“I was so stupid and selfish the night I crashed your truck,” Jamie cut in. “I was too overwhelmed to say it then, but I know it’s why you had to be so hard on me. To shape me into a man who didn’t let his emotions control him.”
Jamie Sr. turned to his son. “No, son. You were just a boy. It wasn’t your job to bury what hurt. It was my job to showyou that it’s all right tofeelit, that you cansurviveit. I failed you.”
“I wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d listened,” Jamie sputtered, gripping his knees.
“I pushed you to work with Melvin because I thought if I steered you right, I could protect you from the heartbreak that feeds this business. I pushed you away from Ms. Shaw because of how torn up you were after your mama…”
Jamie Sr. let his words drift into the ether.
“I was afraid that if something went wrong with Ms. Shaw, it’d destroy you all over again. I can see now how wrong I was, shoveling my insecurities onto you. Something’s gotta change, and it’s me. I wanna try, at least, if you’ll offer me some patience. Old dog, new tricks and all.”
“Okay,” Jamie croaked. He meant it. “But what about Brinton? It’s all my fault.”
The wound was still so fresh, it almost didn’t feel real. But, he knew, it absolutely was.
His father squeezed his shoulder. “You and me, we’ll get through this too, you hear?”
Jamie nodded and let his father pull him close.
There was a distinct shuffling near Emma Lou’s bed. She glanced back at them with a faint but sage grin. “I’ve waited nearly twenty years for y’all to say all that. Next time, don’t make me wait until I’m strapped to a gurney.”
She laughed. And so did Jamie and his father.
It was after two a.m. when Jamie left the hospital. A nurse—a friend of Emma Lou’s—threatened to have him carried out by security if he didn’t get some sleep in a bed and not stretched out across two metal folding chairs.
Thanks to the few extra cups of black coffee, Jamie was wide awake. After his father had left the hospital, Jamie jotted down ideas on his phone for the kind of album he’d make. Not a song here and there, as he had been, but acohesive body of work that showed who he was as an artist.
Now, he had no obligation to anyone but himself.
In that hospital room, he realized that his whole life, he acted like he had to ask permission to be who he wanted to be. And he finally reconciled how much he’d masked his insecurities with meaningless sex and lies.
Of course, that didn’t include Brinton. She was the best thing he’d ever called his. Rather than run from the heartbreak of losing her and the safety of his old life, he wanted to understand it.
Jamie flipped on his office lights, then sat in that wingback armchair. It smelled herbal-sweet, exactly like her. But he could use that.
He flipped on the monitors and desktop computer, then picked up an acoustic guitar.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ONE MONTH LATER
After quittingLandmark, Brinton had settled into a new routine: she woke up at a respectable two in the afternoon. Cold leftovers, eaten while standing over the kitchen sink, followed by a glass of tap water swished with a scoop of instant espresso, plopped directly into her mouth.
She spent the rest of the day in bed—wearing a T-shirt and cotton briefs ripped from the multi-pack her mom left by the door each week—binging comfort movies until her body forcibly shut down.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
“So, we’re not even knocking anymore?” Brinton groused as Shay flung open her bedroom door, rudely interrupting herZenon: Girl of the 21st Centurytriple-feature.
“Since Mom is out of town, I’m checking to make sure you’re good.”
Shay surveyed the staggered piles of clothes, crumpled baby wipes, and junk littering the floor and every surface. “Though it’d be hard to tell in this emo dungeon. This is a UFS crash site.”
Brinton plucked a rogue spaghetti noodle from her Aaliyah T-shirt, slurped it into her mouth. “UFS?”
Shay pursed her lips. “Unidentified Freaking Shit. How do you live like this?”
“Feel free to leave at any point?—”
