Chapter Thirty-Four

I leave my cookies out on the counter to dry. They won't be ready to eat until tomorrow, so I make a mental note to let Mackenzie know they're a gift for everything he's offered tonight. I run upstairs to an empty room and change into jeans and a sweatshirt, popping a quilted jacket on top.

In the garden, the fire roars, crackling and popping up to the sky.

"Vienna!" Francesca calls, waving me over to a bench. She and Alice have a flannel blanket wrapped around their bodies. The kids are already dressed in pajamas. I count roughly twenty people sitting around the fire, a few more hanging around the garden, more than one phone held up in wait.

Adam's talking to an older man sitting near him.

This should highlight the divide between us, hearing him sing. But, I'm excited. I don't feel like I'm watching a Grammy Award-winning musician right now. He just looks like Adam.

He catches my eye and smiles.

"Okay, folks," he booms. "I think it's time to get this party started." He rests his hand on his guitar strings. "What a beautiful place, right?"

Cheers and claps direct toward our host who stands beside a predatory Kate, ready to sink her teeth in.

Adam continues, "So, I've known Mackenzie for about fourteen years. We met when I first got to Nashville, and he was one of the first people to tell me I'm not going to cut it as a country singer. I tried too hard to use the Georgia accent I fought against my whole life, and I didn't write enough songs about my tractor. Because I didn't have a tractor. It would have never worked out for me."

The audience laughs. Adam runs a hand across his jaw. "I did, however, write songs about love. I had just had one big loss in that department."

My heart rate quickens.

"I had a girl, and I lost a girl, and it royally screwed me up for a long time. It still does, if I'm being honest."

I try to control my breathing. Adam keeps his eyes on the ground while he talks.

He continues, "Anyway, this song was my first big hit. My big break. It's only fitting that it's the first song I wrote about the one that got away. This song is called Should've. "

Finally, Adam meets my eye across the top of the fire. He screws his face up in a sad kind of look, shrugs half a shoulder, and fixes his guitar on his knees. Even with the blanket, the fire, and the body heat, I feel cold. He starts stringing a few chords.

I recognize those five seconds. It's the song that I immediately tune out in the grocery store, mute when it comes on the TV, and hit next on Spotify. I've never been able to listen to his smooth, warm voice. It only ever felt right just the two of us, in his backyard, up in the treehouse.

He sings, " The day I saw you, the day you left. The moment I felt you, the moment you kept. It was always yours and a million more times I felt the ceiling hit the floor.

"The sun on your face, the burn on mine. The trail of water that says it's not fine. A tiny rock I etched with my blood. And you tossed it back with others in the mud."

Voices sing quietly along with him.

"Oh, why'd you leave me? Why'd you stay? Why'd you promise? Why'd I pray?"

My cold nose begins to itch. Emotion starts to clog my throat. It's hard to keep my chest from heaving too noticeably.

"I would have, oh I did. We could have, but you said: it's hard, too hard, we're far too young, forever is a long road, what should I have done? Oh, should…you should have done."

I'm the only one who could know the meaning behind these words. It reminds me of a secret.

The secret of Adam and I, all those years ago.

He croons, "I'm grown now, far too smart, to care for empty spaces in my heart, that stop for the mountains, that cool clear lake, and the quiet sounds the haunted forest makes."

He couldn't possibly still love me after all of this time. Could he?

Could I still be in love with him?

I look away as tears begin to form. My chest physically hurts. I listen to his guitar playing quicken, the chanting of the audience picking up, the energy growing.

He sings, " Pain is a side effect of life, not choices, you'll never get to feel the freedom of joy without poison, everything hurts ‘til for a second it doesn't, nothing is perfect, no ride unchecked.

"I swear I hear you in my soul, I walked away but I'm still not whole, I take the burden of this toll that you're allowed to exist and I'm not there. I'm not there to feel it. To get it back. To see you one more time…"

I push off the blanket and stand up, blacking out everyone around me and the sounds they make. Tears stream down my face. I cover my mouth, palm the wetness of my eyes. Adam's voice hauntingly hangs in my ear.

"I would have, oh I did. We could have, but you said, It's hard, too hard, we're far too young, forever is a long road, what should I have done? Oh, should…you should have done."