Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
MYA
T here’s a strange kind of comfort in the whirr of NICU machines—steady, rhythmic, reliable. Unlike the rest of my life, which feels like it’s been shattered and pieced back together with glue that hasn’t quite dried.
Every day starts the same. Fletch wheels me through the hospital doors like he’s afraid I might disappear if he lets go. I’m not that fragile—I keep telling him that—but he keeps doing it anyway. Not because I need him to.
But because he needs to.
I watch the boys through the glass. Their tiny bodies wrapped up in wires and blankets, barely bigger than a loaf of bread. It’s been two weeks since I got discharged, and they’re still in their incubators, still fighting, still growing. The nurses say they’re doing well. Meeting milestones. Breathing better. Feeding more. That if everything goes right, we’ll bring them home by the time they hit 38 weeks.
It sounds so far away. And yet… I’m clinging to it like a lifeline.
“You okay?” Fletch asks me one morning, voice quiet, eyes soft. Always soft, lately. Like he’s afraid his sharp edges might cut me open again.
I nod, even though I’m not. “I’m fine.”
It’s the lie I’ve perfected since waking up.
Because if I say I’m not okay, it opens a door I’m not ready to walk through. Not when the boys are still here. Not when I’m afraid to even go to sleep in case I wake up and it’s all gone.
Back on the ranch, life resumes. Slower than I want it to.
“Take it easy,” Reese says for the hundredth time, arms crossed, her glare sharp enough to draw blood. “You just got out of the hospital. You need to rest.”
I shoot her a look as I sit down in front of my laptop and start answering emails for the band’s tour rollout. “If I rest any harder, I’ll fall into another coma. No thanks.”
“Mya.”
“No,” I snap, then soften my tone because I know she means well. “I love you, but if I don’t keep busy, I’ll lose my goddamn mind. I need something to hold onto, Reese. I need to feel like me again.”
She studies me for a beat. “Fine. But if you collapse, I’m not letting you near your phone for a week.”
Deal.
The band’s been holed up in the studio for days. Carson’s voice raw. Benji in a manic writing spiral. Fletch quieter than usual, but present. So, so present.
They said it started while I was under. That they couldn’t stop writing. That the words poured out of them like a flood they’d been holding back. Songs about love and loss and everything in between. Even Fletch—my drummer who always hid behind the beat—is writing lyrics now.
When he lets me read one of his songs, my throat closes.
It’s about me.
About the silence and the waiting and the guilt that eats him alive.
“I couldn’t save you,” he tells me quietly, voice cracking. “But I stayed. Every day. Because I needed you to know I was here when you woke up.”
I can’t speak. Just take his hand and press it to my heart.
He was always here.
It’s not perfect. Some nights, I still wake up screaming. Some days, I can’t look in the mirror without flinching at the shadows under my eyes. But I show up. At the NICU. At my laptop. In the studio when they ask for input.
Because the only way out is through. And I’m learning to live again, one deep breath at a time.
One email. One baby blanket. One unfinished lyric scribbled in the margins of a hospital brochure.
Because life doesn’t stop when everything breaks.
It rebuilds itself.
And so do I.
* * *
The thing no one tells you about recovery is how damn still everything feels. Like the whole world has sprinted ahead while you’re stuck dragging leaden limbs through molasses. And if I sit too long in the quiet, my thoughts spiral into places Reese keeps telling me to avoid.
So I don’t sit. I move. I do. Because if I don’t, I’ll drown in the what-ifs.
I’ve been back on the ranch a couple of weeks now. Mornings are for hospital visits, afternoons are for work—slow and steady—and evenings are for pretending I’m not exhausted. Reese side-eyes me like she’s two seconds from staging an intervention every time she catches me lifting feed bags or reorganizing the barn storage.
“You’re supposed to be recovering,” she said yesterday, arms crossed, bump out, and scowl firmly in place.
I told her, not so politely, that if she didn’t let me keep busy, my brain would eat itself alive. I didn’t miss the way her eyes softened before she handed me a clipboard and muttered something about not lifting anything heavier than a goat.
Today, while she’s in town checking in on Simply Reese, I take full advantage of the quiet. The tacos are a peace offering, really. A bribe wrapped in foil and carnitas and maybe a little desperation. Because the guys—my guys—are holed up in the barn-turned-studio and I’ve barely seen them.
The barn used to smell like hay and horses. Now it smells like coffee, cords, and ambition. The space is fully converted—recording booth in the back, couches and coffee tables up front, mismatched rugs layered like soundproofing patchwork. It’s still rustic, but now it hums with electricity.
Literally and metaphorically.
Balancing three containers and a bottle of homemade lemonade, I nudge the barn door open with my hip. The guys are filtering out of the recording booth, flushed and loose-limbed like they’ve just exorcised something through the mic.
Fletch sees me first. His mouth curves slow and soft, the kind of smile that used to make me forget how to breathe. Now it just makes my ribs ache in that familiar, traitorous way.
