Free Drive Me Sane by Dena Rogers Page B

exactly what those were, but his feelings for her had been clear. It was a permanent painful reminder of the love that she’d lost. Yet in some way, each time she heard it, the pain lessened.
    Tyler turned to say something, but Sera cut him off with a raise of her hand. He’d asked and she’d started, so he was going to hear everything she had to say before she changed her mind.
    “But hearing that you had felt as deeply for me as I did you was comforting. I know it’s just a song and every word didn’t derive from our relationship, but I hope our time together didn’t leave you with a box of regret as the title states. I hope nothing I gave you or we had ended up being stuffed into a cardboard box, because there’s nothing about our relationship I’ve ever regretted, Tyler.”

CHAPTER 10
    Tyler barely heard the loud thump that woke him. He hadn’t been in bed long enough to drift off permanently, caught somewhere in between reliving the day with Sera and the black clouds that take over just as you let it all go. Their talk, although difficult to swallow, did give him some respite with the song’s release. Hearing Sera’s confession had made him sad, but happy in a way too. He’d broken her heart not once, but twice. He’d come here, trying to work through the feelings of possibly doing it a third time—and now he knew he would do anything to make sure it never happened again. Their talk had also given him hope that Sera might still feel as strongly for him as he did her.
    His chest burned with excitement from seeing her eye him all day. What he liked even more was she wasn’t acting shy about it. It was a glimpse of the old Sera. He missed the outgoing woman he fell in love with, but there was something captivating about the newer version too. It didn’t matter which personality was standing in, the introvert or extrovert. Both sides pulled at him in a way he hadn’t felt for a while.
    He hadn’t realized just how bad of a funk he’d been in until he’d arrived there. The exhaustion was wearing on him. Most days he preferred to stay in bed with no care or concern for what was really going on. Other than his mom and Roy, he’d lost all contact with anyone from Cobb City and the constant rounds from state to state never left much time for making new friends. He had his band mates, most of whom spent their free time with their children and wives. Jayson, his drummer, was the one person he talked to on a regular basis other than his manager, Bradley. And Bradley was far from being someone Tyler trusted on a personal level. They were from two different sides of the spectrum. They worked well together, but that was where any relationship began and ended. Tyler had pretty much been on his own for a while. He worked all the time and when he wasn’t working, he was thinking about work. Other than that, he had nothing else going for him. Not even anyone to share all that he’d busted his ass for to achieve. He missed quiet dinners and watching TV. Sitting on the porch talking about the day. He even found mowing the yard and grocery shopping entertaining. Like Sera, he missed being normal. Their demons might be different, but they were fighting some of the same things.
    When another loud sound came, he worried that someone might be trying to break in and got up. He looked first in the living room and kitchen, before checking both doors and the bathroom. Seeing that everything was okay, he knocked on Sera’s door last. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor with an open cardboard box in front of her.
    “I’m sorry, some other boxes fell out of the top of my closet when I was trying to get this one down,” she explained.
    “It’s all right.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he asked, “Need help?”
    • • •
    Sera looked up to see Tyler’s body fill the entire door frame. Unable to fall asleep, she already recognized the spiraling downturn of emotions that took her for a ride on nights like this.