Page 8 of The Song We Lost

How we would lie tangled in each other talking about having a houseful of kids someday. Her laugh tangled in a house full of noise. Growing old side by side. Raising our kids surrounded by our families and so much love.

I blink back the stinging in my eyes; there has only ever been her. Doesn't Noah understand I am doing this for her, for us... our families. My anger cracks, replaced by something colder and sharper.

“Don’t ask me that,” I say again, quieter now. “You don’t get to ask me that.”

Noah exhales, rubbing a hand over his face. “Then why does it feel like you’re already gone? That you are constantly choosing everything and everyone over her.”

I turn away, jaw locked. I don’t trust myself to answer without breaking something.

What Noah doesn’t understand, what I don’t know how to explain, is that loving Bailey has never been the hard part. It’s standing next to her while she outgrows me. It’s watching her become everything we dreamed of and wondering if there’s still room for me in it.

I try Bailey again and again, and go straight to voicemail.

Fuck.

My hands shake, and panic threads through me now, winding tight. I scroll through our messages, hating myself.

How the fuck did we get here?

I do the thing I never do. I call Rachel.

She answers on the second ring. “Luke.”

“Is she...” I stop and swallow hard. “Is Bailey okay?”

There’s a pause, not long, just enough to feel deliberate. Rachel doesn't answer the question; instead, she says evenly. “She’s at the Nashville house. She’ll be there for two days before she heads out to prepare for the tour.”

The house.

Relief hits first and then comes the dread.

How did I forget about her tour? When did we get to the point where I have no idea where my wife is? And how bad is it that she is willingly going to our house alone?

To Bailey, Nashville has never been home. Not really. Home is the small town back in Alberta, dirt roads, familiar faces, both our families within shouting distance. The Nashville house was always temporary to her. A tool. A means to an end.

The end beinggoing back.

I hang up and stare at the wall. The house had been my idea. Big, expensive, with room for hosting, room for family, room for what I told myself was the future. She’d wanted smaller, quieter, something that felt like us.

“It’s just for now,” she’d said. “Until we can go home. Right?”

I’d promised her we would. I keep making promises...

I close my eyes, and my mind drifts before I can stop it.

A campfire under a wide, ink-black sky. Bailey is curled into my side like that's where she belongs. Her guitar balanced against her knee, humming while she tuned it.

Sadie, Cole and Noah were sitting across from us, trading jokes.

My dad was passing around mason jars of cider, proud even though it was still rough, still experimental. My mom was talking about apple trees as if they were already planted.

We’d talked about it like it was inevitable.

An orchard, with rows of fruit trees stretching toward the horizon. A barn big enough for weddings, shows, and community gatherings. A recording space tucked off to the side where Bailey and I could write the way we used to, no clocks, no agents, no management, no pressure.

Something for everyone. Something that meant we’d never have to leave each other again.

Then another night slams into me, like my mind is trying to show me all the ways I keep lying without trying, all the ways I am failing.