Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (59)

When Keely finally managed to gain control of herself, she realized that she had no idea where in the world she was. In her haze of tears, she must have blindly turned down the roads, because it didn’t matter how much she’d wandered around that town with the boys and their families, she didn’t recognize anything.

And she was completely and utterly lost.

It took her over two hours to find her way back to her hotel, although she put that down to the sobs that still racked through her body at random moments or her trembling hands.

By the time she locked herself in her room, Keely thought she’d be awake all night, replaying and reliving every moment of what had happened in her head. Even wondering what Seth might have told her, caught between being grateful and regretful that she hadn’t let him explain. Because half of her knew she’d saved herself from being shattered when he said it hadn’t meant anything while the other half couldn’t help but ponder what he might have said had she given him a chance.

Yet when she finally crawled fully clothed onto bed – fully expecting another crying bout – she was asleep within seconds.

Days and nights with mere hours of sleep could do that to a person.

Along with added side effects of being overly emotional and overreacting.

She slept without dreams or so much as a jolt through the night.

Just laid flat out, her mind thankfully cut off from the rest of the world as she sank deeper and deeper into the blissfulness of unconsciousness.

If she’d been aware – which would have defeated the point, after all – Keely would have been thankful for the lack of thoughts passing through her mind. It had been much too long since she’d been at a point of peace the same as that one. It was always questions about Seth swirling around in her mind, everything from his past to his feelings, and then to her album, from if they’d used the right effect to if she should have changed a note on one certain song. It was enough to make a person with a regular sleeping pattern worn out.

So as it was, her mind had been teetering very dangerously around the realm of a pure meltdown from its fashion of running about ceaselessly. Then her body was also to the point of collapsing from sheer exhaustion due to the unhealthy lack of sleep and the tour that her body had been forced to accommodate without warning.

In all honesty, she’d been doing a number to her body and mind without her knowledge.

And she wasn’t quite willing to be pulled from bed when the ringing started.

Giving a hoarse groan in the back of her throat, Keely nuzzled her cheek closer into the pillows, assuming that The Knack were just announcing a phone call. If she ignored them, they would go away.

But when the song finally came to where it should have halted, it only restarted.

In her sleep addled mind, she made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat, shifting her hand unseeingly across the bed until she found her cell phone.

When she finally found it on top of the comforter, Keely brought it to her eyes, blinking blearily as she shoved off the blankets she was lying on top of and winced at the stiff feel of the jeans she’d fallen asleep in. And as she stared at it stupidly, she found that it was not someone calling but the alarm clock Seth had set on her phone just the day before.

Just the thought of him had the memories of the day before slamming into her mind. Yet she didn’t have time to ponder what had happened any further, because her sluggishly moving brain finally managed to appreciate what the time on the phone meant. It meant that her plane was taking off much too soon for comfort.