Chapter Twenty– Ivy
The fluorescent lights in the PR building hum like angry bees overhead, and I swear, if one more person asks me to “smile for the camera,” I might climb onto the conference table and scream.
I don’t.
Because that would be bad for brand integrity.
Instead, I sit very still, legs crossed, hands folded in my lap, pretending I don’t feel like I’ve left half of myself behind in a cottage with weathered wood siding and a man who smells like sandalwood and slow Sunday mornings.
“Ivy,” my publicist says for the third time, and I blink back into the room.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “What was that?”
“The new single. The one you teased last month? We need a firm release date, and we need a track. Something we can build a social campaign around.”
I reach for the water bottle and twist the cap, buying myself a breath.
The truth isn’t that I’m empty—it’s that I’m full in ways I don’t want to hand to them yet.
I’ve been writing without my usual notebook: hotel stationery covered in half choruses, the back of a boarding pass with a bridge scribbled across the barcode, voice memos at 2:12 a.m. where I hum the hook into my phone so it doesn’t get away.
The songs are there. They’re just mine right now.
So why am I still here? Because I choose to be—for a minute.
I could have dug in and said Zoom only, and most of this could’ve limped along on video.
But fittings for tour pieces need pins in real fabric and hands tugging seams; camera tests for the first video look different in person; choreography tweaks land faster when you’re standing on the tape lines; legal wants signatures, not screenshots.
If I stack it all now—two days of wardrobe, a half day of camera and lighting tests, one production meeting, one rehearsal block, a quick brand shoot—I can clear weeks later.
Fewer “urgent” trips. More uninterrupted days back in Coral Bell Cove to write, breathe, be.
It’s not that they couldn’t come to me. They could.
They’d just bring an entourage and a press leak, and my quiet would be collateral damage.
Here, I can herd everyone into three rooms and say no when the schedule grows extra heads.
Which I do. I cut the second brand segment.
I limit the photo set to one look. I cap the day at six hours.
I keep my mornings for writing, even if it’s on napkins.
So I sit through “engagement” and “deliverables” and nod like a professional while the parts of me that matter stay tucked in my pocket—ink-stained fingers, a melody that smells like river water, a verse that belongs to a porch and a man who doesn’t talk unless he has something to say.
When the meeting finally spits me back into the elevator, I press my forehead to the cool metal and let the truth unspool: I’m here because finishing it now buys me freedom later.
And because the sooner I do this on my terms, the sooner I get to fly home.
I miss mornings with strong coffee and stronger silences. I miss the rooster I never got to meet. I miss Bailey’s little readers and their impossible questions. I miss belonging to something small and beautiful and real.
When I get back to the apartment—my painfully sterile high-rise that smells like someone else’s soap—I dig through my bag for my songwriting notebook, then remember I purposely left it shoved into the couch cushions at Rowan’s.
He hasn’t mentioned that he found it, but my nerves bubble to the surface thinking that he has.
All my greatest secrets are scribbled on those pages.
I stare at the blank page on my tablet, fingers hovering over the screen like the lyrics might spill out if I stay still long enough. But they don’t. They haven’t all day.
I’ve tried everything. Pacing the penthouse suite. Hot tea. My old playlist. A bubble bath that only made me cry.
Nothing.
Not a single verse. Not a line of melody. Not even a clever metaphor. Because my notebook—the one that holds everything—is with Rowan.
I clutch my mug tighter, ignoring the rising ache in my chest. I don’t want to admit it, but that notebook held more than songs.
It held confessions. Memories. The way his voice sounded in the morning. The color of his eyes during storms. The ache in my ribs when I laughed too hard around him. Every single thing I was too scared to say out loud.
And now it’s in his hands.
God, I was stupid to leave it, I had that weird hope that maybe he wouldn’t find it, but would flip through the pages if he did.
A knock sounds at the door. Before I can answer, it opens, of course. Celeste doesn’t wait for permission anymore. Not when she thinks she has the upper hand.
She sweeps in wearing a fitted ivory pantsuit, heels clicking like a warning shot. Her assistant trails her, head down, carrying a folder thick with press clippings.
“You canceled two interviews,” she says without preamble, snapping her fingers for the assistant to drop the folder on the coffee table. “The label is panicking. They think you’re going soft.”
“I needed space,” I reply flatly.
“Evangeline, space is for has-beens. Not headliners.”
I stare at her, jaw locked.
She begins flipping through the articles, red manicured nails tapping with each turn. “You want to know what the world’s saying while you’re hiding in your robe and drinking tea like a debutante in mourning?”
“No,” I mutter.
She reads anyway. “ Celebrity Page says ‘America’s Sweetheart Torn Between Two Cowboys.’ BuzzBeat ran a poll asking who’s more her type—Crew, the golden boy, or Rowan, the rugged recluse.”
My stomach twists.
Celeste tosses the papers on the table. “You’re trending for all the wrong reasons, Ivy.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.” Her voice turns cold. “You think this is about you and your little farm fling? This is your career. This is everything we built.”
“No.” I rise from the couch. “This is everything you built. I just kept performing.”
Her mouth hardens.
“I don’t want to be part of the machine anymore, Mom. I want to live. I want to create on my own terms.”
