Gracie was unrepentant. “You’re my best friend, Ryan. You’re not allowed to die.”
“I’m not going to die. I’m going to hopefully get laid, and if I don’t get laid, I’ll at least get some peace and quiet by the beach.”
She groaned and sagged in her chair, crossing her arms. “I want to relax by the beach. Why do I have to work?”
“Because you want to go to Morocco on our honeymoon.Andyou want to go to Egypt to do the Nile River cruise.”
She sniffed. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll go work my terrible job and save people while Ryan’s sitting on a beach, sipping mai tais with Dexter.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say no to him,” I confessed.
She flipped me off but softened when Hasan leaned over and gently kissed her cheek. “Promise me you’ll try to have fun. And, you know, do something other than obsess about how horrible your family is.”
“Trust me, that’s the plan.” I wasn’t about to tell her that I was going to obsess about Atlas instead because the last time I’d brought him up, she threatened an intervention. It would be literally her and Hasan, but it still sounded like no fun, so I promised to stop.
That was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
Luckily, the conversation turned back to wedding stuff, so I was able to eat, nod along, and listen to the crackling static in my brain until Gracie packed her wedding iPad into her bag and kissed my cheek goodbye.
“Promise me this is going to be good for you.”
“I promise that this is going to be different for me, which is—considering how my life has been going—very good.”
Rolling her eyes, she kissed my other cheek, and then Hasan did the same, squeezing my shoulders as he pulled away. “I know it’s been a rough year. I know your family—” He stopped at my involuntary wince. Taking a breath, he nodded like hewas giving himself an internal pep talk. “I know how it is to have complicated family. They’ve never liked my choices, but I wouldn’t be where I am today with Gracie if I hadn’t. And I wouldn’t have had you as a best friend.”
My eyes got a little hot. I really liked Hasan. I hadn’t realized I was his best friend, and now I kind of felt like an ass because I told people I didn’t have one. “I don’t regret cutting them off. I regret waiting so long to do it. I regret putting myself on hold for so many years to keep the peace because it wasn’t actually peaceful at all.”
He kissed my other cheek. “I have a good feeling about that week.”
I didn’t. I didn’t know what the hell I was feeling, but I was ready to get on a plane to Savannah. I was ready to wake up at dawn and watch the sea-green waters of the Atlantic turn blue as the warmer waters gave way to the tropics. I was ready to embrace joy—even if it was only going to be for a little while.
And maybe, if I was very lucky, when I got back home, I’d be able to put all of my obsessions to bed.
Six
ATLAS
Turning the corner,I was flung into the wall by a tiny body, pain lancing up my spine as I collided with the plaster. I did my best to hold in my cry as my legs felt like jelly for a single moment, and then I was steady again.
“Sadie! What did I tell you! Get back here! Are you trying to kill your?—”
“Hey.” I turned and grabbed Tollin’s arm before he could rush past me, and I pulled him to a halt. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. It’s been a goddamn year, Atlas, and she’s still not being careful with you.”
Yeah. My niece was the only one not being careful, and I loved her more fiercely for it. My brother and his wife loved me to the point of it being goddamn unbearable. Tollin had been my biggest, and obnoxiously loudest, cheerleader in PT, and I could say that his motivation was one of the reasons I was on my feet now.
I wasn’t as steady as I had once been, of course. My doctor told me it was called walking paraplegia. It almost felt like an oxymoron until my doctor explained what it meant. My legs were weak. My spine was damaged permanently. But I had motor function, and apart from spasms and weird numbnessand tingling along nerves running down my legs, I could move the way I did before.
Or, well, that wasn’t true. I was never going to run marathons—not that I would have ever run a marathon. But my days leaping around a stage were over. Of course, I also hadn’t set foot on a stage since negotiating the rights and credits to my work, but that was beside the point. I wasn’t done with music. I was done with the band, but I still had more to give of myself to the fans, once I was brave enough to face them again.
During the negotiations, I’d taken back a third of my catalogue—songs that meant something to me. Songs that weren’t about Raleigh and the toxic love we’d attempted to share. He’d fought me on all of them, but I think his lawyers eventually shut him the fuck up because I had the proof that nearly all the music was my intellectual property.
The songs remained on old albums, and I got a decent cut of residuals, and they wouldn’t play them with their baby-faced new lead singer he was absolutely fucking offstage.
I got a decent settlement for the rights to the rest of the music, and I was released without any conditions about future recording contracts. I’d been contacted several times in the last year of my recovery by different labels who wanted to sign me, but I wasn’t sure I even wanted to go back to that kind of work.
I missed performing. Singing for people was as easy as breathing. Music came to me while I was awake and asleep. But the idea of starting over on my own?
