Her gaze dropped to her lap, where she fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “We fell for one another so hard and fast when we were kids. What we had… It felt like that forever kind of love, the type you never wanna lose, but what business did two teenagers have feeling things that deeply? It was terrifying.”
“People feel that all the time, and they make it through, bluebird,” I countered. “My parents—your parents—they have the kind of relationship others can only dream of. The kind books and movies only hope to convey,” I paused, making sure she really heard what I said next. “The kind I wrote songs about because I could never get you out of my head or my heart.”
Cleo’s ragged exhale went straight to my aching chest. “We were just so young, Grady,” she said, sniffing. “I thought love was supposed to be easy, but ours wasn’t. Not once we left Ashwood.”
“You didn’t fight?—”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, but it was too late. Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing into small slits as she turned to fully face me. “What’d you just say?”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“How dare you?” she whispered harshly, scooting away from me. Her hands fisted in the fabric of her shirt so tightly I thought it would rip. “From the moment we left for school up until that final fucking night, it’s all I was doing. You prioritized everything over me—overus—and I let you. I made excuses for you when we had plans with friends, and you never showed.God, there were so many times you let me down, and yet I kept telling myself it would be different someday. I kept telling myself it would get better, if I held on just a little longer, you’d show me an ounce of the attention you showed your music. Sometimes I didn’t even recognize you. Especially not when you stumbled in drunk?—”
“I was trying to make a name for myself,” I gritted out. Her words, although spoken out of a place of anger and hurt, weren’t untrue. That was the worst part. But it also wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair she saw these things as failures when they led me to some of the most extraordinary highs in my career. I made something out of myself. Couldn’t she see that? “I was trying to make sure we would be set for the rest of our lives. That I wouldn’t be some big disappointment you’d look back on in twenty years, but I guess it didn’t matter in the end, did it? I was always going to lose you.”
“We stopped talking, Grady. There was no communication between us. Even when we did talk, it was always about your music, your gigs, the band you wanted to put together… It was never about us or the plans we made. We used to dream together, but I suddenly felt like I was alone even though you were right there in front of me,” she cried. “You never asked me about school or my grades or even my family. Never asked about what I liked or wanted. It was all about you.”
How could she think that? Despite what we’d been through, how could she not see everything I did was for her? For us? It was irrational, but it pissed me off. “Bullshit. Yes, I did.”
“You missed so many parties with friends, you missed our anniversary, both of our birthdays, but I was there for every gig,” she bit out, jabbing her finger into her chest emphatically. “Even if it meant giving up studying for finals or an extra-curricular, I was there because I knew how much it meant to you. And yet you dare to sit there and say I didn’t fucking fight for us? You were the one who didn’t fight, Grady. You never reachedout. You just moved on like I was nothing. Like what we had was nothing.”
“That’s not true!” I said, voice rising. “I was ready to give you everything at that stupid fucking rodeo, and you were withhim.” My eyes darted to her hand, where another man’s ring once sat. “You moved on?—”
“What? I wasn’t with anyone then?—”
“He put his fucking hand on you so casually. Like he’d been doing it for years,” I seethed. “He took my place and then you fucking married him.”
If she hated me after my outburst, I wouldn’t blame her. I hated myself in that moment. I hated that I brought him up when she was finally being honest. I hated that I was still filled with so much anger—at her, at me, especially at him.
Cleo blinked in surprised understanding. “That’s why you left, wasn’t it? You thought I was with someone else?”
I dropped my head. “I wasn’t in a good place back then. Mom had just found out about her cancer. I thought we were going to lose her so much sooner than we did. When I saw you that night… I don’t know. I thought it was fate. Some big fucking sign this would be our second chance. And then he showed up.”
Her eyes turned to a blazing inferno. “Maybe if you hadn’t let your bruised ego get in the way, you would’veasked. Maybe if you weren’t such a goddamn coward, you wouldn’t have left without knowing for sure.” She shook her head. “God, we are a fucking mess. Look at us, still harboring so much anger and resentment for things that don’t matter in the long run.”
“Help me understand, then, bluebird? Enlighten me.”
She leveled me with a crushing glare. “Thomas was a drunken, abusive asshole who would rather lay a hand on me in anger than touch me like a husband should. He gambled away our savings and fell into debt with the wrong people. I had to get a restraining order after I filed for divorce because he calledme incessantly, and I had to turn my phone off. I didn’t agree to date Thomas until I found out aboutyourengagement, you jackass. I texted him the night I found out about you.”
The hate I felt for him and myself grew tenfold. “What?”
She scoffed, wiping beneath her eyes. “He’d been trying to date me for years, but every single time he asked me out, I turned him down. I made sure he knew I just wanted to be friends because my stupid heart still belonged to you.”
Her words smothered the raging fire burning in my veins. I knew I’d been a selfish prick when we were younger, but having her lay it out so plainly was fucking agonizing. Cleo deserved someone far better than me.
“At some point, Grady, love isn’t enough. It doesn’t matter how much of it there is, or how long it lasted. I needed actions. I needed security. I fucking neededyou,but you were never there. I had to make that call and break my own heart before you shattered it completely.”
Tears ran down her face as she sucked in a ragged breath. This was worse than losing her all those years ago. Hearing her side of things, watching her break in front of me, was eye-opening in a way that left me feeling empty.
“Bluebird…” I whispered, voice cracking at the end of the word. I crawled toward her hesitantly. If I tried to take her in my arms, would she let me? I didn’t deserve it.
To my surprise, she went willingly. Cleo lay her head on my chest, right above my heart. Her hot tears soaked through the fabric of my shirt, body heaving with heartbreaking sobs. I hugged her tightly to me; one arm banded around her waist as the other rubbed circles along her back. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I fucking needed you,” she cried, echoing her previous statement. “You made everything better until you didn’t. I might’ve been the one to walk away, but my life has been one disaster after another since that day. I’ve hated myself for notbeing stronger for us, for not riding it out, but goddamn it…” she hiccupped, and I squeezed her tighter. “I think I hated you, too. Now, I’ve made so many mistakes, and I don’t know how to fix them.”
I rested my chin atop her head, trying my best to stay strong for the both of us, but that control was slipping with each passing second. “Let me in. Let me help.”
“You can’t. You can’t fix this. You can’t fixme.”
