“Don’t call me that,” I choked. I couldn’t take it. If he called me that, then I’d fold. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
Grady dropped his hand but stepped forward. I could smell the stale scent of cheap beer and cigarettes clinging to his clothes. Not even the expensive cologne I bought him for Christmas last year could cover it up. “Please, listen?—”
I pushed at his chest, hating how wrong it felt. I didn’t want the space between us, but I needed it. “Listen to what? Another excuse? Another apology?” I scoffed, feeling the tears begin to fall. “What is that going to do, Grady? Huh? It doesn’t erase the memory of yet another one of your disappointments.”
“I’ll do better,” he said, voice breaking. “I promise, I’ll do better. Just don’t walk away.”
“I want to believe you,” I whispered. “God, I want to so badly, but I just can’t anymore. I’m so sick of feeling like I’m not a priority. Like I don’t matter.”
Grady’s brows furrowed. “Of course you matter! How could you say you don’t?”
I stared at him in shock. Was he serious? “It’s my fucking birthday, and you were an hour and a half late!” I shouted, balling my hands into fists at my side. People around us stopped and stared, but for the first time tonight, I didn’t care. Let them look. Let them see how desperate and pathetic I was. Nothing could hurt as badly as this. “You didn’t answer any of my callsor texts. You didn’t even send one when you were on your way. The fact remains that not even this was important enough for you to show up on time. I just…” I sucked in a breath, barely able to choke out the next words. “I can’t do this anymore, Grady. I can’t sit around waiting for you to give a shit about me.”
“No, don’t do this,” he begged. This time, when he stepped closer, I let him. “I love you, bluebird. Please don’t leave me.”
He framed my face with his hands, bringing his forehead to rest against mine. For a moment, we stood there, breathing each other in. It would be easy to forgive him. To tell him it was okay like I did every other time before, but there was something about tonight that felt different.
I wanted him to succeed so badly, but I wasn’t sure he could do it with me at his side. It was always going to be like this. The late nights, the missed calls and texts… None of it was going to change. Even if he did land a record deal, then what? He’d be leaving Austin for Nashville or Los Angeles, and I would still be here—insecure and alone. My broken heart wasn’t all his doing. It was also knowing that I wasn’t strong enough to weather this storm like I thought I was.
“It’s not fair,” he said. “It’s not fucking fair. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to choose.”
“You don’t have to. I’m the one making a choice. I can’t do this, Grady. I wish I were the woman you thought I was. I wish I were strong enough, but I’m not.” I could barely hear myself over the pounding of the rain around us.
His tightening grip was the only thing holding me together. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to stumble my way home like this, but I knew I had to. “Cleo, please…”
“I hope you make all your dreams come true,” I said, stepping back. “I really do. You deserve it.”
“Don’t fucking say that,” he snapped. “Fuck the dreams. Fuck the music. It doesn’t mean shit if I don’t have you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t mean that. Not really. You just feel that way right now because this hurts like hell, but there will come a day when you understand all this pain will make sense. Maybe the song you write about this will be the one that does it.” I tried to smile, but it broke into a sob.
Grady pulled me into his arms, both our bodies shaking from the realization that this was over. We were done.
“Please don’t go, bluebird. Please don’t leave me.”
I sniffed into his shirt. “I think you left me without knowing it the moment we set foot into Austin,” I confessed, and his hold tightened around me. “And I’m not secure enough to handle coming in second place right now. I don’t know if I ever will.”
“You’re first, Cleo. You’re the most important thing?—”
I gently pulled myself out of his grip and stared at him. “No matter how much you want that to be true, we both know it isn’t. Not anymore.”
“But I love you. This can’t be the end of us. What about the plans we made, huh? Do those not matter?”
“Love isn’t always enough, and plans change. The things we wanted… I don’t know, Grady. People change.”
He scoffed, and the dismissive sound hit me right in the chest. I knew what he was doing, knew he was trying his hardest to protect himself in the same way I was, but it still hurt. All of this did. There wasn’t a good way around it.
“Tell me how to come back from this. Tell me we might not have a present, but that we have a future,” he pleaded.
I wanted to say that more than anything, but in my heart of hearts… I didn’t know what the future had in store for us. Because while I knew I’d never love another person the way I loved Grady, I couldn’t say the same for him. Despite his faults, he was the best person I had ever known. Someone else, someone better than me, would come along, and it was only a matter of time before I was forgotten.
“I love you,” I said, backing away. My arms wrapped themselves around my waist as if I could hold myself together. “I will always love you.”
Grady’s fallen face was the last thing I saw as I turned around and headed back to my dorm alone, knowing I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
grady
. . .