“Looks like someone brought lunch,” he says, voice warm enough to melt the frost still clinging to the spaces between us.
Carson whistles low, eyeing the containers. “If this is what recovery looks like, I think I’m in love.”
Benji flops onto the couch with a groan. “God bless you, woman. I was about five minutes from chewing on a guitar string.”
I set everything down on the table, peeling back foil to release the heavenly scent of seasoned meat and warm tortillas. “Figured you’d be too deep in genius mode to remember food exists.”
“We remembered,” Carson mutters, mouth already full. “We just didn’t want to leave mid-take.”
Fletch’s gaze lingers on me like he’s trying to read between the layers. “You okay?”
I nod, too quickly. “I’m fine. Tacos, remember?”
Benji wipes his hands and leans back, pointing a chip at Fletch. “You should’ve seen him this morning. Wrote two songs back-to-back like a man possessed. And get this—none of it was trash.”
That gets my attention.
I blink, turning to Fletch. “You write songs now?”
He shrugs, suddenly sheepish. “I guess.”
“You guess?” My brows shoot up. “I thought Benji and Thorin wrote the songs.”
“They do,” Carson says around a mouthful. “But something shifted after… y’know. Fletch just started writing. Like, really writing.”
Fletch won’t meet my eyes. He’s fiddling with a bottle cap like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing on the planet. “They’re not all about you,” he says under his breath, like he’s trying to convince himself more than me.
My stomach swoops, because I didn’t ask. But now that he’s said it, I can’t help but wonder. And hope. And maybe hate myself a little for both.
I study him for a beat longer, but he doesn’t look up. So I sit on the arm of the couch, pop a taco in my mouth, and try to chew around the sudden lump in my throat.
The silence that follows isn’t awkward. It’s charged. Like we’re all pretending not to see the live wire sparking under the table.
“Mind if I hang out a while?” I ask, nudging the tray of empty plates on the coffee table with my hip. “The house feels a little… close right now.”
It’s not a lie. I love the ranch. I love the twins. I even love the laundry-scented chaos of folding onesies in between bottle sterilizations and late-night NICU updates. But being cooped up inside the same four walls with nothing but the ghost of who I was three months ago and the worry of who I need to become? It’s a lot.
Fletch looks up from where he’s strumming absently on the couch, his fingers dancing along the frets like they have a mind of their own. “You don’t have to ask,” he says, smiling like I just handed him a signed permission slip to breathe again. “You’re always welcome here.”
Carson grins, already plugging in his bass. “Just try not to fall in love with me when you hear me solo.”
Benji snorts. “She’s heard it. She survived.”
I settle on the oversized beanbag in the corner, curling my legs under me as I hug a throw pillow to my chest. It smells like old cologne, new leather, and something that could only be described as ‘boy band with talent.’
“Whatcha working on?” I ask, pretending to keep it casual, but my curiosity is already scratching at the back of my throat.
Carson glances at Fletch, who pointedly doesn’t meet my gaze.
“New song,” Benji says, loading up the backing track. “One Fletcher wrote.”
That makes me blink. “Wait. You wrote it?”
Fletch clears his throat. “Kind of… yeah.”
I sit up straighter. “You write songs now?”
“He’s been writing a lot lately,” Carson adds, eyes gleaming with something smug and knowing. “Like, man-on-a-mission-level writing.”
Fletch finally glances over, rubbing the back of his neck like it might hide the blush crawling up his cheeks. “It’s not a big deal. Just something I needed to get out of my system.”
Benji flips a switch on the console. “You might want to stay for this one, Mya.”
And then they play.
The first few chords ripple through the room—raw and slow, like waves breaking on sandbanks you didn’t realize were shifting beneath your feet. Fletch’s voice cracks on the first lyric but steadies by the second.
You were lightning in reverse
Striking after the storm
Didn’t see you coming
But I felt you in every form.
The walls dissolve.
You smiled like safety
Spoke in war-torn whispers
I called it lust
But it broke me like scripture.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Every line hits with the kind of precision that says he didn’t just write it. He bled it.
I fell without meaning to
And when I lost you, I lost air too.
By the time the bridge rolls in, it’s not just a song—it’s a confession stitched into melody. One I was never supposed to hear.
You’re ink in my veins
Memory I wear like chainmail
Thought I’d ruined you
But it was me who fell to pieces first.
And when the final chord fades into silence, I’m not the only one too stunned to speak.
Benji’s already fiddling with a knob to mask the thick tension that fills the room like smoke. Carson claps once—sharp, loud—like maybe if he makes enough noise, it won’t feel so intimate in here.
But Fletch?
He finally looks at me.
And I’m not sure if the tremble in my chest is from the ache of those lyrics or the terrifying hope in his eyes.
He shrugs one shoulder, like that’s all he has left to offer.
“It’s not done,” he says quietly. “But it’s about you.”
For a second, I can’t speak.
