A twinge of uncertainty about tonight. Excitement. A bit scared. Defensive. Hopeful…
How can a person experience all these contradicting emotions at once and survive?
“Channel. I’m scared.” I fight back tears, unsure of which emotion to accredit them to. I only know that I never want to feel as unwanted as I felt sitting in that corner booth three years ago.
My cousin wraps me in a hug. I squeeze my phone as I bring my arms up to pull her closer, needing the warmth and comfort of her presence.
“I know, I know,” she coos, careful not to run her hands through my styled hair. “That’s okay. It’s okay to be scared. It would be weird if you weren’t. But I’m proud of you.” She releases me and grabs my free hand with both of hers. I use the back of the hand grasping my phone to blot my cheeks.
“For what? Probably making a fool of myself again with Mason?”
Chanel tightens her grip on my hand. “No. For being brave and choosing not to let the past continue to stifle your shine. Look at you.” She gestures towards the full-length mirror by my vanity.
I look at the woman in the mirror.She’s breathtaking,I admit, on the verge of sounding as conceited as Mason. From the sneakers to the sparkling dress that sits mid-thigh, to the sultry makeup and Hollywood-ready hair.
I’m not eighteen-year-old Karoline anymore. I’m not the woman he left in that diner.
I’m twenty-one, twenty-two come March.
I’m a woman, doing a job I love, surrounded by people I love, in a town I’ve grown to love.
Chanel is right. No matter what happens tonight or going forward, I’m not stuck in the past. I’m free to choose to offer a second chance to Mason, and I’m free to choose to not to.
The decision is mine and mine alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Karoline - One Year Ago
My worst nightmare followsme into the land of the living.
I stare at the billboards along the highway, promoting an upcoming concert on the coast of Mississippi at the Coliseum. His face appears on every other sign, a head full of dark brown hair that contrasts perfectly against his light but tanned skin.The image is blown up so big that I can pinpoint exactly where the golden ring around his dark brown irises should be.
At least I could if I wasn’t going eighty down the interstate.
To torture me further, it’s at the moment the song changes on the radio, a new single by the year’s hottest country artist, Mason Kane. A soft thrum of a guitar filters through the sound system in my car, and after a brief interlude, his deep, smooth voice drowns out the sound of the road beneath my tires.
Though I grip the steering wheel as if it’s my lifeline and I scowl at the radio for playing this song, I’m too far gone to pretend I wasn't listening to the radio in hopes the song would come on at random. Nor can I hide the fact that I took this drive just to see his face. If I plugged my phone in and intentionally chose the song or if I googled pictures of him to look at, then I would have to confess to being some variant of a masochist.
But when his music plays by random chance and his face is somewhere I can’t avoid looking because it’s along my route to the beach, then I have excuses to point to as to why I’m a haunted soul at the moment.
As his lyrics invade my senses, chilling me to my bones as it does every time I hear this song, I’m forced to relive one of the worst nights of my existence. Mason sings about a diner, a drunken kiss, and his biggest regret.
The song is packed full of emotion, and I’m not naïve enough to miss that this is a very public apology to a very private thing he did to me.
How could he make this song public? He could have sent the lyrics to me. Or a private video. Or—here’s a winner—picked up his freaking phone, invited me out, and apologized to me in person!
But no.
He’s Mason Kane.
He has to make money off my pain.
And yet here I am, on the prowl to scoop an additional helping of pain and self-loathing onto my plate because I’m pulling into the Coliseum parking lot, clutching a ticket to my demise.
It’s me. Hi. Iamsome variant of masochist. When I said I took this drive to see his face, it wasn’t just on a billboard.
Therapy. That’s where I should have gone.
