Chapter 13
When the Music Stops
Maisie
Peaches is curled up on the flower shop’s welcome mat, her tiny limbs tucked into the arm holes of a hand-knit sweater that reads, in glittery block letters, “Team No Comment.” I squint at it.
Definitely Jenna’s handiwork. No one else in town owns that much garish metallic yarn or passive-aggressive humor.
I crouch beside Peaches and scratch behind one ear. “You gonna tell me what he’s thinking?”
She yawns and flops onto her side. Figures.
It’s been three days. Three whole days since we got back from the cabin. Since that kiss. Since he looked at me as though I was the only thing in the world he wanted to hold. And now?
Now nothing. No texts. No unexpected flower deliveries. No sarcastic drive-by comments. Nothing but silence.
And silence, I’m learning, is loud. Deafening.
The bell above the door jingles as I step inside, and I barely make it to the storeroom before the tears come.
Again.
I’m not a crier. Truly. But something about this is different. This ache is deeper. It doesn’t sting as a stab wound would. Instead, it pulses in a slow, relentless throb, diffusing into each muscle and nerve.
I’ve come to expect that many people who know me will try to squash me. Is that what Beau’s waiting for, too? For me to shrink into someone more manageable?
I sit down on an overturned bucket, tissue box on one knee, as I smooth out crinkled floral ribbon in my lap. I don’t even hear the door open until Jenna’s voice floats in.
“If you’re hiding in here to escape the wisteria vines, they’re winning.”
I let out a watery laugh. “It’s not the flowers. It’s me.”
She sits beside me without asking, her knee bumping mine as she hands me a fresh tissue. “Okay. Spill it. What’s going on?”
I hesitate. The words are jagged. But they roll out anyway.
“He’s avoiding me. After the kiss, after the weekend…he’s pulling away. And it’s not even that he’s being mean or cold. He’s just not there. It’s as if I imagined the whole thing. And it’s messing with my head.”
Jenna doesn’t interrupt, but nods, listening fully.
“I keep thinking maybe it was all pretend. Maybe he’s just that good at faking it. Or maybe I wanted my happily ever after so terribly that I made an ugly mess of everything.”
Jenna sighs tenderly and holds my hand.
“I can’t help but think this is Gray all over again, and Beau is going to drop me, too.” I sniff.
“Did I ever tell you what Gray said when he proposed?”
Jenna shakes her head.
“After I said ‘yes,’ and he was sliding that enormous, expensive ring on my finger, he paused and looked up at me.”
“Go on,” Jenna encourages.
“I saw it there, in his eyes, before he said anything. The conviction and naive belief that he really did love me, even as he said, ‘You’re the woman I want by my side forever, Maisie. You’re almost perfect. With a little polishing and restraint, you will be perfect for me.’“
Jenna gasps and her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, Maze, honey.”
I swipe beneath my lashes, but the tears are already gathering. The sting of them doesn’t ease, only deepens. “He kissed my hand then adjusted the cuff of my blouse, making sure only a small amount peeked out from under the sleeve of my sweater.”
My vision blurs, hot tears sliding down my cheeks as Jenna wraps her arms around me.
She pulls back slightly to meet my eyes.
“Maisie, Beau is not Gray. He sees you in a way that feels different from what you’ve told me about Gray.
He noticed the way you light up around flowers, how your ideas grow when you talk about the shop.
He didn’t flinch at your big feelings or try to contain your spark.
From what I saw, Maisie, he leans in. This isn’t Gray again.
Don’t rewrite your future with the pen of your past.”
Her words land hard and true. I nod, but a war still wages inside me.
But then I shake my head, my voice quieter.
“I know Beau’s not Gray. I know that. But it still scares me, Jenna.
Because Beau looked at me as if he genuinely saw all of me: flaws, dreams, loud thoughts, everything.
And he didn’t recoil. He played that song on the porch I told you about, and our weekend was…
well…magical. And I let myself believe it.
That it was real. That we could be more than I even imagined with Gray. ”
She squeezes me again.
“But I’m so confused now. I now know how the prince felt when Cinderella vanished,” I finish.
Jenna’s quiet for a second, then she bumps my shoulder. “Remember when you thought Travis Parson liked you in fifth grade because he shared his pudding cup?”
I groan. “Please don’t.”
“You wrote him a sonnet, Maisie. A literal sonnet. Scared him speechless.”
A choked laugh escapes. “This isn’t a pudding cup situation, Jenna.”
“No,” she says softly, brushing a strand of hair from my damp cheek.
“You’re all grown-up now, and there’s a whole lot more at risk.
But here’s the thing, you’ve always been that way.
Big feelings. All in. Heart-first. And if you don’t let Beau see what it really means when you care, how completely you give your heart, you’ll always wonder.
