Chapter 12

When Brighton finished her tale, Adele didn't say anything for a long while. When she finally spoke, "Well, shit" was the only thing that came out of her mouth.

Brighton laughed, though the sound was bitter, brittle. "You can say that again."

"I will say that again. I mean, good goddamn, Brighton."

"I know." Brighton rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She felt empty, the husk of a runaway bride. She hadn't told that story to anyone, not even her mother, who had just intuited what Brighton had been feeling. It had been so much easier that way. The telling of the whole ordeal was fucking exhausting. Granted, Brighton had kept the finer details about the last time she and Lola had had sex from Adele, only mentioning that it had happened. But this hadn't stopped every moment of that last morning from blooming in Brighton's own memory, leaving her now with a confusing swirl of guilt and longing and lust.

"You haven't seen her since then?" Adele asked. "Not even a glimpse at Christmas?"

"Not a single silver hair," Brighton said. "I don't think she's been home since then. I called her after everything settled down. Called her a lot. Texted. God, I texted so much, it's embarrassing."

"And let me guess."

Brighton blew out a breath. "Yep. A big silent fuck you ."

"And now she wants to pretend like she doesn't even know you."

Brighton shot finger guns Adele's way, clicking her tongue. "Bingo."

"Maybe that's what you need to do too," Adele said.

"How am I supposed to do that? I just want to…" But she trailed off, because make it right was never going to happen. She knew that much, at least. But it was Lola . She could never act like Lola didn't exist. That she wasn't who she was—or used to be—to Brighton.

"You might have to, just for your sanity," Adele said. "You can't make her talk to you. You can't make her forgive you either."

"I know that."

"You need a distraction."

"I tried that with Gemma."

Adele pulled a yikes face. "Okay, fair, but a date might help. You know, make her a little jealous. Maybe it'll make her want to talk to you more."

"The only way I'm getting a date with this"—she motioned around the mess of her mascara-smeared face and tangled hair—"is if it's fake."

Adele's eyes brightened. "Fake date me. Then maybe my mom will let me out of Two Turtledoves."

Brighton rolled her eyes. "Okay, sure. We walk into your bedroom platonic friends and walk out an hour later all moony-eyed for each other? No one would buy it."

Adele laughed, but Brighton sat up, tilted her head.

"You don't want to actually try and find someone?" she asked Adele.

"In this town? Nah."

"Why not?"

Adele took a sip of her bourbon, then handed it to Brighton, who tipped the drink into her mouth. It burned all the way down but in a good way. Like a cleansing.

"I'm not interested in hookups with people I went to middle school with," Adele said, taking back the glass.

"What about more than a hookup?" Brighton asked, releasing her words carefully. She didn't want Adele to think she was shaming her love life. But she was curious about her friend's lack of girlfriends. Adele was a damn catch. Charming, sexy, funny, smart. Brighton and Adele had even kissed once, way back when they first met a few years ago, at a Katies show at Ampersand.

It was like kissing a sister.

They'd both laughed but exchanged numbers because they liked each other's company anyway, and then Adele had promptly taken another girl home.

Now Adele sighed, looked down at her hands. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. And I think I might be…I think I might be aro?"

She said it like a question, peered at Brighton with her nose scrunched up.

"Yeah?" Brighton said, and Adele shrugged. Brighton reached out and took Adele's hand. "You know that's okay, right?"

"No, I know, I just…" She shrugged again. "Romance is a hell of a drug, you know? It's hard to get out from under it sometimes. That feeling that I should be a certain way, want a certain kind of life. And, like, I get it. I like rom-coms, and I like seeing my friends in love, want everyone I love to have that if they want it. I just don't think I want it. I never really did. Never got all moony-eyed, as you say, over a girl, even in middle and high school. I knew I was gay because I liked the way Vivian Manzoli filled out her tank top in ninth grade."

Brighton laughed.

"But I never wanted to hold her hand in a romantic way," Adele said. "I want friends, close ones. I want intimate relationships. I want sex and lots of it. And I think maybe, someday, I do want a partner. But I'm not sure what kind of partner I want or what that looks like exactly. The how of it all, I guess."

"I think that's great, Adele," Brighton said, squeezing her hand tighter. "You get to want whatever you want."

