If I hand you my soul, would you run for the stars?
Or can I trust you to kiss all of my scars?
I don’t need you perfect. I don’t want you reshaped.
I’m longing to hold you.
The real you’s what I crave.
He switches seamlessly from lyrics to a lovely, muted humming, still fingerpicking the melody. I imagine the pick he wears around his neck glowing in approval. A lump forms in my throat, and I’m barely able to swallow. If I’m not careful, I’ll melt straight into a saltwater puddle right here on Main Street.
Drown in my own tears.
I need to leave now.
Turning in the direction of home, I’m relieved that I escaped Beau’s notice. The wind tugs at my sleeves as I step out onto the street. The music follows, faint but resonatingin the ears of my heart. It’s inside me now, carved into the part that still dares to hope.
Jenna rounds the corner just as I reach the crosswalk where Main meets the lane where Botaniqûe quietly sits. She sees my face and doesn’t ask, just links her arm through mine.
“You okay?” she murmurs after a bit.
I try to smile, but it’s brittle. “Not really.”
We wait in silence for a few moments. Then as we begin walking again, I add, choosing my words carefully, “Beau was playing his guitar. Just playing around, I think. Then he started singing, not fancy, not like he was performing or anything. Just him and his music.”
I grip Jenna’s arm and turn to face her. “But his song…Jenna, Beau’s song…it was about me. Not for me. He was bringing me into being as he sang. His heart was calling to mine even though he didn’t even know I was anywhere near.”
Jenna mouths, “Wow!”
I don’t share the rest, but I’m feeling the song again. One line in particular unspooled right into my chest:If I hand you my soul, would you run for the stars?It wasn’t just a line. It was a plea. One I never expected to hear from him—and maybe one I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for. It was so personal. Soft and aching. Like our kiss.
He wasn’t just singing. He was opening his soul, offering a piece of himself, and trusting me to hear it through the music. And I think he meant for me to find it, meant for the song to speak what he couldn’t say aloud.
That should feel beautiful. Safe. But it doesn’t. It frightens me.
Because if this is genuine, and I’m beginning to think it might be, then I’ve been chosen. Seen. Trusted.
And that means, if it ever ends, it won’t be because I was misunderstood. It’ll be because he saw all of me, and walked away anyway.
“Jenna,” my voice breaks. “I don’t want to be that girl again. The girl who’s only allowed into a man’s world if she fits into his mold. I’m never going to be small, and I think Beau gets my ‘too much.’ But I don’t know if that’s enough for him to want to be with me.”
We stop in front of the shop. Peaches is still there, sweater snug around her middle, tail thumping lazily against the mat. I kneel and rest my hand on her back, grounding myself.
Jenna sighs. “Maze. Honey. Listen to me. Youaretoo much. Too much passion combined with a heart that loves too wildly, hope that refuses to quit, a mind overflowing with brilliance, fire, color and life. And that’s exactly what makes you rare and irreplaceable.”
I don’t answer. I just take in her words as the soft strains of Beau’s song fill my mind.
And I wonder if it’s possible that being too much is exactly what someone out there has been waiting for all along.
Jenna finishes, “And if Beau doesn’t snatch you up and bring you into his world…..well…then he’s a fool.”
I grab onto Jenna and clutch her hard, as though she’s my lifeline. She holds me the way Mom used to when I couldn’t explain why I was crying—just wrapping me up and making it okay to fall apart.
With a final comforting whisper that “it’s going to be okay,” she lets go and turns down the dimly lit street, walking toward her home.
My breath is still unsteady. That song, especially Beau’s lyrics, linger like fingerprints beneathmy skin, marking me. And deep inside, the mosaic pieces of beliefs I’ve held begin to rearrange.
I sense a new understanding of myself emerging, truth balanced on the tip of something fleeting, a shimmering dewdrop suspended in its final moment.
