My heart thudded, a dark, brutal rhythm. Fear. I felt an excruciating fear when she said those words. I also felt a hunger like nothing I’d ever known. A desperation to hear her say it again. Need scorched through me, and it wasn’t just sexual. It was visceral. Painful.
I pressed my face into the crook of her neck. “Why?” I whispered.
“She thinks you’ll hurt me.”
“I am hurting you. You’re fighting with Shayla because of me.”
“We’re not fighting. She just got upset. She feels a bit betrayed that I didn’t tell her the moment you kissed me. I told her tonight, about what happened, three years ago…” She sighed, growing heavier against me. “I think it helped her to understand, quickly, that this wasn’t some whim. That it’s deep with us and it’s not going anywhere. But… it also hurt her that I didn’t tell her back then.”
“She really didn’t know?”
“No. She trusted me. I mean, she’s not dense. She knows I’ve been spending a lot of time with you. But she believed me when I told her, early on, that there was nothing going on between us. And then she stopped asking. Because… she trusted me.” She sighed again. “I’m the worst friend.”
“You’re not. But… should we have told her sooner?” I wondered. Because how the hell would I know. I didn’t know the first thing about being that honest, even with my closest friends. But I was trying to learn.
“No,” she breathed. “It’s better that she find out now. Now that I’m with you.”
“Right,” I said, letting a little sarcasm slip in. “I mean, clearly I am making you incredibly happy.”
“Johnny… you make me feel better than happy. You make me feel so much moremethan I am without you. You tap into all the best parts of me and draw them out, and you fucking cherish them.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well… I love all the parts of you.” It was the closest I’d come to telling her I loved her, but the words didn’t slide smoothly out. They got choked up in my throat.
“I know you do,” she said.
We lay silent for a moment, my heart beating against her.
“I think you need to tell her everything,” she said softly. “Otherwise, there are things about you that Shayla will never understand. Things that have probably always caused a rift between you two. People you love can tell when you’re not telling them everything there is to know. When you tell her… things will come into focus for her. She’ll understand you more. And she’ll be glad that you told her.”
“I really don’t know if I can, Angeline.”
“Because you’re still afraid it will change things?”
“Yes.”
“So, if you can’t say it… then why don’t you put it in a song?”
“Sure. I’ll just write a jingle.”
“Johnny O’Reilly. Don’t get smart,” she said smartly. “You said music and singing helped you to find your voice, right? So can’t that still be true for you?”
“Sweetheart,” I told her, my voice rough as I kissed her neck, “I think that’s always been true for me. There are things I’ve put into songs that I’d never say to someone in real life.”
“Then maybe the best thing you can do for yourself and the people who love you is to put what you went through into a song somehow.”
I sighed. And I confessed to her then, something else I’d never told anyone. “I already did.”
“You wrote a song about the carjacking and… everything?”
“Actually, I wrote a lot of songs about it. Just none that were any good.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Why aren’t they any good?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because they’re unfinished.”