Adele nodded. "Just takes a while to figure that out sometimes, you know? I'm still working on that. The figuring it out part."

"Yeah. Wait"—Brighton leaned closer to Adele—"am I the first person you've told this to?"

Adele blew out a breath and laughed. "Shit, you are."

"I'm honored," Brighton said. "Really. And god, congrats. How do you feel?"

Adele took another sip of bourbon. "Good. Feels good. Feels right."

"Good. You deserve that."

"Thanks, baby girl."

They sat there like that for a while, holding hands, their secrets not so secret anymore, a tether pulling them closer together. Brighton let herself feel it, even as a tiny part of her bristled at it all, at letting someone so close again.

Still, Adele was right—it did feel good. To trust someone again. Not even Alice and Emily had known about Lola. And she was glad she could give that to Adele too, that beauty of being known.

And not only known…but loved.

"A fake girlfriend," Adele said abruptly, pulling her hand out of Brighton's and snapping.

"What?" Brighton asked.

"You can't fake date me, so make up some hot piece back in Nashville. A daddy. Swoopy hair. Wears ties. Excellent with their fingers." Adele waggled her eyebrows and made a gesture with her hands that was so Adele—sexy and completely unassuming all at once.

Brighton laughed, but then her throat went unexpectedly tight at the thought of actually inventing someone to love her. "I can't…" She swallowed, tried to get ahead of the surge of feelings in her chest. "I can't lie to her again."

Fuck, she was going to cry.

Adele set her glass on her nightstand, then took both of Brighton's hands in hers. "Baby girl. When did you lie to her the first time?"

Brighton just stared down at their entwined fingers, let the tears drip down her nose. "Every day. For months. When I didn't…when I didn't tell her the truth about what I was feeling, about New York, the wedding. Everything."

"When you didn't know how . There's a difference."

Brighton could only shake her head.

"You know what I think?" Adele said. "You need to forgive yourself, that's what the fuck I think."

Brighton didn't say anything. And maybe Adele was right, but Brighton didn't know how to even begin untangling the knots of guilt inside her. They were easy enough to ignore with a thousand miles between her and Lola, but here, with Lola mere feet away—

"You still love her."

Brighton snapped her head up at Adele's question—no, it wasn't a question. Adele's intonation was flat and even.

"I don't," Brighton said.

Adele pursed her mouth, narrowed her eyes. Didn't push the matter. Still, Brighton didn't think she'd convinced her.

But she didn't still love Lola.

She was just…

It was Lola .

Tears swelled again, but she pushed them back, reached over and downed the rest of Adele's bourbon to keep herself in check.

"Okay," Adele said after Brighton had slammed the glass down on the nightstand, empty. "If you're not going to go about this the romantic or sexual way, let's try another tactic."

"What do you mean?" Brighton asked.

Adele got up and opened her closet door, stickers all over the white wood—cats, rainbows for various queer identities, women of different races and ethnicities surrounded by flowers and stars with their fists held up, and a Tracy Chapman poster, just in case anyone doubted Adele was a lesbian. She disappeared inside for a few seconds, and when she emerged, she held Brighton's worst nightmare in her hands.

"Hell no," Brighton said.

"Come on," Adele said, holding out the guitar. The wood was pale-colored and cheap-looking, and it was probably horrifically out of tune.

"Why do you have that?" Brighton asked. "You can't even hum on key."

Adele flipped her off. "Like every queer teen hoping to woo their way under a girl's bra, I wanted to learn."

Brighton laughed.

"I sucked, as you already guessed," Adele said. "Plus, part of my motivation might have been to keep up with my insanely talented little sister, which didn't work out in my favor."

"It's not going to work out in your favor now either."

"It's not kryptonite."

"Might as well be."

"Goddammit, Brighton, this isn't you ."

Brighton's spine straightened at Adele's suddenly sharp tone, but Adele didn't apologize. She rarely did. And it wasn't like Adele was wrong. Brighton Fairbrook without a guitar—she barely recognized herself.

But Adele didn't get it.

Brighton had left everything she loved, the person she loved most in the world, for herself. For a future that featured her dreams, her songs, her talent.

And she hadn't been good enough.

She looked at the guitar, wanting to give her best friend what she wanted, wanting to let Adele help her. She just wasn't ready.

She wasn't sure she'd ever be ready.

