39. Don’t Say It
39
DON’T SAY IT
MAGGIE
I Miss You, I’m Sorry By Gracie Abrams
T he camera digs into my shoulder, its strap a minor abrasion against my skin as I aim it at the field below, where the lights scatter like stars caught mid-fall, smudged and trembling in the sweat-damp air. My hand quivers faintly, though I can’t tell if it’s from the tangible weight of the lens or the heavier burden embedded in my chest. I pan the horizon, letting the mechanics of the familiar soothe me, even as my heart drags with some unnamable gravity. Still, this has remained my sanctum ever since the first show, when one of the crew decided it would be funny to toss my shoe onto the top of the bus, forcing me to climb up here to retrieve it.
From up here, the festival stretches out like a living, breathing organism. The glow of the stage lights pulses in the distance, and the mass of buses and campsites forms a patchwork quilt of commotion and community. It’s like a tiny city, bustling and alive, but when the festival shuts down for the night, the lights wink out one by one, whole sections disappearing into the dark like they’re being swallowed by the void.
A cool breeze brushes against my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms, and I pull Felix’s hoodie tighter around me. The fabric is soft, worn in all the right places, and it still smells like him, causing my chest to ache. I breathe it in deeply, but instead of comfort, it stirs something sharp and raw inside me, like a wound I didn’t realize I had.
I set the camera down beside me, its weight shifting the blanket I’m sitting on, and listen to the low hum of nearby buses. Somewhere in the distance, music drifts from a car radio, the sound tinny and faint, blending with the rhythmic drone of engines. Red brake lights snake along the highway behind me, a river of restless travelers heading somewhere, anywhere. I pull my knees to my chest, tucking them beneath the oversized hoodie, and rest my cheek against the soft fabric.
I should feel lighter. I should feel relieved. The weight of potentially being pregnant has been lifted off me, and yet, everything feels heavier. I’m twenty years old, and my career is finally gaining momentum. By all accounts, I should be ecstatic, carefree even. Instead, there’s this hollow space inside me, this ache I can’t seem to shake. But this grief, this unplaceable, unspeakable grief—for what? For a future unwritten? I’m mourning something I never had, something I never even knew I wanted until I thought it might be real.
I close my eyes, and the memory of Felix’s face from earlier flashes behind my eyelids. The way his voice cracked when he said, “No matter what, we’ll figure it out.” The way his inked fingers fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, betraying the nerves he was trying so hard to hide. But I couldn’t stop the thoughts from creeping in, unbidden and vivid.
While he was trying to distract me by playing that stupid song and twirling me around the room, I was picturing our baby cradled in the inked map of his arms, preparing for a reality that didn’t exist, and when the test came back negative, all those thoughts dissolved like sugar in water, leaving nothing but a bittersweet residue behind.
Everything between Felix and me has been too much, too fast, like a wildfire that consumes everything in its path. And now, I feel like a compass spinning wildly, unable to find true north. But maybe that’s not entirely true. My true north has always been home. I thought I understood homesickness before, but this? This is something else entirely. It’s a deep, aching pull for familiarity, for roots, for something solid to hold on to. Up here on this bus, with the vastness of the festival stretching before me, I feel like a tree caught in a storm, my roots ripped from the ground.
The tears come before I can stop them, hot and relentless. They carve silent rivers down my cheeks, soaking into Felix’s hoodie. My chest tightens, each breath a struggle against the sob threatening to break free. I press my face into the fabric, inhaling his scent again, hoping it will ground me, but it only makes the ache sharper. I miss him, and I miss myself, and I don’t know how to reconcile the two.
* * *
I stand in front of Felix’s trailer in the early morning light. I barely slept, and when I did, Felix haunted my dreams—his voice, his touch, the way his eyes see right through me. My pulse thuds in my ears as I raise my hand to knock, but before I can, the door swings open.
Felix stands there, framed by the dim interior light spilling out from behind him. His messy dark brown hair sticks up in soft, untamed tufts, and his bare chest is a canvas of ink—black lines and intricate designs that stretch across the sharp planes of his shoulders. His sleepy blue eyes lock onto mine, and I can see the exhaustion mirrored there, the same restless night etched into his features. He looks like both bedlam and comfort, making my chest ache.
