Page 7 of Places I've Never Been

Mattie shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t. The story was yours to tell, not mine. You did great.”

Piper pushed her chair away from the table. “Oh please. You’re really letting her off that easy? She writes one song and suddenly it’s all better? Does she even know what she did wrong?”

Della turned to Piper. “I screwed up, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I thought I needed…wanted…I went the wrong direction. Iknowthat.”

“You still don’t get it.” Piper’s voice rose. “All these years later you still haven’t figured out that the part you got wrong has nothing to do with going solo and everything to do with younot talking to us about it first.”

Mattie’s stomach twisted and churned. She was beginning to regret the Bloody Mary. The alcohol left a sour taste in her mouth, or maybe it was the family drama. Her own words came back to haunt her.

Nothing lasts forever, not even us.

She looked around the table, from Piper’s stony anger to Della’s desperate defensiveness to Lizzie’s pained patience, and wondered if this rift in her family would be the one thing thatwouldlast forever. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Can we just calm down and talk like adults?”

“Let me finish. Please.” Della said. “I just wanted to tell you all that I was wrong, and you were right. I talked with Renic and told him you win. I want The Bellamy Sisters back together.”

Piper wrinkled her forehead. “I win? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No. Not you.” Della’s nervous laugh sounded too high and sharp. She swept her arm from left to right as if including the whole patio. “All of you. Us. We all win, together. I want us together.”

Lizzie moaned softly and rubbed her temples. “Della, that’s not what we talked about.”

“We…win.” The words repeated over and over in Mattie’s mind like a fire alarm rung by a crazed clown. “We win. We win?”

“Yeah, like we’ve all been playing a giant game of poker for the last four years, except all I remember is Della leaving us with a handful of crap.” Piper narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean you want The Bellamy Sisters back together?”

Della rolled her eyes. “I mean I want us to beusagain.”

“We…win,” Mattie repeated, still stuck on the concept that they’d all just been playing a game for the last four years. “We win what?”

Della continued as if Mattie hadn’t said anything. “None of you wanted me to go solo and I’ve realized you were right. It was a bad call. So I told Renic I won’t do any more solo albums, and I want to get our band back together. Even the crew. As many as we can anyway. It’ll be great. We’ll all be happy, just like we used to be.”

Della’s announcement landed in front of Mattie with a loud, blood-rushing-in-the-ears thud.

She was aware of Piper and Lizzie talking, or shouting, but their words blurred together and became noise. Time expanded like a balloon while Mattie processed the words “you win.”

The day Della had announced she was going solo was one of the worst days of Mattie’s life, topped only by the deaths of her mother and father. Now Della flounced back into their lives as if no time at all had passed and nothing had gone wrong and it all had been just fun and games.

Her sister hadn’t grown up at all.

Something inside Mattie snapped.

She stood up so fast her chair tipped over. “No.”

All eyes turned to her.

Lizzie had a hand on Della’s arm as if she were trying tokeep her from speaking, or leaving, or doing whatever it was Della most felt like doing.

“What?” Della asked.

“No. You’re not doing that to me—to us—again.” Once the words started tumbling out she couldn’t stop them, or the anger that bubbled out with them. Everything she’d thought that day, and every day since—everything she’d felt but hadn’t told anyone—came spilling out. “You ripped our lives apart and now you’re here trying to say, ‘Sorry, my bad,’ like that’s all it takes? You turned my life upside down, and you didn’t even ask me. Like my opinion didn’t matter. LikeIdidn’t matter. Do you have any idea what happened after that? Do you have any clue what I’ve faced since then? Do you even care?”

Della’s eyes widened, and her lips parted, but Mattie rushed on.

“I spent a year wondering what the hell to do with myself, with no energy to even try to write a song. You get that? It took me a damn year to get past that little stunt of yours. It took a lot of effort to find my feet and get my voice back, only to find myself facing a wall of assholes who thoughtthe studiowrote the songs instead of me. I’ve spent the last two years building my career songwriter. I’ve finally started to gain some sort of reputation, not just as a Bellamy Babe but an honest-to-God talent. But you don’t know about any of that, do you, because you don’t give a shit about anyone else’s life. All you care about is yourself.”

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She brushed them away, but more took their place.

“Mattie—” Della said.

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