Page 129 of The Song We Lost

I turn my head slowly.

A picture they keep reusing, fills the screen.

Bailey is in a studio, her hair down. Soft light around her. It feels familiar, like a dream made real. But it’s not me beside her. It’s not our dream made real. It’s a nightmare. It’s him beside her.

Jackson.

Always Jackson now.

My jaw tightens.

“But somewhere in the noise and neon…”

I look away, too late. The pictures of them are everywhere now.

It’s already in my head.

It’s always in my head now.

I hear it in elevators.

In cars.

Through walls.

People hum it like it belongs to them.

Like she belongs to them.

Mine. Bailey is mine.

“There’s no place I’d rather be…”

I laugh once. It comes out hollow.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Yeah, I said that, didn’t I?”

But, I don’t remember saying it. People keep saying I did. That I started this…

That’s the part that won’t settle.

I remember the stage.

The lights.

The noise.

Kacey is too close. Her hand on my arm. Her voice in my ear.

But the words?

Those words?

Gone.

Just… gone.

And now they’re everywhere. My name tied to them like a joke I didn’t mean to tell. People sing the words out loud in front of me and then whisper behind my back that they are the words that ended my marriage.