actually cared he’d surely have realized by now that I’m gone. There’s not a single message from him since I left.

I click on his contact and hit the block button. It's time to get my priorities straight. It seems he already has his, and it's painfully obvious that I'm not one of them.