“Tally, you have nothing to apologize for.”
“No, I should’ve been at Walter’s funeral and I should’ve been here to help you care for Frankie when she got sick!”
I cup her cheek, wiping away a stray tear. “You listen tome now, alright? What they went through, what I went through—it was just life. It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t your job to pick up the pieces.”
“But I owed them. Your parents did so much for me,” she says weakly.
“They helped because they wanted to and because they could. But my folks didn’t expect something in return. You had dreams to chase and they were so proud of you for achieving them.”
Tally’s brows arch. “They… were? They didn’t hate me for leaving?”
“Mama bought every album you released. And Dad recorded every holiday special, every talk show appearance. Any time you were on TV, he taped it like it was still the 90s. If you look in the cabinet in the living room, you’ll find a shrine to your career.”
She hugs me tighter, trembling. “You’re not just sayin’ that?”
“They wanted you to be happy, even if that meant a life far away from here and from them. I never told a soul what happened in Vegas, but they gathered that we broke up. None of us expected you to set foot on this property again.” I laugh. “Guess I need to send a thank you card to ‘Uncle Barry’ in the afterlife. His involuntary sacrifice brought you back to me.”
“You think this is fate?” she asks.
“I ain’t got a clue. Maybe it’s part of a grand plan we’re too small to see.”
She sniffles. “Not sure I believe that.”
“Me neither. But I’m still glad you’re home.”
18
RUST
Tally brushes over the dashboard,her hand moving to the glove box.
Fuck. For a woman who claims to want to leave the past buried, she sure sniffs out every shred of it like a goddamn bloodhound.
She opens it and reaches inside, pulling out a tattered notebook with a holographic cover. A breath escapes her. “Our songbook? I thought I lost it in Vegas!”
“You actually left it in the glove box yourself. I just kept it that way,” I explain.
She moves the cover back and forth, making it look like the wild horses on it are running. “Every piece of music we wrote together is still in here?”
“Every. Single. One.”
She opens the notebook to the first page. ‘Love’s an Outlaw’is written in pink glitter gel pen at the top with a few lines of lyrics and notes below. The rest of the page is achingly blank.
Tally runs a finger over the ink. “We never finished it.”
A wave of bittersweet nostalgia washes over me. We wrote this snippet of a song—our first song—moments after our first kiss. When we met at school the next day, Tally showed me this notebook and announced it was to be our songbook.
We were in over our heads with such a complicated composition and vocal execution. Whenever we talked about‘Love’s an Outlaw’ we put off finishing it. We thought we had all the time in the world.
Now I realize it might’ve been an excuse to convince ourselves we had forever.
My eyes snag on the lyrics, my foot tapping the beat. “I thought you might’ve completed it on your own.”
Tally laughs weakly. “I tried—not to release it, just for myself—but I couldn’t do it. Somethin’ always felt mismatched. Out of tune.”
I purse my lips. Out of tune is exactly how my life felt without her.
“But on the upside, this is our second chance to finish ‘Love’s an Outlaw!’ This is a goldmine…” She flips through the pages. “What if we reworked all these songs together?”
