Over the Hills and Far Away (NOLA's Own #1) (4 page)

“It’s probably too much sunlight,” I said.

She nodded and chugged some water.

I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on up on the stage as equipment was being swapped out for the next band. But then
, he
came out.

My first thought was,
Holy shit, he’s huge!

My second thought was,
Hot damn, he’s beautiful!

Then, he opened his mouth, and I didn’t really think at all after that.

I fell in love, and I fell
hard.
I had never heard a voice so deep and powerful. The way he screamed and roared was pure audio magic. It messed with my head and made my insides feel like rich molten goodness. It made me feel…safe. It filled me with a courageous sense of strength and power, and I knew that it was all him, his own raw energy.

He was fearless, comfortable with himself and in his own body. He was unafraid to show the world who he was, what he thought, how he felt. He was who he was, and if you didn’t like it, you could fuck off.

That sort of attitude was exactly how I’d wanted to feel my whole life.

Jaime realized I was attracted to the giant singer and felt the need to remind me that he was my boyfriend. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, showing a possessive quality that he rarely unleashed. He’d never been the jealous type, but in the face of me falling hard in crush over this man on the stage, I thought he felt threatened.

Right in that moment, I knew that I would never spend the rest of my life with Jaime. I was going to be the Dark God of the Universe’s woman—somehow, someway. It was ridiculous, but I fantasized about it all the same. So, I let Jaime play out his odd territorial game and simply leaned into his embrace.

The rest of the band was just as impressive. They couldn’t have been much older than us. They were maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. The drummer was absolutely phenomenal, and I was blown away by the talent in him. And the blond hottie of a guitarist with no shirt on, looking golden from head to toe, had limitless potential in him.

I felt for the bassist though but not talent-wise. No, the poor man was even more ginger than my Da and Connor. I could see his eyebrows flaming on his forehead from this far away. Alys was totally checking him out. She had a hardcore weakness for redheads.

After the first few songs, a crowd gathered, well-impressed with the music coming from The Crap Stage. A mosh pit formed, and that was it. The band called NOLA’s Junk became an instant local success.

I loved to relive that day.

We had bought a few of their demos and T-shirts to show our support that day, and I’d listened to that crappy CD all day, every day, until it died. I lovingly wore the T-shirt to bed, almost religiously, every night. That plain black shirt with
NOLA’s Junk
written in white letters across my puny tits had become one of my most precious belongings.

A few days after that festival, Mom had had a bad episode and ended up in the hospital for five days. Swollen and puffy with accumulated fluid, her heart wasn’t strong enough to quickly pump her blood to push the fluid and toxins into her liver and kidneys to clean her out. Given prescription diuretics, the wastes flushed from her body, she had been sent home with a strict diet regime and more pills to take.

Through that terrifying time, I’d listened to Phil’s voice almost nonstop. It had empowered me, buoyed my spirit when it’d felt like I would drown in my fear and grief. I was strong, strong enough to carry my grandmother, my father, my sort-of stepmom, Gloria and Connor through it, too. Constantly listening to Phil pissed off Jaime to no end, but he’d kept his mouth shut. Once Mom had come home from the hospital, I’d only listened to it when he wasn’t around.

Even to this day, more than two years later, I wore that now ragged T-shirt to sleep every night.

Last night bloomed bright in my mind as I cracked open my eyes to the morning sunlight. My chest flooded with warmth and joy, a tingle of excitement, from just thinking about Phil’s kiss. My lips tickled at the memory, and I rubbed my fingertips over them.

Why did it have to end? Seriously, that was pretty fucked up. I wasn’t even able to leave him my phone number or my damn last name!

It was with those thoughts and a now heavy heart that I woke up fully.

As quietly as I could, I got out of bed, careful not to rouse Lili, and spared a glance toward Alys asleep on my futon. Lili usually slept in bed with me during sleepovers because she was so tiny, and my double bed fit us best.

