Chapter 37
NO GOING BACK
JOEY
I’ll See You When the Night Comes by breakkaway
Iprop my feet on the dash and watch the coastline blur past the window.
Maggie hasn’t stopped talking since I picked her up from LAX last night, mascara streaked, carry-on hanging off one shoulder, words tumbling out before she’d found my waiting arms. The pregnancy scare, the negative test, and Felix, who’d apparently been nothing short of supportive through the whole thing, which somehow freaked Maggie out more than if he’d run.
Things got too real too fast, and Maggie did what Maggie does. She ran.
The ocean sprawls out to our right as Maggie careens down the Pacific Coast Highway, wide and glittering under the late afternoon sun, its whitecaps cresting on the endless blue. I reach for the radio and flick it on, finding a rock station and drumming my fingers against the console to the beat.
Maggie wrinkles her nose and flicks it off.
I mirror her expression with exaggerated precision and turn it on.
“Joey, what the fuck?” she grumbles, flicking it off again, her tone a mix of irritation and amusement.
“Your sulky brain is too loud, Maggie. I need tunes to drown it out,” I mutter, crossing my arms and leaning into my seat with a huff.
“Since when do you listen to this?” She side-eyes me from the driver’s seat. I don’t have an answer I’m willing to say out loud. The last time I fought over a radio was with Jesse on the drive to drop off Morrison, and I ache with the memory.
“I like it. Is that so hard to get?” I say, more defensively than I intend.
Maggie gives me a light shove, and the motion jerks the wheel. The Jeep swerves enough to make me gasp and grip the door.
“Maggie!” I scold.
“Relax,” she says, tightening her grip on the wheel and grinning at me.
I plant my feet firmly on the floorboard, sitting up straighter. “If nearly driving us off a cliff is what it takes to get you to smile, I’d rather you keep sulking.”
“Fine,” she concedes, flicking the radio on and lowering the volume.
I turn my face toward the window. The wind catches my hair and for a moment I let myself disappear into the blur of coastline and sky.
I need her. The realization presses against my ribs with a force I wasn’t expecting.
I need my sister. I need to tell her about Jesse, about the pregnancy, about the fact that I’ve been carrying this alone for weeks and I can’t do it anymore.
I need to open my mouth and say the words and let her hold some of this weight for me because I am buckling under it.
I turn toward her, and a familiar tune filters through the speakers. Maggie’s entire body goes rigid. She turns the volume up, her hand trembling slightly on the knob.
“Oh my God!” she gasps, her voice cracking with disbelief as Felix’s song, “Out of Reach,” pours out of the speakers.
She cranks the volume higher and belts out the lyrics at the top of her lungs.
Her voice is terrible, and she doesn’t care.
This is the radio. This is millions of people hearing his voice. This is everything.
Maggie yanks the Jeep onto an overlook, tires crunching against the gravel as she throws it into park. Her head pops out of the top of the Jeep as she keeps singing, the ocean breeze carrying her voice into the vast expanse of sky and sea.
I lean against the headrest and watch my sister love someone from a distance, and the ache in my chest is so wide I can’t find the edges of it.
When the song ends and the radio host’s voice cuts in, Maggie flops into her seat, breathless and flushed and suddenly, visibly sad.
“What?” she says, as if she hadn’t given a Grammy-worthy performance. “Do you have any idea what this means?”
“I do,” I say carefully. “So why do you look so sad?”
“Because he’s on the fucking radio, Jo,” she says, her voice cracking on my name.
“You told him to focus on his music,” I remind her gently. “And he’s doing it.” I squeeze her hand. Her fingers grip mine hard enough to hurt. “I know things got intense between the two of you, but you haven’t dealt with it since you got home.”
She shakes her head. “I thought I was pregnant. And then I wasn’t.”
“It’s not simple and you get that,” I say.
“Nothing’s been simple with him since the day I met him,” she says. “I mean, what guy goes full-on dad mode when his girlfriend says she thinks she’s pregnant?”
“A guy who loves you.”
She shakes her head and pulls her hand away. “He hates me.”