You shouldn’t have to be anyone else with him.
If it’s real, he’ll love you exactly as you are. ”
Her words settle somewhere still slightly bruised. The place where I’ve kept my heart locked up tight, afraid of being told I’m too much. Again.
Later, instead of climbing the stairs up to my apartment above Botaniq?e, I wander toward Main Street, needing air before facing my lonely questions again.
A breeze carries the scent of sizzling bacon and something sweet.
Maple syrup or cinnamon rolls, I think, from the Griddle but more than that, it shines light on those areas I’m still guarding.
You live like wildfire, though some tell you no.
Your love’s without guile. It’s never a show.
You laugh like a fountain. You smile like the morn.
That’s why I love you. That’s why you were born.
If I hand you my soul, would you run for the stars?
Or can I trust you to kiss all of my scars?
I don’t need you perfect. I don’t want you reshaped.
I’m longing to hold you.
The real you’s what I crave.
He switches seamlessly from lyrics to a lovely, muted humming, still fingerpicking the melody.
I imagine the pick he wears around his neck glowing in approval.
A lump forms in my throat, and I’m barely able to swallow.
If I’m not careful, I’ll melt straight into a saltwater puddle right here on Main Street.
Drown in my own tears.
I need to leave now.
Turning in the direction of home, I’m relieved that I escaped Beau’s notice. The wind tugs at my sleeves as I step out onto the street. The music follows, faint but resonating in the ears of my heart. It’s inside me now, carved into the part that still dares to hope.
Jenna rounds the corner just as I reach the crosswalk where Main meets the lane where Botaniq?e quietly sits. She sees my face and doesn’t ask, just links her arm through mine.
“You okay?” she murmurs after a bit.
I try to smile, but it’s brittle. “Not really.”
We wait in silence for a few moments. Then as we begin walking again, I add, choosing my words carefully, “Beau was playing his guitar. Just playing around, I think. Then he started singing, not fancy, not like he was performing or anything. Just him and his music.”
I grip Jenna’s arm and turn to face her. “But his song…Jenna, Beau’s song…it was about me. Not for me. He was bringing me into being as he sang. His heart was calling to mine even though he didn’t even know I was anywhere near.”
Jenna mouths, “Wow!”
I don’t share the rest, but I’m feeling the song again.
One line in particular unspooled right into my chest: If I hand you my soul, would you run for the stars?
It wasn’t just a line. It was a plea. One I never expected to hear from him—and maybe one I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for.
It was so personal. Soft and aching. Like our kiss.
He wasn’t just singing. He was opening his soul, offering a piece of himself, and trusting me to hear it through the music. And I think he meant for me to find it, meant for the song to speak what he couldn’t say aloud.
That should feel beautiful. Safe. But it doesn’t. It frightens me.
Because if this is genuine, and I’m beginning to think it might be, then I’ve been chosen. Seen. Trusted.
And that means, if it ever ends, it won’t be because I was misunderstood. It’ll be because he saw all of me, and walked away anyway.
“Jenna,” my voice breaks. “I don’t want to be that girl again. The girl who’s only allowed into a man’s world if she fits into his mold. I’m never going to be small, and I think Beau gets my ‘too much.’ But I don’t know if that’s enough for him to want to be with me.”
We stop in front of the shop. Peaches is still there, sweater snug around her middle, tail thumping lazily against the mat. I kneel and rest my hand on her back, grounding myself.
Jenna sighs. “Maze. Honey. Listen to me. You are too much. Too much passion combined with a heart that loves too wildly, hope that refuses to quit, a mind overflowing with brilliance, fire, color and life. And that’s exactly what makes you rare and irreplaceable.”
I don’t answer. I just take in her words as the soft strains of Beau’s song fill my mind.
And I wonder if it’s possible that being too much is exactly what someone out there has been waiting for all along.
Jenna finishes, “And if Beau doesn’t snatch you up and bring you into his world…..well…then he’s a fool.”
I grab onto Jenna and clutch her hard, as though she’s my lifeline. She holds me the way Mom used to when I couldn’t explain why I was crying—just wrapping me up and making it okay to fall apart.
With a final comforting whisper that “it’s going to be okay,” she lets go and turns down the dimly lit street, walking toward her home.
My breath is still unsteady. That song, especially Beau’s lyrics, linger like fingerprints beneath my skin, marking me. And deep inside, the mosaic pieces of beliefs I’ve held begin to rearrange.
I sense a new understanding of myself emerging, truth balanced on the tip of something fleeting, a shimmering dewdrop suspended in its final moment.
It’s not certainty. Not surrender. But something close.
It’s the fragile awakening of being worthy of love, and perhaps taking steps to embrace it.