Chapter 47
Chapter forty-seven
Jaxon
Everything feels hollow. Even with the smells of champagne and chlorine lingering from the afterparty.
Some record executive booked out a rooftop pool, filled it with floating speakers and branded cocktails, and called it a disruption of the country music standards. It was terrible, but I was there anyway. Because I was told I had to be.
Andre handed me a drink the second I stepped off the stage at the HMAs, and I’d let Annie lead me around.
I smiled for the cameras. I took selfies.
I laughed with people I barely knew. I took a picture with Henry and Hailey Moore—the beautiful singer turned friend who happened to win three awards this year—a photo I’m sure will be splashed across the internet with thinly veiled claims that we’re sleeping together.
But the whole time, I felt like I was acting out a role I forgot how to play. Like I was lip-syncing a song because I forgot how to sing.
Now, hours later, I’m barefoot in the studio at my house, sitting on a stool with my guitar across my lap, and I still can’t find the note that makes it all make sense.
Every chord is flat. Lifeless. Like it’s missing passion.
Like it’s missing her.
I stare at my hands. They’ve always known what to do. Even when I didn’t. But now, the calluses that used to feel like armor just feel like reminders of how far I’ve gone and how little I’ve brought with me.
I shift in the seat and lean over my notebook. There are half verses scribbled across the page. A bridge that almost works. A chorus that doesn’t land.
None of it sounds like her, so none of it sounds like me.
I press the heel of my hand against my sternum, trying to quiet the ache that’s lived there since I walked away from her.
God, her face. The way she looked at me.
But I’m not giving up, and from the sounds of it, neither is she.
The door opens behind me, and I flinch. Andre steps in, holding up his phone. His face is tight, like he’s not sure if he should show me whatever he’s holding.
I nod once, and he hands it to me.
It’s the picture. The one from the rooftop party. Me. Smiling. Perfect teeth. Easy charm. Hailey with her arm looped through mine, like we’re a thing.
Fuck. If you don’t look at my face, it looks like we could be together.
But I remember that smile. I know exactly how fake it was. Because I could feel the edges of it cracking even as the flash went off.
I stare at the image for a long time.
Then I airdrop it to my phone, open the text thread with Izzy, and send it.
Me
THIS is what fake looks like. Not what we had. Certainly not what we have now.
I picture her seeing this. Studying my face. Recognizing the lack of true joy there. Knowing that we’re real.
I stare at the screen for a full minute, waiting for the little “typing” bubbles to appear.
They don’t.
Of course they don’t. She’s at her sister’s wedding. She shouldn’t be texting me.
Andre sits across from me. “You okay?”
I sigh, rub my eyes with the heel of my hand. “I know she said she believed me when I said I’m coming back, but it feels like she’s pulling away. Like she’s putting distance between us in case I don’t.”
“Are you?”
I don’t answer him. I don’t have to.
Because that’s the thing—I was always coming back.
I just didn’t realize until now that maybe I left too much uncertainty behind when I walked away.
I stand, grabbing my phone, and pace.
There’s one person who can fix this contract mess. One person who knows every legal inch of my deal and can tell me how screwed I’ll be if I walk.
I hit Henry’s name and dial, even though I know it’s the middle of the night.
He answers on the second ring. “This better be a medical emergency or a record-breaking confession.”
“I need to push back my recording dates.”
There’s a long pause.
“Why is everything a thing with you these days? We’ve been together since you were eighteen and playing gigs every night in Nashville, hoping someone would discover you. You’ve never been this needy.”
“I’m going home—to Wild Bluffs. I want to record this album, but I can’t start on Monday.
I can’t start next week. Shit, if things are as bad as I’m afraid they are, I might not be able to start this month.
And if that means I lose this label, then fine.
Let them have the songs. Let them keep the empire.
I thought those songs were pieces of my heart, and maybe they are, but she is my soul. ”
I sit, my pulse throbbing at the base of my neck.
“She’s it. She’s everything. And I’m not letting her get away because I didn’t fight hard enough to make her believe in us.”
Henry is silent for a beat. Then… “Finally.”
I blink. “What?”
“You’ve been playing defense for years, Jaxon. About time you did something messy and honest and…real. Go get her.”
I hang up. And I already know what I’m going to do.