The pull to him is magnetic, visceral, like the universe itself is conspiring to drag me closer. It’s the way he looks at me—like I’m something precious and broken all at once, like he loves the parts of me I wish I could hide. It’s that look that makes my feet move forward, even as my heart screams warnings I don’t want to hear. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t falter, just steps back enough to let me in, his hand brushing my arm as I pass. The door clicks shut behind me, the sound loud in the quiet morning, and I find myself pressing my back against it like it’s the only thing holding me upright.
Felix stares at me, his gaze burning with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. His chest rises and falls in shallow breaths, his hands flexing at his sides like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me. I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, the ground crumbling beneath my feet, and he’s the only thing keeping me from falling. My heart twists, torn between the fear of what we could lose and the undeniable need to hold on to him.
I step closer, unable to stop myself, and lift my hand to his face. My palm meets his cheek, warm and familiar, and his eyes flutter shut. He leans into the touch for a brief, fragile moment before shaking his head, his jaw tightening.
“Don’t say it, Maggie,” he says, his voice cracking just enough to betray the storm swirling inside him.
“I have to,” I whisper, my own voice trembling under the weight of everything I can’t seem to put into words. But before I can say more, he leans in, capturing my unfinished thoughts with a kiss. His lips are warm and urgent, and I can taste the desperation there, the unspoken plea for me to stay.
“Don’t fucking say it,” he breathes against my mouth, his forehead pressing to mine as his hands come up to frame my face. His thumbs brush my cheeks, his touch achingly gentle despite the tension radiating from him. He pulls back just enough to look at me, his blue eyes glassy and raw. “Please, Maggie. Just… be with me.”
The way he says it—his voice barely above a whisper, breaking like he’s unraveling right in front of me—sends a shudder through my entire body. I feel the weight of his words settle deep in my chest, wrapping around my heart like a vise. There’s a vulnerability in him that he rarely lets me see, and it undoes me.
For once, I listen. I kiss him back, my lips moving against his as if they’ve always known the rhythm of his. His arms circle me, strong and unyielding, cradling me as though I’m something precious. The scent of him fills my senses, grounding me even as my heart races. He presses his lips to my cheeks, my eyelids, marking me with each touch. It’s as if he’s trying to claim me, as if I could ever belong to anyone but him.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his movements deliberate, and pulls me onto his lap. The heat of his body seeps into mine, and my skin tingles where it meets his. My body reacts instinctively, leaning into him, drawn by the magnetic pull that always exists between us. But my mind lags behind, tangled in doubt and hesitation.
I press a palm to his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath my hand. “This isn’t why I came here,” I say, my voice soft but firm, though it trembles slightly at the edges.
“I know,” he replies, his voice low and rough, like gravel warmed by the sun. He drags my shirt over my head with a slow, practiced ease, his knuckles brushing against my skin. My breath catches as I lift my arms to help him, my hair falling in a curtain around my face. He tosses the shirt to the floor without a second glance, his focus entirely on me.
My fingers glide over his chest, tracing the intricate stories etched into his skin, and I feel the rhythm of his breath falter under my touch. This is the last thing I should want but I’ve never been good at listening to my head. My heart wants what it wants, especially when he slips my bra strap off my shoulder and looks at me the way he does when I’m completely exposed to him.
With him, I am stripped bare in a way I’ve never dared to be with anyone else.
“Jesus, Maggie,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “Why does my fucking heart stop every time I look at you?”
I thread my fingers through his hair, the strands soft under my touch. He lifts me effortlessly and lays me back onto the bed. The mattress dips beneath my weight, and the cool sheets contrast with the heat of his body as he leans over me. His hands are deft as he undoes the button on my shorts, his touch sending sparks skittering across my skin. He shrugs out of his own clothes with a kind of quiet urgency, his movements fluid and sure.
The air between us shifts, charged and electric, as though the world has narrowed to just the two of us. All the walls I’ve built, all the defenses I’ve clung to, crumble in his presence.
The weight is heavy the minute I pull on the string of his sweatpants and the realization is overpowering as he reaches for a condom.”