There were a few mornings when I’d woken up, spooning the evil little imp. A couple of times, she had had to pry my hand off her boob. Honestly, I had no idea why my right hand had seemed to want a handful of titty on some mornings, but Lili never seemed disturbed by it.

“Sometimes, everyone needs a little bit of titty,” she’d told me once after I had profusely apologized, red in the face. To hit her message home, she’d tweaked my nipple and given me a saucy wink.

Tiptoeing my way to the bedroom door, I softly shut it behind me and made my way to the bathroom for the usual morning ritual.

After I had finished up, I went to see if Mom was up.

I found her this morning as I did every morning—sitting on her bamboo yoga mat on the back porch in a lotus pose. There was that weird little twinge in my heart as I took in her thin frame.

When I was a kid, my mom had had a gorgeous full figure. Now, wasted away, she had lost at least fifty pounds over the past two years. Taking a cocktail of different medications that hadn’t done jack shit to save her life, she was on The List for a heart transplant. But that was a long fucking list, and healthy people with transplantable hearts didn’t usually drop dead.

My frustration with the whole situation knew no bounds. Unlike my mother who had come to terms with her illness, I wanted some fucking answers
. How had an otherwise healthy woman who exercised, ate all the right things, hardly ever drank alcohol, and only smoked weed end up with a failing heart condition? Why hadn’t at least one of the bazillion pills she had taken daily given her any relief or improved her condition? What were they for, if not for healing her?

Forcing myself to stop feeling so damn angry, I took a seat next to Mom, pulling my legs into the lotus pose.

“You’ve got an exceptionally wild aspect to your aura this morning, Kenna,” she said to me in her warm rich voice.

I gave her a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Reaching out, I took her left hand in my right, and she gasped when our skin made contact.

“You met
him
last night—The One!”

“The One?” I laughed.

“Yes!”

“I don’t know about The One, but I met Phil Deveraux last night! He’s the lead singer of my favorite band—you know, NOLA’s—”

“I know, sweetheart. I’ve always known. So? What happened?”

“We hung out for a bit and shared an amazing kiss. Then, he had to go take care of some band crap, and we got kicked out.”

She nodded as though agreeing with me.

“It’s just not the right time for the two of you,” she said, lightly squeezing my hand. “You both have too much ahead of you right now. But he knows his Baby Girl is here, and that’s what’s important.”

The woman’s a witch, I swear!

Goose bumps erupted all over my body, and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. One would think, after growing up with the woman, that I’d be used to her odd ability, but I just wasn’t.

“Mom, how could you possibly know he called me that?” I asked with a bit of a touchy hiss.

“He’s called you that before, you know,” she replied with a smirk.

“What? Are you doing past-life regressions now? Come on, did Lili tell you he called me that?”

She smiled sadly. “You’ve always doubted what I see.”

“Well,
someone’s
got to keep your feet on the ground,” I grumbled.

My mom always had this creep factor to her. It wasn’t psychic—at least I didn’t think it was. She didn’t think so either. She would say she was simply in tune with the world on a more spiritual level. With the amount of meditation she had done in her lifetime, perhaps she was. I didn’t know. But she also told me that everyone had the ability to connect with the collective psyche, if they would just stop and listen.

In an attempt to understand her better and her way of viewing…well, everything, I had spent a good number of years reading about all the weird crap my mom believed in. I might be well versed in the knowledge, but in no way did I have
understanding.

“Understanding comes from experience, Kenna, not from reading about experience,” she had told me many times when I’d tried to get her to explain her view of life and the world to me.

I had just been so desperate to believe and see as she did that I’d wanted references for when it finally hit me.

I practiced yoga with my mom until she no longer could. I had done so my whole life. From time to time, I would meditate to help calm my thoughts and emotions, to help me take a step back, to help me to analyze and observe the path my life was taking, but I’d never tapped into this collective psyche she would frequently venture into.

As much as I absolutely adored my mother, there were times when all I could believe was that she was just a weirdo because that was what all the evidence could provide.