"Okay," she said, backing up on the bed, away from the guitar, until her back hit the headboard. She got out her phone and opened up Spotify. "A compromise."

Adele lifted a brow, listening.

"Put that thing away," Brighton said, waving at the guitar, "and I'll listen to some Katies songs. Exposure therapy. Maybe it'll dull the sting a little so that I can"—she flicked her eyes down to the guitar and back up to Adele's face—"you know."

"You're so full of shit," Adele said, but she put the guitar back into the closet, then settled onto the bed next to Brighton, their shoulders pressing together. "Play ‘Cherry Lipstick.'?"

"God, not you too."

"It's a bop, and I'm a simple queer."

Brighton laughed, typing the Katies into the search bar. She took a surreptitious deep breath as she did so. Yes, she'd suggested this little listening party to appease her friend, but honestly, this probably was the first step toward getting back to herself. She needed to figure out who she was apart from the Katies, who she was on her own. If she was ever going to be anything in the music world, she was solo now. That was the whole reason why she'd broken Lola's heart in the first place, wasn't it?

To be a major player in that world.

Not just a side character in someone else's.

And right now she was a bartender who scared patrons when they expressed appreciation for certain songs and couldn't even talk to a cute person without tripping all over herself.

Eventually, she had to get over it.

The Katies popped up—Brighton did her best not to flinch—a verified artist with nearly two million monthly listeners. She scrolled down to their songs, ready to hit play on "Cherry Lipstick," when another song caught her eye.

"What is it?" Adele asked, leaning closer to peer at the screen.

"They just released a new single." Brighton's thumb hovered over the title, its letters blurring in her vision and rearranging. "What does that say?" she asked, not trusting what she was actually seeing. She held the phone out toward Adele.

"One sip of bourbon and you're already seeing double?"

"Just tell me," she said.

Adele sighed, then read the title. "?‘December Light.'?"

Brighton said nothing, and then her thumb seemed to move on its own, tapping those two little words.

Soft piano music filtered out of her phone's speaker. Mellow, but it had movement to it, a guitar in the background and something else deeper. A cello, maybe. Then Sylvie's buttery voice.

Winter lake, December light,

tears on your face, but I'll make it right.

That Tiffany lamp, a rainbow on the floor,

pieces of glass holding your whole world.

December light, those colorful shards,

you think it's all broken, but that's not your heart.

December light, snow mixing with sand,

it's you and it's me at the edge of the land.

"A love song," Adele said, nodding her head. "Different for them, but I like it."

But Brighton couldn't respond. Couldn't nod, shake her head, breathe, anything. She tapped on the song in the play window, the full lyrics popping up. She scrolled through them fast, hoping for something different, but no. That melody, the chorus, the verses, the bridge—it all speared through her chest, pushing her back, back, back five years…no.

Seven years.

She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep in a sob, emotions she'd just resolved to get a grip on swirling like a windswept sea. Only music could really do that—bring everything to the surface, make the memories alive , sharpen the time-dulled pain to a point.

"Baby girl, it's just a song," Adele said softly. "Tell yourself that—it's just a song. It's got nothing to do with you."

But Adele didn't understand, and Brighton couldn't form the words, not with this song in her ears, her fingertips, her heart.

She jammed her thumb at the screen to stop the tune, but the notes continued somehow, now muffled but louder, filling the entire house. Brighton dropped her phone on the mattress, scooted off the bed, and flung open the bedroom door, "December Light" swelling in symphony now. She rushed down the stairs to find Elle and Manish slow dancing in the living room, but in a cheesy way, Manish laughing as Elle attempted to dip him. Wes was there too—he must have shown up while Brighton was sobbing upstairs.

"New Katies song!" Manish said when he straightened and saw her on the stairs, Adele behind her.

The song played through the house via Nina's Bluetooth speaker.

December light, snow mixing with sand…

Nina herself was on the couch with Sloane, both of them smiling and listening intently, each with a glass of wine in their hands.

Only Lola stood apart from everyone.

She was leaning against the wall next to the fireplace, her arms folded over her chest, Snickerdoodle lying at her feet. A muscle ticked in her jaw, her eyes fixed on Brighton as the song Brighton had written the day they'd gotten engaged, a song meant to be played at their wedding, echoed through the house.