Free My Heart's Bliss (Hard Love & Dark Rock #3) by Ashley Grace

abruptly stopped their dose.  I didn't want anything like that to happen to me.  I knew now: I wanted to live.
    But that still didn't make me miss Anne any less.
    I'd been checking my phone periodically, hoping to see a message or a text from her, and feeling a little throb of sadness every time I saw that she still hadn't called.  In between the moments when the band's optimism would start to seep into me, I felt moments of worry—worry that my phone had somehow turned off, worry that Anne had called me and I'd missed it.
    Still, the brief time I'd spent with Anne had changed me.  Before, my ever-shifting emotions had made up my whole landscape, constantly overwhelming me, keeping me at their mercy.  When despair seized hold of me, it was utter despair.  When panic caught me in its grip, it was utter panic—and I could imagine nothing beyond it.  And when I'd awoken to find Lucy—the girl I loved—dead at my side, the guilt that rolled over me was so utterly crushing that my mind just couldn't cope.  Escape, death, had seemed the only option.
    And even after I'd survived that attempt on my life, I hadn't been able to face my feelings.  And so I'd used the antidepressant drugs to snuff those feelings out, shielding myself from pain by shielding myself from everything .
    It was Anne who'd brought me back from that void.  It was Anne that had pierced through the blanket of apathy, and reminded me that feeling isn't synonymous with suffering .  Desire, and love, and happiness, also exist.
    I wished she'd call.  I wished I could see her again, and the thought that I might not ever see her again did make me feel truly sad.  But even if she didn't call, I'd go on.  She'd brought me back to life.  She'd set me free.
    Ten minutes before we were scheduled to take the stage, Bernstein called us together.  He popped open that ever-present bottle of champagne, pouring us each a glass.  He raised his glass up, and we all raised ours toward him.
    "It's been a long road, my friends," he said.  "For a while I thought we'd reached the end.  Tonight, I don't feel that way.  Tonight I feel there is more road for the Belletrists to travel.  And that makes me happy."
    He raised his glass higher.
    "Mazel tov," he said.
    "Mazel tov," we said back to him, and "cheers" and "salud" and "here here."  We clinked our glasses together, and raised the sparkling liquid to our lips.
    Before I'd lowered my glass, Sara took the champagne bottle from Bernstein's hands.  She topped our glasses back up—refilling Joey's, since he'd empted it in one gulp.  And then she raised her own glass up again, and we did the same.
    She still looked frightfully thin, but I didn't think her face looked skull-like now.  The light in her eyes was too vibrant for that.
    We stood there, our glasses raised, waiting for her to speak.
    "Here's to Lucy," she said.  "Here's to her memory, and here's to her peace."
    There was a moment of tension, but before it could catch hold, she raised her glass even higher and spoke again.
    "And here's to us.  Here's to our music and our art and our future.  Here's to the Belletrists."
    We toasted, and clanged our glasses together, and drank.  Sara looked at me, her glass still pressed to her smiling lips.  I saw something like joy in her eyes.  And in my heart, I felt it, too.
    -
    The lights on the stage were blue and dim, casting a low shine on the metal rims of Joey's drumset, reflecting from the chrome of the guitar stands.  We walked out onto the stage, hearing the crowd responding to us, taking up its cry.  I went to my spot on the stage— feeling that growing roar washing over me, my own excitement rising with it—and knelt for a moment by the pedal board, reading the set list by the green and red glow of its lights.
    The first song on the list was "A Heart's-Blood Oath."
    I stood, pulling my guitar from its stand, slipping its strap over my shoulder.  I went through my strings—checking the tuning,