Page 79 of Sounds Like Love

A stone of dread dropped into my stomach.

I pulled my hand out of his. “Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

I tried to think through my thoughts before I voiced them. I tried to pick through my words carefully, because I got the feeling that he rarely told anyone these things, and he was hurting. He had been hurting for a very, very long time.

“You said it yourself—music gives me joy. But … it just seems to make you feel so small.”

He looked startled.

I curled my fingers tightly into fists, searching his face, knowing that he could be so much more, so much bigger, if he chased songs for himself. “I want to write this song with you, Sasha, but I want it to be forus. I want you to write it because you want to write it with me. And I want the song to be big and loud—something we can blast from the stereos and that makes us feel alive and real andhere,” I begged, motioning to the strange space between us, now filled with all my cowardice and all his anger and all our regret, where I knew something beautiful could be. I caught glimmers of it. I knew he did, too. “It can’t be for your dad. It can’t be for anyone else. No one but us.”

He tried to say something, but he couldn’t find the right words.

“That’s not—she’s not—she’s wrong,”I heard in my head. They were private thoughts, not meant for me, but they were much too loud to not hear.“I’m not small. I’m not.”

“I didn’t mean that youaresmall,” I quickly tried to correct myself. It was the wrong thing to say. “Just the way you create. It makes you feel small—”

He jerked to his feet suddenly. “I know. It’smyhead. I need …”

“She’s wrong. She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t. Shelovesmy dad, of course she’d take his side.”

It was my turn to stand. “Sasha, I’m not taking his side.”

He held up his hands. Squeezed his eyes closed. “I know, Iknow. I just need”—“Space. Distance. A drink.”—“to leave. To go,” he said thickly.

“I’d get out of your head if I could.”

“I know,” he replied, dropping his hands. He blinked, taking a step back, then another, toward the stairs that left the balcony. “I just … I can’tthinkwithout you knowing.”

I reeled. I searched my thoughts, trying to understand where I had messed up so badly. What did I do wrong?

“Nothing, you did nothing,” he quickly added, retreating faster now. “I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night,” I replied, but he had already turned and was down the steps. I pursed my lips into a thin line to keep them from wobbling, and angrily swiped at the tears coming to my eyes.

Chapter28You’re Still the One (That I Love)

THE HOUSE WASdark when I came home. To resist going after Sasha, I’d made myself busy at the Revelry and helped Mitch close for the evening. My parents left early, so I figured they’d be in bed by now. Then I spied a lantern flickering in the garden out back. I put my purse on the hook in the foyer, and slipped past the sleeping pit bulls on the couch, and out the back French doors to the garden. The ocean roared in the distance, the moon reflecting off the white-capped waves that came rushing in at low tide.

My parents were on the swing, enjoying the evening as they rocked, back and forth, laughing about something that had happened tonight at the Rev. A flicker of annoyance ran through me—it was like they didn’t even act like everything was changing. Too fast, too soon, too terribly. Ever since I’d come home, I’d been bracing for some sort of conversation. Some contingency plan. Something—anything—to acknowledge the timer we were on.

But instead they ignored it, like they always did. And I was understanding how less and less.

Dad saw me first and raised his lit pipe. “Daughter! I was wondering when you’d wander home!” he called, and motioned for me to come over and sit with them. Mom scooted one way, and he scooted the other, and they patted the cushion in the middle.

“I can’t fit there,” I said, thinking I should just go to bed. Closing the Rev hadn’t sweetened my mood at all.

“It’ll be a tight squeeze,” Mom said, “but your brother’s done it.”

“We got something we want to discuss,” Dad added.

A small tremor of hope raced through me. I guessed I could stay for a minute. “Well, ifMitchcan shimmy his hips between you two …” And I squeezed in between the two of them. We were elbow to elbow. Which was incredibly uncomfortable. I sat there for three swings, and then I pulled myself back out with, “I love you two, but I don’t love anyonethismuch. I’ll sit on the ground.”

Mom was appalled. “You’ll get dirty!”

Dad replied, “Wyn, that’s because there’sdirton the ground.”

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