Chapter 9 Rachel
Rachel
The moonlight streaming through the music room windows feels different tonight—colder somehow, casting harsh shadows instead of the soft glow I've grown used to.
My fingers tap against the piano lid. One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four. The rhythm's too fast, too anxious, but I can't seem to slow it down.
"Rachel." Grant's voice from the doorway makes me jump.
He looks exhausted, his usually perfect hair disheveled.
His tie is loose, his shirt wrinkled—so unlike the polished image he normally maintains.
Even the rumpled linen shirts he wears on the beach look intentional, but this feels different—like he's barely hanging on. "I've looked everywhere for you."
My fingers still against the piano lid, the familiar rhythm faltering as I study him.
Just hours ago, his father had looked at me like something stuck to the bottom of his Italian leather shoes.
Local entertainment, he'd called me, the words oozing with disgust. And Grant, my Grant who plays fairy tale piano songs at midnight and kisses me like I'm precious, had just…
stood there. Let his father reduce me to a rebellious phase to outgrow.
A small, poisonous voice whispers in my head: What if his father was right?
What if I'm just another conquest in Grant's journey of rebellion or self-discovery—or whatever this phase is?
The barista he'd mentioned—she probably felt special too.
Probably believed in gentle hands and soft words.
Then discovered she was only a move in a chess game with his father.
I feel foolish, sitting here with bare feet against the linoleum, sheet music scattered around me like confetti from a party that's long since ended.
How na?ve I must look to them—the small-town teacher who actually believes in things like grassroots community efforts and publicly funded middle-grade music education.
Things that would make Grant's father sneer, I'm certain of it.
Three sentences from the man had made me insignificant, like a child playing at being a grown-up.
The melody in my head—the one that's been soundtracking our summer romance—fades into something minor, something discordant. Despite that, I turn around and stand to face Grant.
"Really? I thought you'd be busy with your father's meetings." The words come out sharper than I intend. "Planning your triumphant return to California?"
He winces but steps into the room, closing the door behind him. "About that… I need to explain."
"Explain what? How you let your father treat me like I'm some kind of gold-digger? Or maybe how you just stood there while he implied I was another one of your rebellious phases?" The piano keys dig into my back as I lean against them, producing a discordant sound that matches my mood.
"That's not…" He grips the back of his neck. "I was trying to protect you. You don't know what he's like when he really wants to hurt someone."
"So instead you hurt me first?" I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Very noble, Grant."
He crosses the room in three long strides, and before I can protest, his hands are cupping my face.
His touch is gentle, desperate, and for a moment, I let myself lean into it.
Let myself remember all the other times we've been in this room—his jazz playing, me sorting through paperwork for the upcoming school year, both of us finding pieces of ourselves we thought we'd lost.
"Rachel, please." His voice breaks a little. "I never meant to hurt you. These past few months have been… everything. You've shown me what it means to really live, to chase dreams instead of just expectations." His thumb brushes my cheek, and despite my anger, I lean into his touch.
"Then chase dreams. Don't let him reduce you like this."
His eyes soften, and he steps closer, both hands framing my face now. "I will. I want to. I just… I need a little time. I've spent my entire life following my father's lead and… and now I'm trying to find the courage to break free, to stand on my own. But I can't do that overnight."
He releases a shaky breath. "What happened in college—God, Rachel, I was such an asshole back then.
Playing games, using people to get what I wanted.
I acted exactly like a Pierce. Moving here to Magnolia Cove?
" His thumb traces over my cheek. "Falling for you?
Those are the first real things I've ever done.
The first choices that were entirely mine.
If you could understand how precious you are to me. How much I already love you."
The words hit me like a perfect chord struck in just the right key.
Love. He loves me. My heart stumbles over its rhythm, and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
We've danced around this feeling for weeks—in moonlit kisses and shared laughter, in the way he's slowly moved into my cottage, in how he hums along when I tap out rhythms against his bare skin. But hearing him say it…
"Grant," I whisper, my voice catching. All my earlier anger melts away as I lean into his touch.
Because I love him too—the real him, the one who plays jazz without reservation, who throws in extra sprinkles on every kid's ice cream, who keeps dropping obnoxiously large tips into my snow cone cart's jar.
My fingers find his tie, and I use it to draw him closer. His forehead rests against mine, and his breath whispers over my lips. I can taste the word still hanging between us. Love. Such a small word for something that feels bigger than any symphony I've ever heard.
"I can give you time," I say. He's right. He needs some space to untangle himself from his father. I'm expecting too much, jumping to conclusions. "How much do you need?"
He pulls back slightly, just enough that I can see the defeat in his eyes. "I've agreed to park the cart for now. Focus on the store. Maybe travel some, help with other locations as needed." He attempts a weak smile. "Hey, at least your snow cone sales should go up without the competition."
The joke lands like a wrong note in an otherwise perfect melody. "What? But you love your cart. Love creating your own flavors, being out on the beach…" My hands tighten on his tie. "That cart is yours, not your father's. It's the one thing that's completely yours."
