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  Remember Me This Way

  The Sound of Us Book 3

  C.R. Jane

  Contents

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  Remember Me This Way Soundtrack

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Join C.R.’s Fated Realm

  Other Books by C.R. Jane

  Remember Me This Way by C. R. Jane

  Copyright © 2020 by C. R. Jane

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For anyone who needed to make themselves whole before they could fix someone else.

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  Remember Me This Way

  The Sound of Us are supernovas in the sky and I’ve been following their light from the moment we met. It was easy to get wrapped in them, for me to feel like I wasn’t a real person unless I was in their presence, helping them, loving them.

  Since Gentry’s attack we haven’t been the same, and I’m afraid that the magic we had been working so hard to build may be gone forever. Addiction, jealousy, and fear fill our nights, replacing the spaces that our love used to live.

  When an opportunity of a lifetime arises for me to chase my dreams, I leap at the chance to do something for myself. But it’s harder than I thought to follow my own path, especially when it begins to divert from theirs.

  Growing up, I never thought a happy ending was in the cards for me...but a happily ever after with the boys from the Sound of Us has been my dream since I met them.

  But dreams change, and even though our love story is written across my soul, our path won’t be easy.

  I know their hearts though, and what’s there is the same as what you can find in mine.

  My name is Ariana Kent, and losing “us” is not an option.

  There's no way I can save you

  'Cause I need to be saved, too

  I'm no good at goodbyes

  -Post Malone, Goodbyes

  Remember Me This Way Soundtrack

  “Always Remember Us This Way”-

  Lady Gaga

  “Goodbyes-

  Post Malone

  “Lover”-

  Taylor Swift

  “Lost-

  Dermot Kennedy

  “Bad Liar”-

  Imagine Dragons

  “Rare”-

  Selena Gomez

  “Time”-

  NF

  “Happier”-

  Marshmallow, Bastille

  “What If I Never Get Over You”-

  Lady Antebellum

  “Finally//beautiful strangers”-

  Halsey

  “Living Proof”-

  Camila Cabello

  Prologue

  It was easy to get wrapped in them, for me to feel like I wasn’t a real person unless I was in their presence, helping them, loving them. They were like supernovas in the sky, and I was the lowly mortal who was blessed enough to witness their light.

  And maybe that was how everything went wrong when they left, maybe I was so busy watching them that I forgot to watch myself.

  Tanner had a song on their second album, a song that was #1 for six months in fact, that talked about a girl who was so above them that they were grateful just to be in her presence. He sang how he would work for eternity to be worth the dust on her feet.

  It took me until now to realize that he had been singing about me. It’s just that in his song, I was the guy and he was the girl.

  I think that’s when all our problems really began. It wasn’t when I didn’t come to LA, or when we didn’t talk for five years, or when Gentry shot me.

  It was when I realized that I couldn’t survive living off of just their light.

  1

  The room was bright. Opening my eyes is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I do it, for them. For my guys.

  Jensen is the first thing I see when I open my eyes. I have to close them right away, but I reopen them, seeing Jensen again. His eyes are wet, and he is smiling the widest smile. I ache to smile too. But every single movement requires great effort. “Ariana,” he breathes. I try to move and grimace. I want to say more than his name, but my throat is sore. “It’s okay.” He squeezes my hand reassuringly.

  I hear the beep of machines that remind me I’m in the hospital. I close my eyes and drift back into sleep. When I reopen them, the room is brighter and Jensen is still holding my hand. My eyes move over to Jesse, who stands directly at the foot of the bed, staring at me. Exhaustion and relief war on his face. My heart thumps hard in my chest. “Ariana.” I turn my head, wincing. A woman in a white coat smiles down at me. “You’re awake,” she says softly. “Can you do me a favor?”

  I open my mouth. “Yes.” It didn’t sound like my voice, but I knew it came from me.

  Her smile spreads. “She speaks.” She clasps her hands together. “I was going to have you cough, but you had to be an overachiever and actually speak.”

  A smile tugs at my own lips. I look at Jesse and Jensen. My loves. But where is Tanner? Looking around the room, he’s nowhere to be seen, and I can feel my face pull into a frown even though I still feel disconnected from any real emotion. Panic hits me. Was he injured? Is he alive?

  “Where’s Tanner?” I croak out, and I begin to panic even more when the guys exchange somber looks. I begin to try and sit up even though the movement sends excruciating pain pulsing through my body.

