Epilogue
A year later
Carter
I don’t know whether this feeling will ever go away.
The tightening in my stomach at the idea of playing in front of a crowd. The thought of the adrenaline rush that’s about to flow in the second the lights turn off and the ear-splitting screams begin.
“Nervous?” Ethan asks me with a nudge of his shoulder.
I don’t bother answering, returning my attention to the sliver of the crowd I can see from the crack of the curtains in the backstage area. The opening act ended twenty minutes ago, so we’re about to go on.
“You don’t have to do it, you know,” he says, the teasing tone gone from his voice.
“I know.” I don’t have to, but I actually want to.
It took me a while to realize I wanted to get back to playing, and that all stemmed from that first time Lili basically shoved me on stage. Since feeling that pure joy again, I knew I couldn’t go back to never picking up the guitar in front of a crowd again .
I never signed up for playing full time—I still don’t think tour life is the best place for me, even with my support system with me, but going on once in a while as a second guitarist for Crash & Burn when they’re doing local shows is good enough for me. Scratches that itch I never thought I’d be able to soothe again in my life. I won’t ever have a career as a professional guitarist again, and that’s fine with me. I love my job as a producer, the one Frank encouraged me to reach out for and that changed my life, but what truly fulfills me isn’t even close to work-related. That would be the girl with the blond hair who makes me get up every morning with a purpose. The one who’s spent the past year and a half making me feel more alive than I have in my entire life. Who’s taken the time to discover new passions and directions. Who’s decided to attend college for the first time at the age of twenty-five because she wanted a degree in media and marketing and realized it wasn’t too late to go get it. Who’s taught me more about myself and about life than anyone else.
The band huddles over to the side of the stage a second before the room is plunged into darkness, and as expected, my heart rate jumps through the roof with the heightening of the cheers and shouts.
When the guys walk out onto the stage, I stay in place for a breath, but when Emmett’s hand claps my back, I push through the nerves and follow. My vision blurs as I somehow find a way to my spot, half-hidden in the shadows like I want it. After the first show I played with the band, some old Fickle fans recognized me from videos that had made it online and started tracking the shows I attended, and I’d rather get the least coverage I can. That’s not why I’m here tonight.
I’ll probably never be able to feel only peace and excitement when playing in front of a crowd—nothing that brings that kind of rush could be solely innocent—and that’s something I’ve come to terms with. If Frank were here, he’d probably say that’s a part of my recovery too, and I’d have to agree with him.
But when I finally steal a look at the audience and find the face of the woman I love standing in the first row with our friends at her sides, wearing a proud smile as she looks at no one but me, I know this is the real reason I want to play again. Not only for the joy of knowing I’ve aced a riff, but for the sight of the pride on my wife’s face. It’s the most precious thing I’ve ever earned.
“I love you,” she mouths as if she knows that’s exactly what I need to hear. But even if she hadn’t said the words, love is written all over her. In the way she’s filming the show on her phone, something she still does for old times’ sake, making sure to catch moments she’ll be able to show me later. In the way her eyes are rid of that ache she still sometimes carries with her, on the harder days when she needs an extra hug. In the way her body is angled toward me as if she’s pulled to me in the same way I am to her. That love is the only thing I need to calm me before the show.
In the past year, I’ve made my peace with losing the relationships I had with my family members. They only made me feel worse about myself, and it was only when I met Lilianne that I realized love wasn’t supposed to feel like that. I’m not saying I’ll never talk to Mom or Brandon again, but for the moment, I’m staying away. I’ve built a new family with Lili, one that’s made of trust, of encouragement and peace, and it’s all I need.
My hands don’t shake when the ticking sounds begin in my earpiece, giving me the counts until I start playing. I don’t need to be nervous. Not when I know who’s waiting for me at the end of the show.
“You were so good out there!” Lili says just as she jumps in my arms and wraps her body around mine, tethering me back. I don’t have to be scared to play because I know no matter what, she’ll be there for me after the performance, my anchor who won’t let me lose myself. “That song…”
I hide my smile in the crook of her neck. I knew she’d love the song I wrote for the band for the album we’ve only begun recording, but I should also have guessed she’d know right away it was mine.