“I highly doubt it, Maggs.” My voice comes out lighter than I expect, and I hold it there.
“After everything on tour it’s better I’m here,” she argues.
“You might not be talking to Dylan, but I am. Felix is miserable without you.”
Maggie turns away from me to process, and I let the silence hold.
“Maggie, you weren’t a distraction by being there. You are unquestionably in love with that rockstar,” I say. “And he is unquestionably in love with you.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she admits, burying her face in her hands.
“Maggie, you’re a badass. Look how far you’ve come. Paper Skies wants you to direct a music video for them, how awesome is that? Everyone else sees how talented you are. It’s time you did, too.”
“You can have your career and the rockstar, too,” I say.
She gives me a small smile and shrugs. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Finish what you started.”
“What does that even mean?”
“What about the tour footage you’ve been sitting on?”
She groans dramatically. “You want me to torture myself by watching Felix be hot and sweaty on stage? Do you hate me?”
“It’s not a bad way to wallow in your sorrows, honestly,” I say, and a laugh escapes me, small and real and surprising. “Besides, it’s no different than googling him or the band every second of the day.”
“I do not google him every second.” She straightens with outrage. “Okay, several times a day, but not every second!”
Maggie puts the Jeep in gear and pulls out of the overlook, merging onto the highway. For a few minutes the tension loosens into an almost-normal rhythm. The ocean glitters beside us. My sister is home, and she needs me, and I can do this. I can hold it together.
“Where is this livestock supply store, anyway?” She asks, glancing around like she’s forgotten where we are.
“You’ve been on one big-time rock tour and now you forget your roots,” I tease.
“Whatever,” she mutters, hitting the gas. “Tell me where to turn.”
When we get into Malibu, Maggie pulls into the parking spot and I unbuckle.
“You coming?” I ask.
“Nah, I’ll wait for you here,” she tells me, and I give her a knowing glance.
“If you think I’m googling Felix, you’re wrong,” she gripes, shoving her phone into her pocket.
I lift an eyebrow. “Text him already,” I say, and turn toward the store.
The parking lot is quiet after the noise of the Jeep, and Maggie’s voice, and the radio, and the wind. My boots scrape against the asphalt and the silence closes around me like a fist.
The feed store smells like grain dust and leather and the faint sweetness of molasses-based supplements.
“Joey,” Mr. Parker greets me from behind the counter, peering over reading glasses perched halfway down his nose. “Got your order pulled. Let me grab it from the stockroom and I’ll load you up.”
“Thank you, Mr. Parker.”
He disappears through the stockroom, and the store goes quiet. A fan whirs overhead. Dust motes drift through a beam of sunlight slanting through the front window. My hands grip the edge of the counter, knuckles white, and the stillness of the empty store presses against me like a physical weight.
Without Maggie’s voice filling the space, without the radio, without the performance of being okay, there’s nothing between me and the thing I’ve been trying to outrun.
My chin trembles and my eyes sting. I press my lips together and swallow hard, but it’s already happening and I can’t stop it.
I abandon the counter and make it to the bathroom at the end of the narrow hallway before the first sob escapes. The room is small and fluorescent and smells like industrial cleaner. I lock the door, press my shoulders against it, and slide to the floor.
The sob rips out of me.
I press my fist against my mouth to muffle the sound. The tile is cold beneath me, and I pull my knees to my chest and let it take me. Every conversation I can’t have, every secret I’m swallowing. The tears pour out of me in waves until my ribs ache and my body has nothing left to give.
The sobs slow into shuddering breaths. I tip my head against the door and stare at the water-stained ceiling, letting the last of it drain out of me. My chest is hollowed out. But the pressure behind my ribs has loosened enough for me to breathe.
Pull yourself together, Joey. You can do this.
I press my palms flat against the cold tile and push myself to standing.
At the sink, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face, drying it with a rough paper towel before forcing myself to meet my own eyes in the cloudy mirror.
The girl staring at me is someone I don’t recognize.
Swollen and raw and so far from the person I was three months ago I couldn’t find my way back if I tried.
But there is no going back. There’s only forward, and whatever that means now.