I wrote one line in the notebook on the table.
Crossed it out.
Wrote another.
Crossed that out too.
Rachel glanced over.
“How’s the apology?”
“It keeps becoming a breakup song.”
“Occupational habit.”
“I don’t want to write a breakup song.”
“What do you want to write?”
I looked at the green thread around my wrist.
Something honest, I thought.
Something that did not ask Ellie to forgive me.
Something that did not turn her into a metaphor, a headline, or a woman waiting at the end of a chorus.
“I don’t know yet.”
Rachel nodded.
“That seems to be the theme.”
I played the chords again.
This time, one of them felt right.
I wrote it down before it could leave.
I had written hundreds of songs about wanting someone.
Apparently, writing one about having hurt them required better rhymes.
Thirteen
Ellie
By nine the next morning, Reef Rascal had received fourteen phone calls, six emails, three booking requests markedURGENT, and one bouquet addressed toTHE MYSTERY WOMAN.
Hank placed the flowers in an empty mask bucket.
Captain Pancake ate the card.
“I think those were mine,” I said.
Hank looked at the dog.
“Ownership’s unclear.”
