“She doesn’t need me, Logan. You’re her best friend.” Even as I say the words, I hate them. And I know they’re not entirely true. Not anymore, at least.
“She’s not even talking to me. She showed up crying.” Logan sounds panicked. “And I’ve tried everything. I sat with her… I held her. I thought maybe she’d tell me what was wrong, but she’s just crying.” I’m pissed thinking of him holding her, his hands on her, comforting her.I should have said something.I can’t do it.
“It’s Nonni,” I say. “She had a stroke or something. She’s in pretty bad shape, I guess.”
I dropped Vee at her house, where she clearly didn’t want to be, only so she could run to Logan. I can’t even blame her, as much as I want to. I know I can’t give her what she needs. I can’t just lie and say it’s all going to be all right, and I can’t be honest and tell her that I understand what she’s going through. I’m useless. She doesn’t need to hear my truths. The truth is, everything ends. Things go wrong, people die. There’s nothing you can fucking do about it. It doesn’t matter if you saw them two days ago or two weeks ago, there’s no way to prepare for it.God, I’m messed up.Logan can reassure her. He can tell her everything will be fine, and he’ll probably even mean it. He doesn’t know any better.
Logan is what she needs. Maybe, deep down, he’s what she’s always wanted, too.And he’d have to love her back, wouldn’t he? How couldn’t he?I’ve only known her for months and I love her. He’s known her for years—how could he not? He’s good for her. Logan’s her best friend. Part of her family. The history they share is complicated, but she knows everything about him. She will never—could never—know me like that. Vee deserves Logan. More importantly, Idon’tdeserve her.
I hear my name in the distance and realize that I dropped the phone on the bed when I began stuffing clothes into the canvas duffle bag that lies beside my bed.
“You coming, Cam?”
“I can’t.” I press theENDbutton and shove my life back into bags and boxes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NOW
VIRGINIA
I spent the first seventeen years of my life in Riverton, but every time I come back it feels a little less like where I belong. When I arrive on Friday night, I go straight to the little chapel that will host the ceremony. Cort is waiting for me in front of the giant wooden doors, holding a dress bag in one hand and a paper plate covered in ribbons in the other. When she sees me, she does her best backwoods country impression. “Well, there she is, our little Virginia Miller. Television star!”
I can’t help but laugh. Cort’s hair is a vibrant shade of red on top, with a thick layer of blond underneath. Mom must be thrilled. I throw an arm over her shoulder and pull on a strand of hair. “You’re going to look like a fry dipped in ketchup.” Our dresses are a hideous shade of yellow. “It’s going to be hot.”
“So hot.” Cort loops her arm around my waist and we walk into the chapel. “Almost as hot as that duet last week. You want to tell me about that?”
“I’m sure you saw it,” I say. “It was on national television, if you didn’t notice.”
“Trust me, I noticed. Was it amazing, being out there?”
“It was—” I don’t even know how to describe it. There are no words in my vocabulary, no other experience to compare it to that could do it justice. Being on that stage was like drinking freedom.It was like breathing in my dreams.“It was incredible.” The description is so lacking it feels like a lie. I can see my mother and father through the little square window in the door of the sanctuary when we stop outside the doors.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Cort says.
“There’s nothing to tell.” And it’s sort of true. It’s forty-nine percent true.
“Okay. I’ll drop it,” she says.
“Nothing to drop.”
“So it was just a blink then? That’s the story you’re going with again?” She gives me a playful smile and a wink as we push through the doors. We’re still linked arm in arm as we walk down the long aisle. I’m not sure what to say to her, because I don’t even know what I want. Worse yet, I don’t know what Ishouldwant. Since kissing Cam on the bus I’ve felt like a disappointment to strong, independent women everywhere.What was I thinking?When a guy abandons you during one of the most upsetting times of your life—and then disappears—you’re not supposed to take him back. You eat ice cream by the pound for a week, and you swear off all of his favorite bands. You write angry songs. You go out and create an amazing life for yourself, so you can rub it in his face. You are definitelynotsupposed to crawl into bed with him—nightmares or not. But there’s this voice in my brain that I can’t seem to turn off. It’s the same one that whispered in my ear in high school, saying “trust him,” “protect him,” “love him.”
Attention, strong, independent women of the world: Please tell me how to shut this stupid voice off!
“And if it wasn’t a blink? If it was a wink?” I say.
“Then it was a wink.”
I know she’s not letting me off the hook this easily. “And?”
“And… I hope it works out this time. Otherwise I’ll hunt him down, and that pretty little face of his won’t survive.” She’s smiling while she slices her hand through the air like she’s a jungle cat.
After the rehearsal, which seems totally unnecessary since the bride and groom have both been married before—to each other—Cort and I head to a viewing party at a local sports bar, to watch the band’s performance. Sitting at a corner table, away from the masses of local fans, it’s surreal to see it this way. Caustic Underground performs first, and Pax and the guys are on point. As the commercials play halfway through their set, I imagine Bri standing backstage, running bottles of water out to them, like she always does. Right now my guys would be going over their set list one final time.
Cort points out all of her band crushes while we watch, giving me a list of guys she expects to be introduced to.Like I’m qualified to be a matchmaker.During the segment between bands, when they play footage from the tour, they show a clip of me and Cam sitting in the back of the bus, holding our guitars. It’s from the first few weeks of the tour. I’m sitting with my back to the camera, holding my guitar, while Cam sings “This Girl” to me. He looks like he’s serenading me. Maybe he was. Seeing it this way, on the outside looking in, it’s impossible not to see the look on his face as he plays, willing me to join in. Pleading. My eyes are on the table, but his are on me. They scream an apology. He might not have said the words until that night backstage, after our first performance together, but his eyes told me he was sorry weeks ago. I just didn’t want to see it.
Your Future X has a rough night; Cam comes in too early on a verse of “Purple Shirt,” which throws off Logan. They’re visibly flustered, and not at all the confident future-rock-gods they usually are. It’s the first time I’ve seen them falter onstage.I look down at the purple shirt I pulled on over my sundress.Maybe it doesn’t count if I’m not there.