Felix sighs and we both feel the heaviness of the moment, although neither of us voices it. He rips the condom with his teeth and I watch as he rolls it on.
There is only the harmony of our breaths, the way they sync and stutter, and the magnetic pull of our bodies as they find each other, over and over again.
I cling to him like a lifeline in a storm, my hands tracing the deep cuts of his muscles, the ridges and planes of his body. I try to memorize everything about him—the tilt of his mouth when he smiles against my skin, the way his hand wraps around my wrist, pinning me gently but firmly to the mattress. His grip is possessive yet tender, a contradiction that feels so inherently him.
Entwined with Felix, caught in the tempest of emotions that swirl between us, I am swiftly swept to the edge of no return.
“Felix,” I breathe his name. My voice trembles, but he captures it, stifling my sighs with kisses that leave me dizzy and undone. His lips claim mine, his tongue teasing and coaxing, as he buries himself deep inside me.
I open my eyes to find him staring down at me, his gaze piercing through the layers of my skin, bone, and marrow, as if he can see the blood surging in and out of my heart. His eyes are a storm—gray and turbulent, carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken words. The space between us feels electric, charged with everything we’ve said and everything we haven’t.
He lays a hand on the mattress by my head, leaning over me, his breath close to my lips but he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he collapses next to me.
He takes the bedsheets and wipes my stomach clean. I chew on my bottom lip, a nervous habit I can’t seem to shake, and his thumb brushes over the deep crease above my eyebrow, the touch both tender and grounding.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, his voice low, rough, like gravel underfoot.
“That I need to go home,” I admit quietly, the words tasting bitter as they leave my mouth.
He exhales sharply, and then, as if afraid to lose the fragile connection between us, he presses his forehead to mine. His fingers tangle in my hair, tugging at the strands with an almost desperate edge, the pull just shy of painful. But I welcome it, because pain is all I feel right now—it’s deep and vast, carving out a crevasse in my heart like shattered glass. His tears fall, hot and briny, sliding from his cheek to my lips, and I can taste his grief.
“I don’t want you to go,” he murmurs, his voice so soft it feels like it might shatter under the weight of his pain.
“I have to,” I whisper back, my throat tightening as I fight to keep my own tears at bay.
It’s agony to be the voice of reason, to say the words that cut us both, but I know I’m right. And deep down, he knows it too. That’s why he’s holding onto me like this—like if he lets go, I’ll vanish. And maybe I will. Once I walk out that door, I’ll be on a plane bound for home.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks, his voice breaking, his grip on my hair tightening.
“Look what’s happened?”
He shakes his head. “What happened is that we had a scare, and we got through it.”
“Everything that’s happened is because of something I did,” I tell him, and when he opens his mouth to protest, I stop him. “You came on this tour to build your career and look at what you’ve accomplished so far, but you can’t deny that I’m a distraction, don’t you see that?”
He shakes his head, letting his hands fall away, leaving my scalp tingling from the absence of his touch. “Dammit, Maggie,” he snaps, his frustration bubbling over. “You’re making excuses. You don’t walk away from what we have because you’re scared. What happened between us…” His voice softens, the anger giving way to something more vulnerable. “It was something I never even knew I wanted.”
I sit up, clutching the sheets to my chest like armor. Felix moves away, pulling on his sweatpants.
“That’s the problem,” I say, my voice quiet but firm. “This is too intense. Too fast.”
He stops pacing and turns to look at me, his brow furrowed, his lips parted as if he’s about to argue. “Are you going to tell me you don’t feel it too?” he asks, his voice rising. “That you didn’t wonder what it would’ve been like if that test came back positive?”
“Of course I did.” I stand, crossing the room to place my hands on his bare shoulders. His skin is warm, his muscles taut beneath my palms. “Someday,” I say, my voice trembling. “I want to have your baby someday. ”
His breath catches, and for a moment, hope flickers in his eyes. But then it’s gone, replaced by frustration. “That’s not something you say when you’re leaving, Maggie. You say that to me when you’re coming back.”
I swallow hard, my throat dry. “Right now, we’re making decisions we’re both going to regret.”
“Regret?” His voice is sharp, and he steps back, putting distance between us.
“You were gonna cancel a show,” I point out.
