We sat on the floor with our backs to the sofa and sipped our wine, watching the flames dance in the grate. The fire popped.
“Show me your songs,” I said, not because I thought it was wise but because sometimes the shortest road to a thing is through.
She didn’t move for a long breath. Then she put her goblet down, stood, and disappeared up the stairs, her footsteps growing softer the farther away she got from me.
I stared at the fire and thought about my past sins. What I’d gained. What I’d lost.
I’d been just a kid, really, barely twenty-two—a record contract on the line. Skye had refused to sign because of the manager we eventually signed with.Itold her that she was a fool who didn’t know any better.Itold her that we could achieve what we’d always wanted. She’d wanted our success, I knew that, but not if it came with working with someone she didn’t trust.
So she’d left.
And broken my heart.
And I’d broken hers.
It was all muddled now, softened around the edges, with the way time does to memories.
Skye came back with a shoebox, and my breath caught as she walked in the room, eyes huge in her face. She was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
It had always been her. The one who made my heart sing.
Skye sat cross-legged on the rug, set the box between us like a living thing, and took off the lid.
Notebooks. Receipts. The backs of flyers. A napkin from a café in St. Andrews with a ring of tea on it, and in the circle, five words I could tell were hers …teach my mouth mercy first.
“I know it looks like a mess,” Skye said, looking up at me, the reflection of the flames glinting in her eyes.
“It looks like a life,” I said.
She sifted the stack as if she were divining the right scrap the way you find shells on the beach. She pulled a folded sheet from an old spiral notebook and stared at it long enough for me to realize I was holding my breath.
“It’s not a song,” she said.
“What is it?”
“A chorus that kept pretending to be one.” She cleared her throat, eyes on the page. “It’s not … great.”
“Most things aren’t when they’re honest,” I said.
Her mouth twitched. She handed it over.
The handwriting was round, urgent, a tiny leftward slant like she was leaning into wind. The words weren’t pretty. They didn’t try to be.
If I come back, let it be softer,
corners sanded by the years.
Let the floorboards learn our footfall,
let the heart forget our tears.
If I come back, let it be braver,
no white flags at the door.
If I come back, let it be choosing,
not running like before.
