“Are you playingLast Train to Midnight?” I ask him.
“It’s my new favorite,” he says, giving me a small smile.
My dad switches to the bass, playing a line I never wrote but … honestly, I should have. It’s gorgeous. And then my mom sits at the piano, joining in with a dreamy smile on her face.
I pick up the fiddle and close my eyes, letting the music take me away on the same journey they’re on.
Then I hit a wrong note, and my fingers stiffen. I try to shake it off, but the bow feels heavier in my hands. And when I hit the next note too sharp?—
It’s nothing. Mistakes happen all the time …
To me.
Butthey’renot making any mistakes. Even riffing, they’re playing better than I am sticking to the linesIwrote. Every note feels like an outgrowth of their talent, every harmony clicks.
How are they all so good? So effortlessly, breathtakingly good?
Every person playing an instrument in this room is better than I am. My mom is a better singer—heck, Patty might be, too. My dad and Patty are so much better on guitar than I’ll ever be, and on the piano, Patty’s the best I’ve ever seen.
And then there’s me.
What do I have? Mystery? A name I can’t live up to? A shadow I can’t get out of?
My mom looks like she’s in heaven as her fingers glide effortlessly over the keys. This is what she was born to do. And seeing her so happy, seeing Patty and my dad playing like this song is the only thing that matters, makes the blood start pulsing too loud in my head.
Memories hit me—being on stage with my mom, seeing her grin bigger than she ever did anywhere else. I can still feel the stage lights blinding me, hear the fans cheering as we start singing a duet. I can still sense her joy of being on stage.
She’s so much better than I am, and the happiness on her face is proof of how much she misses it—yet her career is gone. I’ve known from an early age that there are no guarantees in this industry. In any industry.
But I have my rules for a reason.
If I can’t be as good as Winona, I can at least be smarter than her.
"You can have it all, but not all at once,"is a lie.
I haven’t let Patty in. Not really. But even theideathat he might get close—might matter—makes my stomach churn. Because if he messes up, it’s not just the show at stake. It’s everything I’ve worked for. Everything I am.
How could I be so reckless?
"You should sing," Momma says, but I shake my head, because if I open my mouth, they’ll hear the sobs I refuse to let out, the fear I’m holding back.
Patty and my dad are fully jamming out now, but my mom sees something on my face and leaves the piano to come over and lean her shoulder against mine. My breath catches in my throat.
"You okay, sweet girl?"
"Fine," I say, watching Patty with a pang.
She misinterprets my gaze, though.
"I like him, Lou Lou," she says.
My heartbeat gets louder, drowning out the sound in my left ear as a headache I barely noticed clamps down on my skull like a cap, surrounding every point on my head. "What do you mean?" I ask. "There’s nothing going on with him."
"I didn’t say there was." Her careful tone makes irritation flicker in my chest. "I’m just glad you have someone on tour that you can trust."
"I don’t trust him any more than anyone else on tour," I say, but it must not have been quiet enough, because Patty’s eyes shoot to mine—and then harden.
His jaw tenses. His mouth flattens. The unguarded look on his face vanishes, replaced by stone.
