44. Sadie
Chapter 44
Sadie
J axon’s hand cups my face and I sink into it. All my pain, all my heartache, ebbs from my chest, overflowing in me and closing up my throat until it comes out as a choked sob.
“Sadie,” Jaxon murmurs, pulling me into his chest, cedar wood and mint enveloping me, warm as the sun’s rays on my back.
This. This is home.
He is home.
“I’ve been so horrible to you,” I whisper tearily into his shirt.
“It was deserved,” he replies, still taking the sword as if I hadn’t hurt him too.
“No.” I shake my head, pulling away so he can hear me. “I was angry. Angry at what happened six years ago. Angry at my parents for never loving me how I am. Angry that I heard one bad thing said about me and instantly believed it, even when I know it’s not true.”
Nearby, a little girl, maybe three years old, trips and falls in the playground. Her mom quickly scoops her up as she cries, whispering in her ear, and the girl smiles . Tearily, after a fall, she’s comforted by her mother whereas I think back to every performance that my parents would clap with a frown on their face, how it chipped at my heart and turned me icy because feeling numb was better than feeling rejected.
I draw in a jagged breath and continue. “I have talent. I work hard. But I never had confidence like you. I tried so hard to be the soloist my parents wanted me to be. I wanted to be so much like you that it never occurred to me to be myself, to choose myself, to stand on a stage and own it and play like I’m performing what’s mine rather than what might make someone else happy.”
The mom sets the little girl down on her feet and she takes on the playground like new. As if she hadn’t felt shocked at her fall just moments ago. As if falling wasn’t failing. She carried on believing because of something her mom said and a question mark in my chest forms. I wonder what that feels like? Except, I do know what that feels like, because it’s how I feel with Jaxon.
“All my life I’ve felt like second best until this tour.” I turn my attention back to his face, golden tan in the sun. “You taught me to be my best. You showed me the picture of success I thought I always wanted. And then I got it.”
“I know. I’m happy for you,” he says, even as his eyes belie the very word happy. They tilt with sadness as if he thinks he’s not a part of my picture of happiness.
“I’m not,” I admit.
He looks at me, brows knit tightly. “Why?”
“Because it’s not what I want anymore. I don’t want to be practicing hard to please someone else. I don’t want to be chasing after someone else’s spotlight. It’s exhausting. This is exhausting.”
Worry flashes over Jaxon’s eyes and I realize what I’m saying is misleading.
“I’m sorry, I’m not good at this.” I shake my head.
More worry in his eyes. Shit .
“At talking about my feelings,” I clarify. God, why is it so difficult to just tell him how I feel about him? About all the things that I love about him? His hands on my hips as he teaches me how to cook because my mom never did. His violin in my right ear, its melody clear as day, the only one I hear onstage as if it’s no one but us and our music stand. His smile that melts the brown in his eyes that I catch every time I practice a solo and he has nothing else to say but wow .
He is what makes me happy.
He is what I want.
Not a solo. Not a position. Not the spotlight.
Him .
Jaxon, who even with immense physical pain, took the time to ready me for my solos.
Jaxon, with eyes that gleam so bright I could bask in their warmth and glow.
Jaxon, whose hand always found mine at times I needed it. At times I felt alone. At times I felt like that single piece in a puzzle that couldn’t find its match.
I found it in him.
“Your parents may have taught you to pick a career over love, but my parents taught me I couldn’t have love if I wasn’t a success. And when I thought I reached their idea of success, they still weren’t happy.” My voice cracks at the end and my eyes dip down. I remember their faces in New York like I remember their faces in my college recital. Not enough, it said. Never enough, I thought.
“They’re wrong,” Jaxon interjects, grabbing my hands with his, that familiar electric frisson bouncing between us, but this time it feels different, more intense. It roots deep in my bones that the way I feel about him is true. An arrow hitting its mark, true. “Whatever it is they said about you, if it’s not positive, is wrong .”
I know he means it. I know he’s right. It took these past few months to realize that I can separate myself from my parent’s opinion of me. That I can be who I want to be, not what they want me to be, and it started by Jaxon showing me to believe that I can.
I can get up onstage and perform a solo in the lyricism that I want to.
I can learn to cook instead of eating frozen microwavable lunches or heating up Top Ramen.
I can teach music, if that’s what makes me happy and I can also audition and not worry that I might not get in.
Jaxon’s hands squeeze tightly and my chest swells. I wouldn’t have believed all this if it weren’t for him showing it to me first, for giving me the space to think outside the tiny box of criticism I had lived my life in.
“You are so radiant, Sadie,” he says, pulling me closer so our knees bump as his hands slide up to my forearms. “For as long as I’ve known you, you pull light in a room as if you are the sun.”
My heart fills, stretching so far it may burst with how much love, how much happiness, how much safety I feel with this man. I know no matter what happens in life, he’d be here to protect me.
“That night,” my voice trembles as I start. I take a deep, steadying breath. “After the last concert in New York, I wanted to reach out to you.” His eyes widen in shock. “But I felt so horrible about leaving you I was afraid you’d shut the door in my face.”
