Page 43 of American Beauty

I play Magnolia’s playlist again on the drive home, the one titledMissing Big Guy. I turn the volume up and let it fill the quiet spaces. Every song feels like a letter I never got. Like she’s speaking to me through the lyrics she chose.

I don’t know what she’s saying with these songs, but I want to understand it.

Before I go to bed, I open her account again.

I don’t have a name for the playlist yet. But I’ll come up with one. Because if this is the only way I can talk to her… I’m going to say everything I need to say.

Chapter 13

Alex Sebring

I tapthrough her music account, thumbing a new playlist into existence. It feels stupid and sappy and also like the most important thing I’ll ever do. I don’t overthink the songs. I just pick the ones that remind me of her: slow, aching ballads; rough-edged rock; even the country tracks she claimed to hate but tapped her fingers to… or shimmied her hips in beat with when she thought I wasn’t looking.

When it comes time to name it, I hesitate. This isn’t just some random playlist. It’s a message. A lifeline. A reminder that wherever she is, I’m still here, still hers, still waiting.

I type the title—You Are My Everything, Magnolia—and hit save before I can second-guess it.

Not the most creative, not the most polished. But it’s the truth.

Maybe it’ll find its way to her heart, the way she’s carved herself into mine.

Maybe she’ll see it and know.

And if she doesn’t?

Well, my heart’s already breaking without her.

What’s a little more honesty about the wreckage?

Chapter 14

Alex Sebring

Magnolia’s absencescreams at me in the things she left behind—the pair of unwashed knickers I found in the laundry basket… the half-used strawberry lip balm she’d apply at bedtime… the box of tampons under the sink.

I can’t bring myself to throw them out. It’s pathetic, I’m well aware. But every time I carry them to the bin, I freeze. Like chucking her cotton rockets means admitting she’s never coming back.

So yeah. The tampons stay.

It’s been four weeks since Magnolia ended things. Two weeks since I created that playlist for her and got no response. A month since I’ve functioned like a real person.

I am nothing but a lovesick fool.

My phone buzzes. It’s Tina again, but I don’t answer. My family, Jack, Laurelyn––they all mean well. They’ve all been calling and texting to check on me. And I’ve ignored every damn one of them.

I don’t have the energy to pretend that I’m okay and everything is going to be all right.

Last night, I tried reading Magnolia’s journal—the one filled with all her private thoughts from her time in Sydney. Pages of messy loops and coffee stains and pieces of her I thought I knew.

I only read two entries before I had to stop. Not because it was too much work. But because it wrecked me.

He makes me feel so safe. So wanted. I’ve met no one like Alex. I didn’t think I could fall this deeply in love with anyone. But with him, it was inevitable.

She loved me.

With her whole heart.

And then the wind shifted, and she didn’t anymore.

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