He took out his phone from his pocket, and I put my hand on his wrist, stopping him. I needed to figure out a way to take back this song, and it didn’t start with another person playing it for me. If I could press play on my own hard work, in spite of the monster who stood behind it, then it would be the first step in walking out of the woods. That much I knew.
I brought the heat of my phone up to my face with a sharp inhale, seeing my song right there in front of me, plain as day, on Spotify. And then, my finger shaking, I pressed play, and “Let’s Lie” swelled in the air for the first time in five years, and for the very first time in front of the man I wrote it for.
Brush stroke, blank slate
Our time is due
Right there, right now, burning red and deep blue
I couldn’t look at Garrett, not at all. Instead, I had my head down on my phone, clenching my entire body.
Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
I exhaled a relief, my eyes brimming with tears as the tambourine sounded. There was no gunshot. Tears swelled in my throat with the reality that Cole had kept my song the way I wanted it. The monster recognized that my creative version was worthy, and it was complicated and hellish to feel thankful in this moment for the very man who was trying to steal my moment.
Silk shirt, sweat-soaked
Dancing with you
Right there, right now, our bodies unglued
Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
Your lips, my throat
Don’t think it through
Right there, right now holding me like a muse Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
Is loving you more worth the fight
Don’t answer tonight
You’re a big-picture guy scared of a varnished lifetime Are we worth the fight
Don’t answer tonight
Are we worth the fight
Tell me a lie painted white
Just for tonight
Just for tonight
I swallowed hard, daring my eyes to find Garrett, a quick glance to see if he knew who this song was about. His eyes widened around the lyrics as he stared straight ahead. His lips slightly parted, and my heart beat faster. He knew.
Paint me anew, inside my room Don’t wipe our slates clean
Our bodies in bloom
Let’s lie to ourselves like new lovers do
The airy reverb faded into silence. Garrett sat frozen, staring at the bottom of the spiral staircase, refusing to move. He looked up, slowly letting his eyes narrow onto mine.
“It’s beautiful, Maggie. Is that song…？” He trailed off.
The possibility of the answer was so stifling, that he couldn’t even finish asking the question. He stared at me, waiting as I studied his piercing eyes, his shifting jaw.
“You know it’s about you,” I said.
His gaze softened as he studied me for a long, quiet moment. The air seemed to pound and thicken with the rapid beating of our chests, neither of our bodies moving.
“You were wrong,” he said, his blue eyes looking into mine. “You didn’t love me more.”
Air left my lungs. It took me a moment to find words.
“How do you know that?” I cracked.
I watched the way the setting sun fell on Garrett’s face—how his eyes scanned mine. After a moment, his large hand reached over, linking our fingers together. His skin on my skin, even just fingers, felt like life and death wrapped in one. Garrett leaned toward me, almost nose to nose, setting his other hand on my cheek.
“Because I loved you more than anything,” he said.
49
THIRTY-FOUR
I DIDN’T WANT TO RELIVE the last four years—not for anything. But I needed to. I had been in intensive therapy for over two years, and I owed it to myself to be honest with the guy I was still in love with—the guy who I had pushed away at the very time he was ready to go all in.
The day after I broke down to Summer in Sheep Meadow, she gave me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me, the number to a recommended therapist. Little by little, the only person I started letting down after that was my mom, when I quit my job and picked my guitar back up.
It had been over a year since I had started mending my soul, singing in clubs and venues without having heart palpitations, writing music again, having sex and being able to enjoy it. But the lingering pang of Garrett, of that moment nearly five years ago, it loomed so large—even now. Looming large was also the fact that he was still seeing Cecily, but the regret of not saying what I needed to say felt bigger than respecting what they had. I know that made me selfish. But in therapy I worked to understand that unleashing a very selfish truth might also be life-affirming. Life-affirming was too big a win not to play my hand.
I sat in the little café in Greenwich Village, making blue-inked doodles in my open songwriter notebook around words that had just flowed out of me like lava. I felt a tap on my shoulder.
There he was.
Dressed in a suit with a long wool coat tugged over his broad shoulders. His blond hair damp and wavy from the drizzling rain outside. I hugged Garrett, and he felt stiffer than usual, but slowly he hugged me back, inhaling deeply.
We let each other go, and as we sat down, his eyes looked everywhere but at mine. His usual warm, bright behavior was somewhat on edge. Nervous, even.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, closing my notebook and leaning into the table so I could get a better look at him.
“Of course. I’ve actually—I’ve been meaning to call you. I wanted to…to chat. It’s been a while,” he said with a tiny smile, eyes now on me.
It had been a while. Four months, exactly. One of our longest stretches, but I surmised that Garrett didn’t know what to do with me anymore. I had chaotically disappeared from his life after he got back from San Francisco, then I popped up at birthday parties—his, mine, Summer’s, Valeria’s. And then, the last two years, I had tried to text more and call, but Garrett returned the distance I had shown him. Rightly so. This friendship was broken because of circumstance. I couldn’t blame myself, only what I had been through.
“Can I go first?” I asked, twisting a napkin in my hands.
“Sure.”
“I want to talk to you about my thirtieth birthday.”
Garrett seemed to go white, and I watched him swallow hard, his hand pinching around his tie. Clearly, this was the last thing Garrett had been expecting me to bring up. And clearly, it still stung.
After a pause, he nodded. “Okay.”
“First, I want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said to you right before I turned you away. And I’m sorry for how I acted when you tried to kiss me. That must have been so confusing for you,” I said, voice level.
I took a deep breath in, closed my eyes briefly, and then opened them on Garrett. His expression softened, taking in how hard this was for me.
“Two weeks prior, Cole Wyan—you remember I started working with him?”
Garrett nodded, eyes searching mine.
“Well, two weeks before my thirtieth birthday, we were recording a song, and it was supposed to be my first single, and—he put his hands—” I stopped talking, emotions bubbling in my throat. My heart was racing with the heaviness I was unpacking. The rest came out fast. “He touched me where I asked him not to. He tried to rape me. I punched the shit out of him. He threatened my career.”