"And I'll return to it." He steps away, so my hands fall away from him. "I just need time to placate my father so he can—"
"Manipulate you into slowly crawling back into his pocket?" The words burst from me. "That's what this is about, isn't it? He's not giving you time, Grant. He's giving you just enough rope to hang your dreams with.”
"You don't understand." His voice hardens. "Not everyone has the luxury of fighting for what they want. Some of us have responsibilities, obligations—"
"Obligations to what? To be miserable? To let him clip your wings one feather at a time until you forget how to fly?
" I'm practically shouting now, the words echoing off the music room walls.
"I've watched you come alive this summer.
Watched you discover who you really are. And now you're just… giving up?"
"That's easy for you to say, Rachel." He drags a hand back through his already mussed hair. "You're surrounded by people who support you no matter what. Your friends would walk through fire for you. But me? Without my father's connections, without the Pierce name—"
"Then build something new!" I am definitely shouting now. My throat feels raw as the words tear free from me. "That's what you came here for, isn't it? To find yourself outside your father's shadow?"
"Finding myself won't pay the bills. It won't keep the people who work at my store employed." He turns away and stares out the window at the dark courtyard beyond. "Sometimes we have to sacrifice to achieve more important things. You get that. You've done that all summer."
"Don't." My voice turns to ice. "Don't you dare compare your father's manipulation to what I'm doing for these kids. I'm fighting for something, Grant. He's fighting to use you."
Grant whirls back around, his expression haunted, shadows hollowing out his eyes. "Sometimes choices have to be made to do what is right for others. Sacrifices have to be made."
"Not your heart." I press my hand to my chest, where mine feels like it's breaking. "Not your soul."
"The soul doesn't matter when you have nothing to fund it." He clenches his teeth. "Look at the music program. You have more passion than anyone I've ever met, but that hasn't made the money appear, has it? Dreams alone aren't enough."
"You're right." I stalk toward him, jabbing a finger into his chest. "That's why I show up every single day, pushing a heavy cart through the sand in the burning sun.
Why I organize concerts, fundraisers, and fight for every single dollar.
Because I believe in something bigger than myself enough to take risks. What about you?"
"Of course I do," he says in a fierce whisper. "I care about you. If I do what my father says, I'll be able to donate whatever funds you need to keep the program going."
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, freezing me in place. For one fleeting moment, something warm blooms in my chest—he wants to help, wants to save the program I've fought so hard for. But then understanding crashes over me, like a wave, leaving me cold.
"You think that's what this is about?" My voice comes out barely above a whisper. "You think you can just... what? Trade your soul for a generous donation?"
"Rachel—"
"No." I step back, knocking into the piano stool, which screeches as it shifts.
"You still don't get it, do you? You're so convinced you're not worth fighting for that you think throwing money at me will make up for watching you destroy yourself.
Well, guess what? I don't want your blood money.
I don't need a white knight with a trust fund to rescue me. "
"I'm trying to help—"
"Help?" I laugh, bitter and sharp. "The man I fell in love with wouldn't need to 'help.' He'd be right here, fighting with me. But that man's already gone, isn't he? Your father didn't even have to try hard to make him disappear."
"I want to be that man." His voice cracks, and I catch a fleeting glimpse of Grant again—the one who whispers cheesy movie lines in the dark, who dreams of creating something that's purely his own.
"God, Rachel, you don't know how much I want to be him.
But I can't see a way out. Not without losing everything. "
"You're losing everything right now." I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold together the pieces he's breaking. "You just can't see it."
"Rachel, please—" He reaches for me, but I shift away.
"No. I won’t stand here and watch you choose his version of you over the real thing. I can’t.” My voice catches. He stands in a pool of moonlight, gleaming like something ethereal, something just out of reach. "I love you enough to let you go, Grant. I just wish you loved yourself enough to stay."
For a long moment, he stands still, and then his face falls into the shadows. "I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you."
"I know," I whisper, the words tasting like ashes in my mouth. "But it does anyway."
"Just give me a few months. I'll appease my father, write the donation check, and—"
"Stop." The word is barely audible, but he flinches at it.
"I already told you I don't want your money.
I don't want you to 'appease' your father until he lets you off your leash.
You're lying to yourself if you think that plan will ever work.
What I want is for you to fight. For you to believe you're worth fighting for.
To know that there's a path where you can follow your dreams, and I'd walk with you on it.
" My voice falters. "But you don't, do you? "
He stands there, silent, and in his silence, I hear everything I need to know.
"Goodbye, Grant."
Our shoulders brush as I walk past him and leave the room. It's only when I've reached the outside air that I realize I'm not even tapping out my usual rhythm.
The warm night air hits my face, the scent of the ocean filling the space between us as distant waves crash against the shore.
But for the first time in what feels like forever, there's no music in my head.
No steady beat keeping me grounded. Just silence—the same kind of silence that fills the space in the music room, where Grant and I were supposed to be writing a different story.
I guess not all fairy tales have happy endings.