Page 149 of The Song We Lost

Watch it fade to black

Like ash falling to the ground

So turn it up, let the speakers break

Let the midnight make its mistakes

If the rumours start to fly again

Let ’em ride the wind

You were never meant to stay

In a love that dimmed your flame

If you’re asking how you’re doing now

Baby look around

You’re a little louder, a little unchained

A little reckless in the best damn way

If losing him’s the price you paid

Then you’re wild again

Let the highway lights burn through the dark

Let the world hear the beat of a healing heart

Every scar’s just a spark in disguise.

And tonight we let it rise

So turn it up, let the speakers break

Let the midnight make its mistakes

If the rumours start to fly again

Let ’em ride the wind”

At the last stop of our trip I stepped out of the cabin we had rented and I watched the sun setting down around the trees and Rockies. I stayed leaning against the porch railing until the sky went from gold to purple. Until Sadie's voice pulled me back inside. I watched the sun fade into the night feeling so afraid of what was to come, but knowing I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

So after just over two weeks of traveling, as we pulled back into the compound and I got out of the truck the last thing I expected was…

“Sunshine?”

chapter 35

luke

. . .

The last two weeks had been a blur. I thought I had been dreaming about being home with Noah, about Jackson and Rhett being in our Nashville house. But it wasn’t a dream. Noah had come for me, with the help of two people who made it very clear that they were there for Bailey and not me. When I had been coherent enough to ask if Bailey had sent them, Noah had looked away saying she didn’t know and he wanted it to stay that way for a while but wouldn't tell me why.

I had this nagging feeling that he wasn’t telling me something, that something was very wrong, but I was pulled under in my restless sleep. It took over a week for me to be stable enough to travel any distance and then the doctor, Noah, had called for help, prescribed me stabilization meds to get me home and then into a rehabilitation centre close to Hawthorne ridge.