??Winter
Chase had another scan in December. Stable. Two syllables that meant everything.
We celebrated with grilled cheese and champagne. Not fancy. Just us.
He’s still healing. Still adjusting. There are days he disappears into his music and days he just disappears, needing quiet, needing less. I don’t take it personally. I get it. And when he reappears, he’s softer. Calmer. Like whatever storm he went into left him lighter somehow, even if it still rains now and then.
We don’t talk about fear the way we used to. Not as a monster in the corner, but as something we’ve learned to live beside. Something that reminds us to hold each other tighter.
Some days, we make music.
Some days, we make space.
Both feel like love.
Tag started a nonprofit in January. A support fund for survivors of opioid overdoses and their families. He doesn’t talk about what happened to him. Not directly. But I see it in the way he shows up for the ones who haven’t figured out how to stand back up yet.
He named it “Second Verse.”
I cried when he told me. He pretended not to notice.
***
??Spring
Kenna accidentally proposed to Tag.
We were packing up after a show, and she was ranting about his socks ending up in her makeup bag. Then, out of nowhere: “Maybe we should just get married if you’re gonna keep living in my damn suitcase.”
Silence.
Panic.
Then she bolted.
Tag didn’t follow her right away. He just looked down at the place she’d been standing, grinned, and said, “Guess I need a ring now.”
Three days later, he pulled her out onto an empty venue balcony after soundcheck, dropped to one knee with a ring he definitely didn’t buy in a hurry, and asked her for real.
She said yes.
They’ve been fighting over who proposed first ever since.
Mom and Dad visited last week. They’re lighter than I remember them. Less worried about all the wrong things. Mom cried when she saw Chase’s guitar line in the store near our venue. Dad asked for a T-shirt with the band name in glitter.Kenna was so proud.
Chase paid me a compliment that made me blush, and Dad said, “He’s got limited vision, and he still sees you better than the last one ever did.”
I’ve never believed in spring more than I do right now.
***
??Summer
I walked barefoot down an aisle made of wildflowers while my band members played something that sounded like moonlight. Tag stood beside Chase, unusually quiet, his jaw clenched like he was holding back every feeling he didn’t know how to say. Kenna reached over and slipped her hand into his.
The sun came out just as I said “I do.”
Chase smiled wide.