I’ve always been the grand gesture guy. The one who made romantic speeches with props and playlists.
And this time—it has to be big. So big that Izzy would certainly put it on a veto list if given the opportunity. Not because Izzy needs the flash. But because I need her to know that I mean it. That I love her.
***
The sun’s just starting to rise above the rooftops, casting everything in the bright white of midday. I’m kneeling on the sidewalk outside Izzy’s house, palms stained with pastel chalk and knees sore from three hours of writing on concrete.
Getting Izzy out of the house this morning before I showed up was my biggest concern, but luckily, between the post-wedding brunch and a call to Becca, I’d hoped I’d have enough time to do what I needed to.
Convincing Becca to help me was harder than I thought, though.
When I called her bright and early this morning, her first response was a scoff followed by, “I know Izzy has decided to be understanding about this, but I think you’ve got some goddamn nerve.”
Fair.
I didn’t argue. I let her yell. Let her say everything I’ve been thinking since I left.
About how I shouldn’t have gotten on that plane. About how what I have with Izzy is more important than the songs I’ve already made millions of dollars from.
About how my music sure as shit wouldn’t keep me warm at night.
A solid five-minute monologue about how amazing Izzy is.
It was thorough and true, and, personally, I felt I could’ve spent at least another five minutes listing everything that makes Izzy special.
Becca laid it all out there. Everything I knew but was too scared to admit.
“You don’t get to disappear and then pop back up like some sad cowboy with a guitar and think that makes it okay.”
“I know,” I said. “But I need your help anyway.”
There was a long pause. Then a sigh that sounded more exhausted than angry.
“What do you need?”
So here I am, documenting in chalk every lyric I’ve ever written that was Izzy’s—whether I knew it at the time or not.
Words are scrawled across the pavement in front of her house, down the driveway, and stretching halfway down the block.
Beneath each is the picture of us that inspired it—poorly drawn stick figures that she may or may not even be able to decipher.
I’m hoping it’s the thought that counts, because I severely overestimated my chalk-drawing skills.
You smile like spring even when it’s snowing. Underneath it, a stick figure Izzy at fifteen, standing in a blizzard in a hoodie, flipping off the camera with frozen fingers and a huge grin.
I left my heart in the middle of nowhere. A snapshot of that summer we tubed the river and missed the spot we were supposed to get out. Her wet hair, her laughter, the way my chest ached, and I didn’t know why.
She burns hotter than the August sun and softer than a sad song. Izzy, drawn in red chalk, sunburned and barefoot, curled up in a hammock with a book.
Lyric by lyric. Memory by memory.
They stretch like a timeline of everything I never saw clearly until now.
I hear the crunch of car tires on the road behind me before I see her.
Becca’s car stops short of the chalk drawings, and Izzy jumps out, a to-go mug of coffee in her hand.
She’s standing dead center in the middle of the street.
Her eyes sweep over the sidewalk, the lyrics, the pictures. She blinks, steps closer. Then again.
I watch from almost twenty feet away, wiping my hands on my jeans. She hasn’t seen me yet. Even exhausted and blindsided, she still looks like the one thing in the world I’d risk everything for.
She kneels slowly beside a drawing, brushing her fingers over the picture. Her lips move as she reads the words above it.
And then another. And another.
Her pace slows, her breath catches, and she finally looks up and sees me.
I walk toward her.
“I thought I was writing songs about heartbreak,” I say. “Or small towns. Or chasing dreams. But looking at it now…” I glance at the chalk. “You were always in them. Even when I didn’t realize it. Even when it was just about the love of a friend.”
She opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but no sound comes out.
I stop in front of her. Her eyes are glassy, but she doesn’t cry.
“I didn’t mean to leave you behind,” I say, voice low.
“I thought I was doing the right thing—making sure I didn’t lose the one thing I blew up my entire life to get.
But it doesn’t matter if I own every song in the world and lose the one person who actually makes the world feel like something worth singing about. ”
She closes her eyes. Breathes in slow.
And I take a step back, just enough to speak louder. To make sure she hears me. To make sure the whole damn neighborhood hears me if they have to.
“I love you,” I say, my voice rising. “And I will spend the rest of my days bringing you coffee, never playing another note again, if that’s what it takes to make you believe me.”