I can’t breathe.
The silence stretches, the way it always does after something cracks wide open. A pause too loaded to be ignored, too fragile to fill with anything but the thud-thud-thud of my own unruly heart.
Fletch shifts like he’s about to say something else—but I hold up a hand, fast. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Please… don’t.”
Because if he says one more word—one more sweet, broken, soul-baring word—I might actually fall apart.
The kind of falling that isn’t poetic or graceful. The kind that hurts.
The kind that means everything still matters.
I press my palm to my chest, like I’m trying to hold myself in. Like maybe I can stop the flood before it hits.
But it’s too late.
The tears come hot and fast, not the soft kind that trail down your cheeks like a rom-com heroine with dewy lashes. No, these are messy. Unforgiving. They burn. Because I’m mad.
At him. At myself. At how goddamn unfair it all feels.
“I waited,” I say, voice cracking, raw. “Even in the dream I didn’t know was a dream. Even when I was falling for someone else—” I swallow, hard, “—I waited for you to see me.”
Fletch goes still.
The others have quietly slipped out, and I hadn’t even noticed. Of course they did. This isn’t for them.
It’s for us. Whatever’s left of us.
“I wanted you to fight for me,” I confess, voice trembling. “Even after everything. Even when I knew I should stop. Even when I was with him… even when I wanted to stay there, with him…”
I exhale, unsteady. “Part of me still wanted you.”
His jaw clenches, and he takes a step toward me, like maybe he doesn’t trust himself to stay still. Or maybe he just can’t.
“I didn’t know how to,” he says hoarsely. “How to fight for something I already destroyed.”
I laugh, and it’s not a happy sound. “So you didn’t even try?”
“I stayed,” he snaps, the words ragged at the edges. “I came every day. I sat by your bed and talked to you and prayed to a God I don’t even know if I believe in. I wrote songs because my head was too full of you to do anything else. You want to know what I saw every time I closed my eyes?” His voice breaks. “You. Always you.”
Something inside me folds in on itself.
Because that’s the cruelest part.
I know he means it. And I also know it doesn’t change anything.
Or maybe it changes everything.
My breath stutters, and I drag my sleeve across my cheeks, trying to stem the flood, trying to hold it all together.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I whisper.
His eyes soften, devastation etched in every inch of him. “Neither do I.”
And just like that, we’re standing in the rubble of the almost-love we built and broke and maybe—maybe—are still trying to rebuild.
But we’re different now.
I’m different now.
Still me. But stitched together with new thread.
The silence between us hums again. Not empty this time. Full. Charged. Like a wire stretched tight between two hands too scared to let go but too bruised to hold on.
And for now, we don’t touch it.
We just let it buzz.
The silence settles again—thick and aching, like it knows it’s not welcome here but refuses to leave anyway.
I keep my eyes trained on the floor, watching my tears hit the rug like drops of ink bleeding into paper. All the words I want to say are tangled in my throat, knotted up with everything I’ve been holding in since the moment I woke up in a hospital room and realized he was still here.
Still him. Still mine. And somehow… not.
I don’t hear him move. I feel it.
A shift in the air. A pull in my chest. A magnet turned inward.
And then—softly, gently—his hand brushes mine.
He doesn’t force it. Doesn’t curl his fingers around mine right away like he used to, all sure and stubborn and bold.
He just waits.
And that’s what wrecks me. The waiting.
“Let me try,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Mya, just… let me try.”
My gaze lifts to his, and it’s like looking straight into the eye of a storm that’s learned how to stand still. He looks wrecked and hopeful and terrified, all at once.
“I know I didn’t choose you the way I should have back then,” he continues, his fingers ghosting over mine, tentative. “I let fear and pride and my own screwed-up head get in the way. But I’m here now. And I’m not walking away.”
I can’t speak.
Not when the truth in his voice cracks through my ribs like lightning.
“I don’t care what it takes,” he says, firmer now. “I’ll show up every day. I’ll write a hundred more songs if I have to. I’ll carry you when you’re tired and I’ll be quiet when you need space. Just… let me show you.”
He swallows hard.
“Let me prove to you that all I want is you. And our sons.”
The mention of them undoes me.
Not just the fact that he said our sons, like it’s the most natural thing in the world—but the way his voice shakes when he says it. Like he’s scared he won’t get the chance to earn that title. Like he doesn’t feel worthy of them.
Or me.
My throat burns as I finally turn my hand, palm to palm, fingers lacing with his like we’ve done it a thousand times—and maybe we have, in every way that matters.
“I’m scared,” I admit, the words ripped from someplace deep. “Because I want to believe you. So bad it hurts.”
His grip tightens, like maybe he needed that truth to breathe again. “Then let me be the one to stop hurting you.”
I bite my lip, hard, and nod once.
It’s not a promise.
But it’s a start.
And for the first time in weeks—maybe months—it feels like hope isn’t some far-off thing with wings and warnings.