“For you!” He throws his hands in the air.
“Exactly,” I reply, the truth of it hitting us both like a freight train. “I don’t want to be the reason you cancel a show, or why you’re late, or why you have an off night. That’s not fair to you. Or to me.”
“That’s what you do when you love someone.”
I shake my head, my chest tightening. “And sometimes love makes you blind. It makes you lose sight of why you started in the first place. I don’t want to be the girl who follows the rockstar around and forgets who she is. And I don’t want you to lose sight of your dream.”
“Why can’t we have both?”
I gather my clothes, clutching them to my chest like a lifeline. “Because it’s too much to ask for,” I say, my voice breaking. “We both need time apart to figure out who we are and what we want.”
I start to dress, slipping on my shorts and shirt. Before I can get too far, he grabs my wrist. I want to resist him, but I can’t. I let him pull me into his arms, his chin resting on the top of my head. His heart beats against my cheek, steady but strained.
“I’m just asking for a little time, Felix,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to leave to do that,” he says into my hair. “We can figure this out.”
I pull back just enough to look up at him, my eyes stinging. “I already bought my plane ticket. I leave tonight.”
His grip loosens, and his expression crumbles. “Were you even going to tell me? Or did you just come here for one last fuck before breaking my heart?”
“That’s not fair,” I snap, pushing him away.
He runs a hand through his hair, his frustration palpable. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Do you think this is easy for me?” I ask, my voice shaking. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
His eyes search mine, desperate and questioning. “What happened to the fearless girl I met back in Palm Springs?”
I smile sadly, my hand brushing his cheek. “I was fearless because I had nothing to lose. Now I have everything to lose.”
“Maggie,” he whispers. “Why does this have to be so fucking hard?”
With a deep, clarifying breath, the strain in his shoulders dissipates, leaving only quiet resolve. He’s not looking for an answer and even if he was, I don’t have one.
His eyes harden, a shield against the pain, while my heart shatters quietly.
“So this is how it’s going to end,” he says, shaking his head.
“This isn’t our ending,” I tell him. “Not for me. Nothing could ever sever the hold you have on me.”
“Then why does it feel like it is?” he asks, his voice barely audible.
“You’re mad at me now and I have to be okay with that because I know you’ll see that I had to be the one to do it,” I say, trying to stifle the sobs that threaten to burst free.
The last thing I see before the door slams shut is Felix’s face, a storm of hurt and fury.
Outside, the air is warm against my tear-streaked cheeks. A crash from inside the trailer makes me flinch, but I don’t turn back. If I go back now, I won’t leave. And leaving is the only way to save us both.
* * *
The plane jolts as it hits the tarmac, and my eyes snap open, the remnants of a restless nap clinging to me like cobwebs. Outside the window, the sprawling, gray expanse of LAX airport comes into view, dotted with blinking lights and the faint silhouettes of other planes. The sky is a washed-out blue, tinged with smog, and the air feels heavy even from inside the cabin.
I sigh and power my phone back on, the screen lighting up as I blink away the grogginess. My chest tightens as I scroll through my notifications. One message. Just one. From Joey. My thumb hovers over the screen, but I don’t open it. I don’t know what I was expecting—something from Felix, maybe? I shake my head, trying to push the thought away. I’m not being rational, and I know it. But knowing doesn’t stop the hollow ache in my chest.
As soon as I step off the plane, I pick up my pace, weaving through the crowd with single-minded determination. She’s here. I know she is. Even if I hadn’t gotten her text, I’d feel it in my bones.
When I spot Joey by the baggage carousel, it’s like the dam inside me finally bursts. The second her gaze lands on me, her face softens, and she pushes off the railing. My bag slips from my hand, hitting the ground with a dull thud. My legs carry me to her before I even realize I’m moving.
As soon as I reach her, I collapse into her arms with the weight of everything I couldn’t share. This is a pain I’ve never felt before. Her arms wrap around me tightly, and I finally let it all out. The tears come hot and fast, and my chest heaves as sobs wrack my body. It’s messy and raw, but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.
Joey strokes my back in soothing circles, her touch firm but gentle. “It’s okay, Maggs,” she murmurs, her voice low and steady. “You’re home now.”