Page 56 of Every Shattered Note
Each word hits harder than the last.She’s not yelling.She doesn’t need to.Her pain is quiet, contained, but no less consuming.Worse, it lingers in the air, in the silence, in her turned back.
“And I fucked it up.”
“Yes.”Her voice cracks.
I could tell her that she made me believe in music again.In me.There’s no point in that.My gain is her loss and that makes me an asshole.Eddie warned me this would happen when I asked for help to fix this.
The silence that follows is alive with the grief of what we almost had.
“Let me try to fix it,” I whisper.
She shakes her head, slowly.Her eyes are glassy when she turns to face me again.“You can’t fix everything with a song or a smirk.”
“I know.”
“Or by asking me to stay.”
“I’m not asking.”I swallow hard.“I’m hoping.”
We just sit there—two people clinging to a thing we can’t name.Her expression is unreadable, but I swear something soft flickers behind her eyes.Just for a second.
“I’ll stay,” she says finally, voice thick and low.“But I still don’t know how to feel about all this deception.”
“I’ll take that,” I say gently.“And I hope you’ll let me grovel.”
That earns the faintest lift of her brow.
“Plus, there’s the beach,” I add.“You’ll have that.”
“Why are you taking me to the beach?”She frowns.
“I asked where you’d go if you could be anywhere,” I remind her.“You said a beach.So ...here we are.”
Her chin quivers.The way she gets when she’s watching one of those wedding moments she doesn’t expect to cry over.When the groom spins the bride or a grandma starts dancing, and something about it opens her up just enough.
And then, just as fast, the warmth fades.
“But we’re not okay,” she says.
“I wouldn’t expect us to be.”
“And if you lie to me again?—”
“I won’t.”The words cut from my throat before she can finish.“No more hiding.Not from you.”
She studies me for a long, painful beat.
Then she nods once, small and slow.Not forgiveness.Not yet.But it’s not goodbye.
And that’s more than I deserve.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Alyssa
Well, there was no tragedy during the wedding.
The tragedy came after.
