Across the room, Noah didn’t move. He watched me, his slate-gray eyes the color of a wintry ocean at dawn, the whisky glass clutched in his hand as his younger voice bled into the pub.
Skye, you were the wildfire I couldn’t hold …
I could’ve handled a breakup song, if he’d kept it vague. But he’d named me. He hadn’t even bothered to give me a metaphor or a fake name like “Rose” or “June.” He’d carved my actual name into radio history, and for over a decade I’d changed the station when the song had come on and pretended it hadn’t gutted me.
At the table, the Book Bitches drew a collective breath.
“Bloody hell,” Shannon said, hurriedly topping up my drink.
“What odd timing,” Meredith murmured.
“I’ve always liked this song,” Esther admitted, her tone apologetic. She surprised me by reaching over to squeeze my hand.
It felt like the room slowly dissolved around the edges.
Time blurred.
The pub, now. The garage, then.
Our last fight.
Me walking out because he wouldn’t believe what I could already see happening.
Six months later I’d been sitting in traffic, on a trip back to, ironically, the Isle of Skye, where I’d gone to camp out, nurse my wounds, and get my head on straight, when the song had come on the radio.
Those intro chords had me pulling my car to the side of the road, my hands gripping the wheel so tightly the skin at my knuckles had gone white.
My name, thrown back at me, crooning through my car speakers.
And I, idiot that I was, had felt both fury and gratitude that he’d ever loved me enough to write it. The latter emotion I’d never shared with anyone.
The song had exploded.
It was everywhere.
Impossible to avoid, I’d had to lock down my emotions as Noah’s stardom had risen off the back of the song that bore my name.
The co-op queue, months later, two teenagers humming it behind me, one saying, “Imagine being her.”
A graduation party I bartended for cash when the inn’s books looked grim and the song had come on. A group ofwomen swaying, crying, no idea that the woman refilling their Prosecco flinched every time the chorus hit.
And now here, the village I’d chosen over touring vans and dirty green rooms, pinning me to the wall with my own name.
My body moved before my brain. I stood so fast I banged my knee, the glasses clinked, and wine sloshed.
“Skye—” Esther started.
But I was already out of the booth, threading through bodies, avoiding his look, ignoring my name. The chorus began, and I hit the door at a run.
Outside, winter grabbed my face and held it, and I gulped air so sharp it burned the back of my throat. The surf was a low growl beyond the dark. A light over the community center door flickered like a warning.
You’re fine. It’s fine. This is fine.
Behind me, the song rolled on, as relentless as the tide, growing louder as the door opened and slammed shut.
“Skye.”
He didn’t get to say my name like that. Low and rough and full of history.
