Her head falls into her hands, and I hate that it makes it better, that she’s just as ripped up, just as distraught as I am. I want to tell her we can make it okay, smooth it out, but I don’t know if that’s something I really believe anymore.
Maybe I never did.
And if Maisy wants to change for the better, I can’t force her not to just because I’m scared to change on my own.
It was never about Liam, not really. A boy didn’t end us. This is about her and me.
We hug goodbye eventually, all tears, and before I leave, Maisy presses one single, wrapped birthday gift into my hands. Like she’d already known she wouldn’t see me on the day. I open it when I get home, in the private of my room, and sob some more.
It’s a bracelet with one charm: a tiny silver race car. On the back there’s an engraving:It’s Bristol, baby!
Chapter 20
July, Now
Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Denver.
Bozeman, Boise, Salt Lake.
City after city, stage after stage, and their energy doesn’t fade. The band feasts on the crowd’s applause. They dine on what their fans give them like kings and queens, lapping it up, indulging in it, and then they serve it right back while the crew does its best to keep things going as seamlessly as possible.
In Denver, at the Red Rocks Amphitheater, Penny and Misha pull me onstage during sound check when the guys are running late. We’re still workshopping a few things, and I offered up an idea yesterday Penny is currently running with.
“Imagine in prod,” she says, “we layer the chorus under the third verse, except the key for that one is in G minor, like you originally suggested. Can you try mimicking the layer?”
“How loud?” I ask.
“Very soft.”
We try it, Misha messing around with a simple piano accompaniment, Penelope on the guitar and me on bass, mostly so I can hear my own key. I sing her chorus in G minor as softly as I can while she belts the words of the verse in B flat, and I know she’s happy with the way it sounds together when she smiles at me halfway through.
“What was that?” Gretta shouts below us, hauling along a bag of paper-wrapped sandwiches.
Henrietta’s trailing behind her sister, her grin wide. “Sounded new.”
“That was ‘Better Luck Next Time,’” Penny says into her mic, “coming to a recording studio near you this fall!”
The twins hoot and climb onstage.
“When do we get to hearyourstuff, Paige?” Henrietta asks, handing me a bag of chips.
“Oh,” I say. All their eyes turn to me as we sit in a circle, unwrapping our lunches.
I’ve avoided talking about my own work with the others as much as possible to avoid the accompanying unknown of what I’m really doing here.
Some days, I can even convince myself that the deal is cancelled, that my place here with them, with Liam, is honest.
But then I remember all the ways Liam won’t touch me. Which means he doesn’t trust my intentions yet and maybe the others wouldn’t either.
“Whenever you want!” My voice is a squeak. “I’ve been writing some of my favorite songs ever on this tour. But I have other tracks from school, and I envision most of those having collaborators in the future.”
“Maybe if you let us hear them,” Misha says, “wecan be your collaborators.”
I clear my throat and say, “I’d be honored. And if you want to record anything of mine, you can have it.”
Penny studies me. “You don’t want to record?”
“Not really,” I say. “I’m more focused on booking songwriters’ sessions right now. I think it’d be cool to get into producing one day, but I don’t have plans for an album of my own.”
