“I’ll start the cancellation process. Notify the vendors. Suspend the billing where I can. But I’ll wait until the end of the day to make it official.”
My head snaps up. “Why?”
She shrugs lightly. “I want you to really think about your decision. I’d hate to waste those peonies.”
Then Celeste just gives me a long, unreadable look before rising from her chair. She crosses to the door and opens it without a word.
I stand too, my spine aching like I’ve been carrying too much for too long.
At the threshold, I pause. “You really think she could forgive me?”
Celeste doesn’t smile. Doesn’t sugarcoat. But she says, simply, “Maybe.”
***
Back at home, I decide today is as good a day as any to stress-cook. I start chopping vegetables more aggressively than necessary.
Margot appears, bringing with her that quiet air of competence. Dish towel over one shoulder, hair in its no-nonsense bun, calm as someone who could talk a soufflé out of collapsing.“Tea?” she asks, like the kettle’s already on.
“Please,” I say, and my voice sounds rough.
She sets the kettle, takes one look at my face, and reaches for the chamomile without asking. “You look like someone who needs calm,” she says, filling the infuser.
I let out a humorless laugh. “I’ll take calm—and a side of not being an idiot.”
She waits. She’s very good at silence that invites instead of accuses.
“Olive and I had a huge fight,” I admit, staring down at the cutting board like it betrayed me. “Because I can’t give her what she wants. And now she left.”
Margot’s brows lift the tiniest fraction. “Can’t give her what she wants—or won’t?”
I close my eyes. There it is: the screwdriver in the right drawer. I haven’t wanted to look too closely until now. “I thought I was doing the right thing. Now I’m not so sure.” It’s not an answer, but it’s all I’ve got. “I think I’ll go to the studio.”
Margot pulls the kettle off the heat, letting the steam rise between us. “What I know,” she says evenly, “is that I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been these past few weeks with Olive.”
“Thanks, Margot.” I squeeze her shoulders, leave the wreckage of my cooking for later, and head for the studio.
There, I sit in the middle of the floor, lights dimmed low, surrounded by scraps of lyrics I haven’t touched in weeks. My notebook lies open, the page still blank. I wait for something to come—some melody, some line—but nothing does. My brain refuses to cooperate.
Only one thing keeps coming to mind.
Her.
Olive, with ink on her fingers and her hoodie sleeves pushed up. Olive, with her pillow tucked under one arm and a mug of tea in the other. Olive, mouthing along to the lyrics of some stupid love song in the car, smiling like she didn’t even realize I was watching her.
I strum a few chords.
Minor key. Low, quiet.
Everything sounds like her.
The second line I try has the wordhedgehogin it. I laugh under my breath—half bitter, half aching. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I try to pivot. Change the tone. Think of something grittier. But my fingers won’t move that way. The music won’t cooperate. It keeps circling back to softness. Longing.
Love.
I stare down at the strings, my chest tightening.