“And what?” she sneers. “Grow tomatoes and braid horsehair? Let some farmhand ruin what we spent a decade building?”
“He’s not a farmhand.” My voice shakes. “And this—this brand you cling to like a lifeline? It’s not living. It’s suffocating.”
Silence falls, sharp and dangerous.
Celeste’s eyes narrow. “You’d throw everything away for a man who hasn’t even come after you?”
I flinch.
Because she’s right. He hasn’t. Except he doesn’t have to. We have an understanding.
There is something smarmy in her grin, though. Something I’m afraid to question.
I turn away from her, breath shaky, and open the top drawer of my desk. Pull out another flyer sketch I drew on a napkin—Rowan’s summer camp, scribbled in green Sharpie between coffee rings and tears. I hear the door snap shut without a single goodbye.
I smooth the wrinkled edges and grab my laptop. If the songs won’t come, I’ll build something else.
Rowan’s camp. The one he dreams about but won’t speak of out loud. I start typing—curriculum, age groups, activities. I create a mock-up. Design a logo. Upload a picture I snapped of the horses when he wasn’t looking.
It’s easier than writing a love song. The truth is, I already wrote the biggest one, and I left it in his living room.
Glancing at the clock, I know Rowan’s out on the field working, but it’s been hours since we messaged.
Our third rule has already been broken. Instead, I reply to his missed messages with a picture of my own, my bathrobe displaying an indecent amount of cleavage, with his acorn necklace draped between the valley.
But even in my heart, I know that picture isn’t enough. Not enough to combat the wild tabloids. If I know my mother at all, I’m sure she and the label concocted this wild tabloid about me, Rowan, and Crew. Anything to keep my name in the headlines. To them, all news is good news.
As I glance around the sterile space, I know my time here is over, even with things unfinished. They’ve had enough time to get what they needed. Now it’s time for me.
I walk to the closet, grab the duffel bag that never quite made it to the shelf, and start stuffing it with clothes. My heart beats faster with every folded T-shirt, every rolled pair of jeans.
This isn’t a performance. It’s a return. To the place where I started telling the truth. To the man who might still be holding it for me.
Before long, I’m shoving whatever I can find into the bag until I can barely tug the zipper closed. The frustration eats away at me.
It starts with a shimmer.
Not the kind that belongs to stage lights or sequined dresses. This one crawls behind my eyes—slow and electric, like someone lit a sparkler at the edge of my vision.
I blink hard. Once. Twice. Still there. Then let the tears fall until I have nothing left to give but my soul, except it already belongs to a cowboy who roped it up the day we met.
Trying to calm down, I settle on the worn leather. My laptop rests on my thighs, a half-finished mock-up of Rowan’s summer camp flyer open in a design program I barely know how to use. Anything to settle my mind and my chest. The screen blurs.
I try to swallow, but my throat feels tight. Too tight.
Breathe, Ivy .
I set the laptop aside, palms bracing against the couch. My heart pounds, but it’s not panic. Not yet. It’s recognition. I've felt this before. I know what's coming.
My fingers twitch. The lamp beside me suddenly feels too bright. The sound of the refrigerator hums louder than it should. It’s all too much.
I curl forward, breathing slow and deliberate through my nose. This isn’t a full seizure—not yet. Just an aura. A warning. Like a distant roll of thunder before the storm arrives.
I should call someone. But who?
My mother would panic—or worse, turn it into a PR narrative about the pressures of fame. Celeste once said, “Don’t let them see you broken. There’s no comeback from that.”
I press a trembling hand to my forehead.
I don’t want her voice in my head. I want Rowan’s. Low and steady. I want the quiet rustle of pasture grass and the gentle creak of the swing on his porch. I want the weight of his gaze, grounding me. Seeing me.
The shimmer swells—bright and buzzy behind my right eye—so I ease down, flat on the couch, and breathe like my neurologist taught me. In for four. Out for six. I thumb my phone and start the timer, a little ritual that keeps the panic from galloping.
My fingers prickle, the world edges glassy, but I’m still here—awake and aware. I can name the room, the day, the person I’d call if I needed to. Ninety seconds. A minute forty. The wave peaks and slides back.
I stop the timer at just under two minutes and let my shoulders sink. No blackout. No second wave chasing the first. I take a sip of water and jot a quick note in my seizure log.
No ambulance. Not this time. My doctor’s rule has lived in my bones for years: if it lasts past five minutes or stacks one after another, we go. If it’s brief and I stay conscious, I rest, hydrate, and let the edges smooth themselves out.
This one passes. I stay put and let the room come back into focus.
Hours later, my body still feels like it’s been wrung out. Muscles shaky. Nausea swirling low in my gut.
But I’m still here, and I’m done pretending this place is enough. That this glass tower and fancy address and bottled water with custom labels can fill the ache that’s only ever quieted in Coral Bell Cove.
I push up slowly, legs unsteady, and shuffle to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. As the water trickles down my cheeks, I glance up. My reflection looks pale. Washed out. But my eyes—they’re clear.
And I know without a shadow of a doubt I can’t stay here. Not when my body is screaming for peace. Not when my soul is begging to go home. Not when there’s a man with rough hands and kind eyes who’s probably still wondering why I left in the first place.
I left my notebook at his house, but the truth is, I left more than that. I left myself.