  Jensen and the doctor both lunge toward me in an effort to keep me laying down. I already have tears building in my eyes and great hiccupping sobs are erupting from my chest making my chest ache even more.

  “Ari, he’s fine. He just left for a small break,” Jesse tells me frantically from the foot of my bed.

  “He’s really okay?” I ask. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and I’m having trouble processing things at a normal speed. All I know is that I would never forgive myself if something had happened to Tanner or any of them because of my ex-husband. I can’t imagine a world without them in it. Do I even have a world without them?

  Apparently, I get introspective after I get shot.

  I pull my hand to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart as I sett
le back into the hospital bed. I don’t feel like I will be able to stop worrying until Tanner is in this room with me. I wince when I feel the bandages covering my torso through the hospital gown I’ve been put in. My body feels a little drunk, and my limbs seem heavier than I remember, but I manage to awkwardly lift the neck of my gown to peer down at the bandages.

  A shadow of a memory hits me. Gentry’s standing in front of me. The rabid longing in his features. The boom of the gun. And then the pain.

  “Gentry?” I croak out at the guys, ignoring the doctor’s attention.

  There’s no way that he got away. Not with all those people around.

  That’s why at first, I don’t understand the look of shame, regret, and anger flashing across Jensen and Jesse’s faces.

  “He’s still out there?” I confirm, the sick feeling of dread overtaking me. Am I ever going to be able to get away from him? Or is the only way away from him by death? A chill settles deep into my bones. I wrap my arms around myself shakily, ignoring the pinprick of pain from the pull of my I.V.

  I shake away the morbid thoughts. My survival is a miracle that I should be celebrating right now.

  Despite my pep talk, I uneasily eye the door, half expecting him to come bursting in.

  I take a deep breath to settle my nerves, ignoring the wave of fatigue coursing through me. I have a lot of questions that I need to be answered before I allow a nurse to let me off into dreamland.

  “Ariana,” the doctor says gently, alerting me to her presence. I look at her, almost shocked to see her standing there still. I forgot about her for a second. I must be really out of it.

  “My name is Dr. Rickland, and I’ve been helping take care of you. How are you feeling?” she asks as she puts her stethoscope over my bandaged chest.

  “Tired and out of it,” I tell her truthfully. “My brain just isn’t quite right.”

  She nods sympathetically. “That’s to be expected when you’ve been out for so long. The fuzziness should start to fade. We had to place you into a coma to help you recover after your surgeries,” she explains.

  “A coma? Surgeries?” I ask, thinking that I must have heard her wrong.

  “Yes, you’ve been out for a week, Ariana,” the doctor says softly.

  I look at her, shocked. “That’s not possible,” I whisper, fingering the bandages on my chest as I stare at her, waiting for her to tell me she is joking.

  “Your injuries were very serious, Ariana. You’re a very lucky young woman,” she tells me. I close my eyes as a tear escapes and trails down my face.

  “Tell me about my surgeries,” I ask, keeping my eyes closed so I don’t have to see the pity on her face.

  “You had two surgeries. Your left lung collapsed from where two of the bullets passed through, and another bullet was stuck in your right lung. We were able to get your left lung up and running and the other bullet out of your lung. Luckily, our lungs can heal very quickly. You aren’t going to be up and running a half marathon any time soon, but you should start to feel better and better every day, now that you’ve woken up.”

  I nod, not sure what to say. I lost a week of my life. I was shot three times. It doesn’t seem real. The constant throbbing of my chest makes clear to me how real it is.

  “I’m going to leave you to get a little bit of rest. I’ll be back in to do a more thorough check of you in an hour.” She looks at the guys. “You guys should try and get some rest as well. Ariana, they haven’t left your side,” she says admiringly. With that comment, she begins to walk away. She stops and looks back at me over her shoulder. “I know that this all seems very overwhelming, Ariana. But it’s going to be okay. The hardest part is waking up.” With that bright comment, and a somewhat longing glance at Jensen that I don’t particularly like, she leaves the room.

  The silence feels awkward after she leaves. Both the guys look like they haven’t slept, eaten, or bathed in weeks. If I didn’t know that they loved me before, I certainly know it now. That unease that constantly plagues me pushes through my exhausted mind. When will enough be enough, and they get tired of all the baggage that seems to follow me everywhere?

  And they still don’t even know the worst thing about me.

