Page 79 of The Song We Lost

There’s a look on his face I can’t name at first. Not anger. Not confusion.Grief.

It hits me a second too late, but the impact is still staggering.

Sadie…. Sadie has to be ok.

The driver moves to get out and open my door, but Thomas beats him to it. He pulls the door open and reaches for me before I’m even fully upright. I step into his embrace, and he holds on too long.

That’s when Iknow.

He doesn’t say welcome home.

He doesn’t say we missed you.

He just squeezes me like he’s bracing me for impact.

I don’t grab my bags, or say anything to Noah.

I run.

Up the steps. Through the open front door. My boots skid slightly on the hardwood, and I nearly lost my footing.

I round the corner into the kitchen…

And I see her.

Sadie.

She looks thinner than she did on our video calls. Like the light inside her is dimmer. Her cheeks are hollowed slightly. Her collarbone is sharper. Her sweater hangs differently on her frame.

I suck in a breath, and her eyes snap up.

Shock registers first, then pain and anger. Her chocolate brown eyes are so expressive when she turns to Cole, who is standing just off to the side like a man already breaking.

“What did you do?” she demands, “Why is she home?”

Her voice has a weakness to it that she didn’t have the last time I saw her in person. Cole doesn’t answer, but his face says everything and it feels like my heart is in my throat.

“Sadie?” I try to ask what is going on, but panic and tears are fighting for space in my chest, and my words keep getting caught halfway out.

She slowly steps around the island, one hand gripping the edge for support.

Support.

My eyes track the movement.

I know.

I KNOW something is wrong.

But I need to hear it, I need the words.

She tries to give me a reassuring smile. It falls flat. I can see the hollow in her face now. The strain around her mouth.

“Bailey, I thought you had to record your last album before you could come home.”

She says it to me, but she keeps shooting a look at Cole.

“She deserves to know,” Cole says, and his voice carries a broken quality I have never heard before.