“Glad you liked it.”
I rub her ribs, where I know hides the tattoo I finally convinced her to get on her last birthday, one that depicts in delicate lines a small acoustic guitar. While we were there, I got an L tattooed on my ring finger to replace the wedding band I never did get myself.
“There isn’t a single thing about you I don’t like, Andrew Carter.”
And when I pull back and look at her— truly look at her—I know she’s telling the truth. As many things about myself and my life I’d like to change, she loves me for all of them. She’s never made me feel inadequate, inferior, or unloved in any way. She’s never seen my alcoholism as something I needed to hide from, but rather something I should be proud to be able to conquer every single day. She makes all the things I see as failures feel like part of what she loves about me, which in turn allows me to accept them, too. Now more than ever I see this.
With my arms still banded across her lower back and her legs wrapped around my hips, I say, “Marry me.”
She smiles as her brows bunch. “Sorry to tell you, but we’re already married.”
“Marry me again.” I tuck loose strands of blond hair behind her ear as she watches me with that chink in her forehead she gets when she’s confused. “You can have the white dress and the flowers and the whole big thing, or it can be just the two of us. Whatever you want.” I swallow. “I just want you to have a wedding day where you don’t doubt for even a second how much I love you.”
When I was young, I promised myself I’d never get married. I’d seen the way so many people’s—including my parents’—marriages worked, and I wanted nothing like it. I didn’t want a relationship that was transactional with someone. I never wanted to build a family, or get attached to someone who would then use me to their advantage. As much as my parents treated me and my brother like pawns in their lives, they did the same to each other.
And then, when I did get married, it was nothing like the thing I’d told myself I wanted to avoid. It was a business deal. A transaction without any real feeling involved .
And now, as I’m asking her for the real thing, I find myself thinking it was so fucking dumb of me to fear this. There’s nothing scary about Lilianne’s love. It’s a gift. The only thing I could possibly be scared of would be not spending the rest of my life with her.
She’s still smiling skeptically, but her turquoise eyes have become watery. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t make jokes.”
“I mean, you can be funny sometimes.”
I pinch her thigh lightly, making her shriek. “Stop being annoying and give me an answer.”
She jumps off my body and brings her burning hands to my jaw. “I… I don’t need this, Carter. I have all I need already.”
“Then do it for me.” I’ve seen the way she looked at Lexie and Finn’s wedding. I know she wants it, and if she’s too proud to admit it, then I’ll do it. Bringing her hands away from my face so I can clasp them in mine, I gently ease the golden band off her ring finger, then kneel.
“Lilianne DiLorenzo, marry me. For real, this time.”
I don’t care that I’m in the middle of the backstage area where the crew are pulling instruments off-stage and probably staring at me. Her reaction is the only thing that matters.
She falls to her knees right before me and kisses me before she even says a word. Then, with the tip of her nose brushing against mine, she says, “I feel like it’s greedy to ask for more when you already make me so happy, but—”
“Is that a yes?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you impatient man. It’s a yes.”
This time, I can’t help the full grin that overtakes my face as I pick her up and spin her around. “You’re everything,” I say against her skin. Every morning when I wake up and see her sleeping next to me, her hair tangled on the pillow and her soft lips parted, I tell myself the same thing. It still doesn’t make sense to me that this is real life. That so many coincidences have brought us together and have given me everything I could ever want.
“If I can get whatever I want, then can I ask that you wear that stupid hat we found in Dad’s stuff?”
“Pain in my ass,” I say.
She laughs, the sound so deep and beautiful, a song I’ll never get tired of hearing, and then she kisses me once more, all the while the band and crew cheer for us. When I put her back down, the guys I now also see as family come to congratulate the two of us. Ethan claps my back while Bong lifts Lili in a bear hug, making her giggle. Even then, her eyes find mine over his head, crinkled at the corners and bright with joy and tears. And just like always, seeing her reminds me that I’ll never have to fear feeling empty again.
She is where happiness begins.