Part of her had hoped once they did it all – the album, the tour, the events, the promotion – Blythe and Emerson would… would come around to it in the way Darcy had started to.
But the truth was crystal clear. Even if she’d wanted to believe otherwise, or if she’d wanted to believe things would change.
Juliet turned to give her a small smile, and Darcy wanted to kiss her. They were on the sidewalk, so she didn’t. But Juliet reached out, lacing their fingers together briefly. Connecting them for a few seconds, before she released her.
And with that, Darcy walked in. The bells jingled against the door, alerting Brenda, Emerson’s mother, to her arrival. She looked up, not pausing the conversation she was having on the phone behind the counter as she gave Darcy a smile, nodding her head toward the back of the store.
Darcy returned the smile and walked through the store. Gently trailing her fingertips over the covers of the songbooks as she went. The smell of the store, of the fresh wood and the paper and the polish, lighting up the nostalgic parts of her mind as she walked down to the final door of the hallway that had four different practice/lesson rooms.
She dropped her hand to the knob, taking a breath, before she pushed it open. Pausing after a few inches to say, “Can I come in?”
“Darcy! Yes. Obviously. Come in.” Emerson’s response was immediate, her words almost falling over one another.
Darcy shut the door behind her, taking a moment to look around. They’d recordedBowling Alley Balladshere. It was the perfect place. Symbolically, this was where Emerson had given her all of her music lessons, and where they’d fine-tuned so much of their music. And, of course, logistically, this was where the instruments all lived and it was soundproof.
It had only been a year and a half ago when they’d recorded, but a lifetime seemed to have passed.
She felt that reality wash through her, as she turned to look at where Emerson was sitting on the piano bench.
Her best friend’s eyes were wide, searching. Hesitant. “I, uh, I’ve been texting. And I sent a voice note. But… then I remembered you didn’t have your phone.”
Darcy tangled her fingers in front of her, walking around the piano. Wordlessly, Emerson slid over and Darcy plopped down. Just like how it had been for so many lessons, then for so many brainstorming sessions over the years.
“Yeah. I don’t have it back, yet. You’re the first stop on my reunion tour.” She cracked a grin, feeling a little hesitant, herself.
But she didn’t want to feel that way with Emerson. She, actually, refused to. Not with her best friend.
Emerson didn’t return the smile, though. Remorse was etched into a deep frown, as she stared at Darcy. “I… Blythe and I aren’t the same, in this,” she confessed, so quietly. “And we didn’t try to gang up on you, I promise. I just, we ended up talking one night after a show. In New York, actually, when you were with Juliet. We were both awake, it was late. She said that she was excited to be back home soon, that she was justtired. And I – I don’t feel that exact way that she does. Because I love the music, the same way you do, Darcy.”
Darcy looked around the room. At the recording equipment and the instruments and the sheet music. “I know.”
She’d always known she and Emerson were the same on that front. They always had been.
Emerson’s shoulders sagged slightly, like she was under a huge weight. “It’s just the – the everything else that goes along with it. It was what I wanted, too. Tomake it.” There was something wistful in her voice, as she, too, looked around the room. “What I thought I wanted, anyway.”
Darcy got that, too. “I know.”
Emerson deflated completely, turning to look at her. “I’m just… not fearless the way you are.”
She snorted, incredulously. “Em, youknowI’m not fearless. Come on.”
Emerson had been around to witness her many sleepless nights.
“Yeah, but – that’s what I mean, I guess. I know you get anxious, too, and you – you just stilldo it.” Emerson’s eyebrows furrowed down at her hands on the keys, as she shook her head. “I wanted to do the same thing. I want to be the same kind of person you are.”
“So, we’re different. But it doesn’t mean you aren’t fearless.” Darcy turned to look at Emerson, needing her tohearDarcywhen she said this. “I do have anxiety, but it’s mostly situational. I know that your anxiety is a lot… more.”
Emerson’s anxiety had been a part of her life that she’d been managing the entire time Darcy had known her. Long before the weight of fame and public scrutiny, which had only made it worse. And yet, still, Emerson had done everything she’d needed to do. Showed up to everything.
Maybe that was why Darcy still had the hope that, with enough time and exposure, it would change.
But… she couldn’t fault Emerson for itnotchanging. For her not wanting to need to keep pushing through, day after day.
Or, in Juliet’s words, shecouldfault Emerson. But she certainly didn’t want to.
“I know I didn’t really have a great response the other day–”
Emerson cut in, her voice laced with self-recrimination, “We should have told you in a better way. We just didn’t knowhow.”
