Who was I without those things? How did I define success?
It was harder to eat normally without Amy’s example. I kept up a semblance at dinnertime, under my mother’s watchful eye. But the weight of her attention pressed on me.
“You’re too thin,” she said one night at supper as I cut my chicken into smaller and smaller pieces.
I felt burdened by her concern, by the pressure to be good, to be strong, to be happy.
“I’m fine,” I said, and she had to accept that, like it or not. Wasn’t that what she’d told us girls for years?
But it was even worse when Momma wasn’t around. The next morning—a Monday—after my run, I prowled the kitchen, restless in my own skin. Dissatisfied. Empty.
Colt still hadn’t called. I’d texted him on Saturday before his show. Knoxville, according to the tour schedule. He hadn’t messaged me back.
I ate my yogurt, but I wanted something else. Something more.
I opened the cabinets, searching. I opened the fridge. But whatever I wanted wasn’t there. Not food. Not even the satisfaction of not eating.
“How do you define success?”
My phone jangled with the opening chords of “Miss You More.” “Colt?”
“Angel! Baby! Where the hell have you been?”
I clutched the phone, desperate for connection. “Right where you left me.”Six weeks ago.
“You had me worried, sweetheart. I almost sent Jimmy down there to check on you.”
His concern assuaged me. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, good. Although, hey, I’m sending the car anyway. We’ve got almost a week before we got to be in Atlantic City. Thought we’d make a stop in Nashville and lay down the track for your new song.”
“What?”
“Your song. ‘For Better or Worse.’ Great little ballad. Can’t wait to hear it in the studio.”
My heart lifted. “You like it?”
“Love it. We’re all lined up to do the vocals on Sunday.”
And sank.Oh. No. “Colt, I can’t be ready to record in three days.”
“Listen, you don’t have to do a thing. No press, no appearances. I cleared it all with Dewey. We’ll lay down the instrumental tracks before you even get here. You just show up and sing.”
My resistance faded in the face of his certainty. “But... Three days.”
“Got to keep it flowing, babe. Fans don’t wait anymore for you to put out twelve or fifteen songs at once. It’s all about throwing out content.”
Amy would jump at the chance. But this was my life. My business. My song. Not something to be thrown out in a hurry to appease Colt’s fans.
I gripped the phone tighter. I was sweating, from the run and nerves. “I’d like to think about it.”
“We already booked the studio. If you can’t get up here, Mercedes can sing it.”
A compromise? Or a threat? Distress spiked my heart rate. “It’s not Mercedes’s song.”
Colt expelled an impatient breath. “Obviously you’d get credit. Just like always.”
I wavered. He was offering me an identity. Something solid to hold on to.Beth March, songwriter.