I’m going to miss this so much…when she leaves me forever.

Hot tears stung my eyes, and my chest closed around my heart like a vise. Recently, it had been hitting home more and more. She really didn’t have much time left.

I don’t want to accept this. I can’t accept this.

“You have to, Kenna,” she said. “The closer I get to crossing over, the easier it is for me to
see
. You and I have been linked, lifetime to lifetime, since before time began. This is not the end. It’s simply a parting of the ways for a little while. That’s really all it is.”

Turning my head toward her, I looked into her mahogany eyes, and I could see inside them, the truth of what she was saying. She and I had always been closely bonded, time and again—mother to daughter, sister to sister, cousins even—over and over and over.

“Oh, Mom,” I breathed.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I don’t have much time left, Kenna—”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered brokenly.

“But you need to know that I love you so much, much more than my own life. I chose your life over my own, sweetheart. I knew before I was pregnant that I could either not have you at all and live another five or maybe ten years with your father all to myself. Or I could bear you and experience the love only a mother knows for her child. I chose you. You are meant for so much more than I ever was. I am more proud of you than you can possibly imagine.”

“Last night, I made a wish,” I told her, my voice thick with tears. “I wished that you would be saved from this, to just let you live.”

“Instead, you were granted the true wish of your soul.” She smiled happily. “The universe took into consideration the fact that you would use your wish for someone else. Your selflessness prompted the universe to reward you with a taste of what your future will hold.”

If only…

“My wish was selfish either way, Mom. I want you here with me. I want my mom here with me!”

“I want to be with you, too. But it’s not meant to be. You need to accept it.” She huffed a little sigh. “I have,” she gently told me. “But I am so happy you found each other, you and Philip. He will help you heal in time.”

I smiled genuinely at her, amused. “Mom, he’s the lead singer for a heavy metal band.”

“I know. What of it?”

“Well, first off, we didn’t exchange phone numbers. He doesn’t even know my last name. It’s not like we can get in touch. And on top of that…he’s the
lead singer for a heavy metal band.
They’re not well-known for being the faithful type, you know? His band just got signed. They’re going to be touring. They’re going to be legends. What could I possibly offer him at this point that he can’t get from any other willing female?”

She slid me a sly look that held secrets and mysteries only those touched by a bit of madness held. “Philip will always come back for his Baby Girl.”

“What a lovely thought,” I mused. “And one I can’t begin to believe in.”

“It’s too late, Kenna. You already do. Stop fighting it, and just accept it. It will happen right when it’s supposed to.”

“And
you
need to accept that I’m a pragmatist—”

“You watch your language, missy!” She laughed.

“The gods forbid you have a daughter who is practical!” I laughed back. “Seriously, Mom, it’s not like I don’t believe you. It’s just…why waste the energy on something that, in all honesty, probably isn’t going to happen? I would rather invest my emotion into what’s real, what’s here, right now.”

“Love is never wasted,” she said. “But if you feel you need to put it on hold while he goes off to find himself, I suppose that’s all well and good. It’s for the best really since you’re going to school to learn how to heal the world.”

I gave a harsh laugh. “That’s a bit ambitious, considering I can’t even heal my own mother!”

Smiling, she said, “You aren’t supposed to heal me, Kenna. It’s my fate. It’s why I wouldn’t marry your father. Let the anger you hold for him go, sweetheart. He’s about to lose the one woman who has loved and understood him better than any other.”

“He’s all but abandoned you!” I raged, my heart igniting with fury at my father once more.

“Kenna, I was the one who made him leave. He was breaking my heart, watching me die. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“What about the rest of us?” I demanded. “Grandma? Gloria? She loves you just as much as Da does. And Connor—”

“You will all go on, Kenna. Death is just another part of life. You will hurt, you will learn, and you will grow. One day, you will wake up and find that you remember me with only love and happiness, not the pain my passing will have caused,” she told me and squeezed my hand. “I
promise.”