I shook my head, feeling the weight of the impossible. She gripped my chin in her hand and lifted it to her piercing eyes.
“Don’t you shake your head at me. It won’t happen overnight, but it will fucking happen. Maggie, you are not allowed to close the door on something you were born to do. That man isn’t always going to stand in front of your door. You will be bigger than him, stronger than him, and you will eclipse that monster in every sense of the word, and you will stomp over him on your way to success. And I will be there right by your side the entire way.”
She stared at me, waiting for me to nod, the breeze not even making her big eyes flinch.
“Okay,” I said, real small, as silent tears kept flowing, my hands now gripped in hers.
“Third: you will, when you’re ready, and this might take a while, too—but you will tell Garrett how you feel about him.”
My eyes floated to see the way Garrett’s large hands were running down Cecily’s arms. The way his eyes studied the freckles on her back like they were a map. Like she was his North Star.
“What if it’s too late?” I said quietly, wiping tears from my nose.
Summer laughed softly.
“Babe, I’m going to tell you something you already know. Despite what happened to you, you are madly in love with Garrett Scholl. And despite what’s happened in the last year, Garrett remains madly, madly, madly in love with you.”
“I don’t know that. You don’t know that.” She glared at me like she knew. “How do you know?”
“A little while ago, I saw you walking along the fence, yards and yards away, approaching us. And I said, ‘Maggie’s here,’ and then Garrett looked over at you. And you know what he did? He swallowed really hard, and he turned away real fast.”
“So he can’t even look at me?” I felt different kind of tears welling.
Summer steadied her hands on my arms.
“Maggie, he’s so in love with you that he can’t even meet your eyes because it hurts too much.”
“I’m the type to look at something harder when it burns.”
“He’s a man. Men look away. It’s how they go through life—compartmentalizing and putting what hurts them in boxes. You’re in a box right now. But let me tell you, when you’re ready to open yourself up again, when you stand in front of him and pour your heart out, he won’t be able to look away.”
I liked the idea of that. I hated the idea of what I would have to put myself through to get there. But I wanted to get there so badly, and I wanted to start now. I nodded, a soft sad smile on my chapped lips.
“Will you help me get home?”
“Fourth thing: you’re going to come live with me for a little while.”
I tilted my head up to the sun, lashes wet and closed, face red, and I inhaled something new. Summer held me closer as I exhaled tears on her shoulder—pain and relief leaving my body. No one can hold you quite like a best friend.
I was grateful for much more than the sun. And that was a start.
48
THIRTY-FIVE
I FELT LIKE I COULDN’T breathe, and I flew from the cab into my studio apartment like it was a goddamn oxygen tank—in a way, it was. I pressed my shoulder blades against the back of the front door, and with one exhale, I felt my chest cave in. It was the first time I had been really, truly alone since I saw Cole Wyan a week prior. And finally, I could scream.
I let out a bloodcurdling yell, not realizing I had been hiding so much anguish and trauma inside my tiny frame for seven whole days. And all at once, I was throw something angry. My white-knuckled fists snatched a porcelain plate holding a stack of bills, and I threw the plate against my wall, watching it break into scattered pieces. I held myself amid broken glass and shattered dreams, frustration and pain pouring out loudly as my body slid down the side of the door. I had been clenching the trauma of seeing Cole again inside me—playacting fine so that I wouldn’t hit rewind on the nightmare that I was desperate to keep on the left side of the tape. Sidestepping away from my feelings—a practice I rarely embraced—had taken more of a toll on my body than leaning into them.
I made it atop my unmade floral quilt, my body sending records and open journals to the floor. I stared at the dark wooden beams above me, eyes wet and red, chest quieting under the catharsis of coming clean with myself.
* * *
HOURS LATER, I WOKE UP with the covers tucked around me, my tired eyes frozen on the ceiling fan. Breathing felt like inhaling smoke, and my dad’s guitar in the corner of the room wouldn’t stop making eye contact with me. My studio was suddenly claustrophobic and inescapable. I forced my body off the bed, legs both heavy and numb, and I lumbered outside of my apartment, inhaling the musty dark old Victorian wood surrounding me inside this hot, shitty place I could now more than afford. I plopped down on the top of the stairs, clamming my eyes shut as I inhaled and exhaled deep breaths.
“Hey,” a voice said.
I brought my head up from between my legs, my heart jolting to find Garrett standing right below my face. There was too much chaos inside me to house space for regret. I should have felt like a monster for calling a man to come watch me cry—a man who I had told myself I had stopped loving, a man who was notably getting married in a few weeks. But sometimes, when you can’t see the forest through the trees, instead of looking for a way out you roll around in the mud.
“Thanks for coming,” I barely managed, as the sobs took over.
Garrett’s eyes widened, and he sat down next to me, pulling a strong arm over my shoulder.
“Come here,” he said, holding me close to his body.
He was wearing a suit and tie, and I realized that he had been in the middle of his workday when I called him. One voicemail, telling him that Cole Wyan had released my song, and he had dropped everything for me. His magnetic blue eyes tilted to the side, narrowed on my pain.
His jaw tightened and a vein pulsed at the side of his neck.
“Cole can do this—just release your song? Legally?”
“Yeah.”
I stared down at my phone, seeing a text from Asher come across my screen. There, in the harsh light of day, was a link to my Spotify song, “Let’s Lie.”
Proud of you, and also…sort of confused. Call me when you have time to chat.
My stomach dropped, guilt and shame swirling like a tornado inside. Guilt that I was sitting here with another man. Pain that I was keeping this from Asher. Shame that this had happened to me. Claws felt like they were inside my throat, and shaking, I turned my phone upside down on my lap, with my hand pressed on the nausea growing in my stomach.
“Maggie, you’re going to figure this out,” Garrett said, leaning forward to meet my eyes.
“How? The song. The recording. It’s just—it’s out there for the world to hear. And it could destroy all that comes next.”
“Have you listened to it yet?”
I shook my head. My insides were burning with an unknown terror. Terror that I knew wouldn’t leave my body until I pressed play. I couldn’t escape my own past, even if I tried.
“Do you want me to listen to it with you?” he asked.
I nodded wordlessly but didn’t move my fingers.