“Yes, much,” he snarks sarcastically before heading back to the barn.
Sheer routine gets me through the day. I feed horses. I check the water lines and muck out stalls. Dinner is spent at the kitchen table with my dad and brothers as I half-listen to them talk about market prices and weather patterns.
And through it all, there’s this hollow space beside me where he should be.
At night, it’s worse.Far worse.When the chores are done and everyone goes to bed, the house feels too quiet. But my thoughts are so loud.
I find myself glancing at my phone more than I want to admit, checking for missed calls and texts. Not that he’s reached out. I’m equal parts furious and relieved about that. If he called, I don’t know whether I’d answer.
Lying on my back, I stare at the ceiling and trace the familiar cracks in the plaster, like I haven’t memorized every one of them already. The fan turns slowly overhead, its steady whir the only sound in the room besides my breathing. My hands drift to the phone sitting on my nightstand before Ican stop myself. I pick up and swipe to my contacts.Easton Callahan.My thumb hovers over his name.
I should call him.The idea flits through my thoughts uninvited. If I just press the button, I could hear his voice. I could ask him why he didn’t fight and why he let me push him away. But I already know the answer to both of those questions. He left because I told him to, and he didn’t fight because there’s a whole other life waiting out there for him. I was just a stop along the way.
I lock the phone and set it down, turning onto my side so I don’t have to look at it anymore. I curl an arm under my pillow and press my face into it to muffle my sobs as I spend another night crying myself to sleep.
THREE WEEKS LATER
Knoxville smells like wet pavement, car exhaust, and old ambition. It rained overnight, the streets still slick and shining under a washed-out morning sky. I sit in my Bronco outside the studio for longer than necessary, resting my forearm on the open window as my gaze wavers between watching cars pass and the studio.
The building hasn’t changed at all. A faded black awning hangs from the brick front, and the small brass plaque with the studio’s name etched into it still hangs a little off-kilter beside the door. There is a lot of history inside that building. Some of Nashville’s most famous stars have recorded here.I used to be one of them.But today, I can’t bring myself to get out of the truck.
“You gonna sit out here all day?” I glance up to find Mason walking along the side of my truck. He stops at my window, coffee in one hand, and his sunglasses resting low on his nose.
“No. I was just getting out,” I lie before rolling up the window. I kill the engine and slip from behind the wheel. We walk toward the studio together, making insignificant small talk. He steps aside when we reach the door, so I can enter first. When I cross the threshold, the memories of this place hit me so hard they might as well be a slap across the face.
This is where I was when Rosie died.
I swallow hard, trying to swallow the memories.
“Feels the same,” Mason says, watching me carefully.
“Yeah…” But itdoesn’t. It feels smaller. The hallway that once felt like a tunnel toward something bigger and life-changing now feels like a narrow corridor lined with ghosts.
We step into Studio A. The room opens up, with high ceilings crossed with beams and sound panels lining the walls. The big mixing board sits under low lighting. A readied microphone and a guitar resting on a stand are positioned beside a stool, waiting for me.
“You sure about this?” he asks.
The question hangs between us for a moment before I answer, “No.”
I slip the guitar strap over my head and lower myself onto the worn stool in the center of the live room, adjusting to what used to be a familiar weight settling across my shoulder. Mason moves without a word to the empty stool beside the mixing board on the other side of the glass, his presence steady and unobtrusive. He isn’t here as my guitarist today. He’s here to support me.
I let my fingers fall into position and strum the first chord. It rings out through the monitors, clean and sharp. It’s loud, not in volume, but in presence. It fills the space completely. It used to feel like oxygen, like the first full breath after being underwater too long. Now, it’s heavier, demanding something from me I’m not sure I still possess.
My hand tightens slightly around the neck of the guitar, and muscle memory slides into place with unnerving ease, my fingers finding the frets without hesitation, and my foot tapping a quiet rhythm against the floor, like it never forgot the language of this room. My body knows what to do even if my heart doesn’t. Even if the part of me that used to burn for this feels distant and muted.
We start with something old. Something safe. A track I could play in my sleep. Through the glass, Mason watches, his arms folded loosely across his chest, his eyes never leaving me as he shifts toward his mic. His voice comes through the headphones, calm and even. “Whenever you’re ready, East.”
I lean toward the microphone, close enough to feel its cold presence, waiting for me to fill it. The first lyric leaves my mouth steady and controlled, my pitch lands exactly where it should. My breath follows the same pattern I’ve trained it to, but the words don’t mean anything beyond their acoustics.
It sounds like me, but it doesn’t feel like me.
I close my eyes and reach for it. The ache. The love. The restless hunger that used to live under my skin, clawing its way out the second I wrapped my hands around a guitar. The thing that made this more than performance. Thething that made my music relatable to fans around the world. But it isn’t there.
We run it again.
And again.
Each take blends into the next, indistinguishable except for the growing tightness in my chest, the quiet frustration coiling deeper with every attempt to reach something that won’t answer. By the fourth take, sweat gathers at the base of my neck, dampening the collar of my shirt. Not from effort. From the strain oftryingto feel something that refuses to be summoned. I let the final chord die beneath my fingers and lower the guitar, exhaling slowly as Mason disappears from behind the glass.