“I would never,” he rasps. His finger follows the curve of my cheek and it reminds me of all the little ways we touched before. Knees bumping on the plane. Foot nudges in rehearsal. His warm chest to cry on. Strong arms wrapping me in comfort.
I smile. “I know that now. But even when I saw you here, I felt so overwhelmed by you?—”
“Sadie. I don’t mean to be overbearing. If I’m too much—” Jaxon’s voice cracks, a little panicked as if he thinks I might still run.
I’m not running anymore.
“You’re not!” I wish we were somewhere more private so I could climb into his lap, but the bubbling laugh of the little girl sweeping down a slide reminds me we’re not. I reach to cup his face, my thumb catching a tear, and my heart feels like it could explode for this man. It crackles with energy, simmers with heat that curls around my core to my fingertips, between my thighs, throughout my entire body. It’s so hard for just words to express how I feel .
“What I mean to say is, it didn’t hit me until I saw you again. How I truly feel about you. I ran away because I thought you wouldn’t want me after our fight. I’m used to being rejected, Jaxon. Not the other way around.” I swallow the thick lump in my throat and work to keep my voice steady, because this I am certain about. As certain as I am about him. “I didn’t want to risk my heart then, but I do now, because it hurts me more to not give you a chance, give us a chance. So, I’m here, Jax, and I don’t want to let you go.”
My eyes search his, swimming in their depths of burnt umber, a shade of the dimming sunset sky around us.
“You’re perfect, Jaxon. To me, in all your imperfect ways, you’re perfect. You never make me feel like I’m not enough. In fact, you make playing an open A string or stirring soup in a pot feel like I’m mastering the finest skill. You find light in all the ways I sought darkness and helped me to believe in myself.”
“Violin and cooking are pretty hard to master,” he cuts in, finally cracking a smile. Even with the sun now setting, it feels like it’s setting into my chest. Warm. Bright. Happy.
I choke on a laugh, my fingers feathering to his jaw as I trace the outline of his lips.
“I auditioned today because I knew that even if I failed, you’d still be there waiting with a smile. All that you’ve proven to me these last few months is you stayed. Even when I ran or pushed you away, you stayed. Even if I cry, you won’t tell me to hide my tears. No matter how hard I’ve challenged you these past few months, you haven’t shied away from me.”
My mind flits to the first time he held my hand on the plane ride to Chicago. To when he held me as I cried after Smith tried to take advantage of me. To when he danced with me on an open stage to forget what my parents said to me. I remember every kiss, every touch, every whisper of love he poured into me without even saying it.
A violin bow without rosin won’t make any sound. He’s the glue that makes me sing.
“Before you, I was scared—of failure, of rejection. I didn’t seek out opportunities because I could never really catch myself from a fall, and climbing from rock bottom always felt…”
“Exhausting?” he supplies, already knowing. His cheek leans into my touch as I had earlier.
I nod and smile. “Yes, exhausting. So I just didn’t. Didn’t try. Didn’t think I was good enough. Didn’t explore to see who I might just be until you pushed me, tested me, and challenged me to be more . You held and sang to me in ways that made failing feel like I’m human, not that I’m broken.
“I’m not afraid when I’m with you. I’m afraid to be without you. So please, Jaxon. You are not overbearing. Or exhausting. You are everything . Everything I dream of having, everything I want in life because even music doesn’t make me as happy as you do. I want you. I love you. So much.”
Jaxon stays silent, and in his quiet, the birds chirp in the trees. The sun dips lower behind a mountain, casting the sky in shades of a purple lavender and pastel pink. The little girl’s giggles ring melodically in the air while her mother watches patiently with a smile.
And I stay patient. I don’t run.
I love him. I’m not going anywhere if it’s not with him.
Warm, chocolate brown eyes begin to smolder, his hands lace into my hair and he pulls me into a deep, rough kiss. My body ignites, all my nerve endings firing off, that crackle of energy, of love for him so effervescent like the pop of a champagne bottle. His tongue sweeps over my bottom lip and I melt into his touch. My mouth opens as we speak silently through taste and touch.
He’s sweet as honey. Cool as mint. Firm as the earth. And mine .
The park fades away, the little girl’s laughs and the birds’ songs with it, as day forms into night.
By the time we pull away, we’re panting, foreheads pressed together, lips still lightly brushing—and happy.
“I didn’t realize I was getting a speech,” Jaxon says.
“You wanted to know how I feel about you,” I breathe.
He kisses me softly. “I did. But you also could’ve just said I love you.”
“I love you,” I murmur against his lips.
“I know.” He pulls back to look at me brightly. “I love you too.”
A laugh escapes me, shaking my shoulders, as Jaxon pulls my hip flush with his and wraps an arm around my shoulders. I lean into his shoulder, my hand coming to rest on his chest over his beating heart.
All my life as a violinist, I’ve felt the emptiness within a solo, where my tune doesn’t feel complete until a piano or orchestra accompanies it. Now with Jaxon, his arms wrapped around me, kissing me soft as a sweet melody, I realize this is it: he’s the accompaniment to my melody.