  2

  I lock eyes with Jesse, and evidently that is all he can take. He sinks to his knees still at the foot of my bed. I reach out my hand to him, wanting to comfort him but not able to reach him. He lays his head by my feet, and I watch as his body is wracked with sobs. I’ve never seen Jesse cry before, and the sight of it is not one that I want to repeat.

  “Jesse, it’s okay,” I tell him hollowly, doubting the truth of my words. How is any of this okay? How can we ever be okay again? I try to soothe him, but I’m so exhausted and weak that the words come out as more of a mumble than anything else.

  “No,” a voice cries brokenly from outside of the hall, and then Tanner is rushing in desperately, stopping when he sees that I’m alive and awake and for all intents and purposes, alright.

  “Princess?” he asks, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing is real. He looks awful. I thought that the other two looked bad, but Tanner looks like he’s the one that has been in a coma for a week. He looks like he’s lost at least ten pounds. His cheeks are gaunt, and he has a pallid complexion that resembles a corpse more than a living being. But it’s his eyes that scare me the most. Tanner has the most expressive eyes of the three of them. It’s like seeing into his soul whenever I look into them. Right now though, they look dead, like any light inside of him has been extinguished. They’re bloodshot and shadowed and pained. Tanner has evidently been battling demons while I’ve been asleep, and I just hope now that I’m awake he can vanquish them once and for all.

  “When I saw Jesse...I thought you had…,” he stutters, and I realize that he thought that I died by Jesse’s reaction. Jesse has gotten himself together a bit after Tanner’s reaction, but I can imagine that it looked serious from out in the hallway. I flex my fingertips in Jensen’s hand, trying to get some feeling back into them. Jensen has them in an iron grip, but I don’t want to ask him to let go because I can sense that he needs to be touching me.

  Tanner collapses on the other side of me and reaches out a hand to touch my face before pulling it back. “I should have been here,” he says in a haunted voice as he stares at me, and I look at him confused. Didn’t the guys say he was just taking a break? I’m too tired to ask at the moment. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. But it feels like if I close them so soon after waking up, then the guys might not be able to take it. I can’t imagine if the roles were reversed. I would have been a mess.

  “You’re awake. I can’t believe you’re awake,” Tanner is murmuring as he buries his head against my other hand that he’s holding.

  “Shhh,” I try and whisper soothingly, trying to calm all of them down. “I’m here. I’m fine. The doctor says that I should feel better and better every day,” I reassure him.

  There’s a song I once heard that talks about the singer not being able to save his lover because he can’t even save himself. I feel like that’s me in this moment. They’re drowning right now, lost in the chaos that Gentry has brought to all of our lives, that I’ve brought to all of our lives. But I don’t have the strength right now to help them through this.

  I need someone to help me through this.

  We sit in that hospital room, listening to the sound of Tanner’s fears.

  I’ve always believed that my past would prevent the future I’ve always dreamed of, a future where I’ve only ever wanted them.

  Please, God . . . I pray as I haven’t done in ages.

  Focused and intent, I plead for our health and safety, losing myself in the constant mantra of prayer.

  Please...fix us.

  The days pass slowly, although my progress is impressive. Who knew that someone could be up and moving within just a few days after waking up from a coma?

  I didn’t.

  The perk of being the girlfrien
d of the most famous band on the planet is that the hospital and the medical team that I’ve been given are the best available. All day and night they come streaming into the room; doctors, nurses, rehab specialists, counselors...they offer us their best. A week passes, and everything with my health is going well. But my personal life...

  That’s the complete opposite.

  Most days are filled with silence between us. Jensen and Jesse never leave my side, even though I can tell their own health is deteriorating by not leaving the hospital and getting a night of sleep that doesn’t happen in a chair or on a hospital cot. Tanner is in and out of the room, disappearing for hours at a time, coming back stinking of cigarettes and beer, his eyes red rimmed...his pupils blown up. I don’t ask him questions about where he’s been.

  I’m too scared to hear the answer.

  When it’s finally time to leave the hospital I think that things will get better. The guys have arranged for us to fly back to LA, to Jesse’s house in the hills, which is big enough to hold all of us. Jensen doesn’t own a house, he just rents in between tour stops, and Tanner’s condo in downtown LA isn’t big enough to hold all four of us, so Jesse’s house it is. The guys have promised their label to write and record a new single since their tour has been put on hold, much to the label’s displeasure. Evidently, the guys told me that Clark actually fought hard for them for the record label to agree to the long hiatus. Apparently record breaking world tours aren’t supposed to be put on hold for girlfriends.