PROLOGUE
Two Years Earlier
MATTI
“I don’t care what you promised, Gary. I haven’t seen my wife for more than twenty minutes at a time in at least three months.
I’m taking the next few days off. I have a surprise trip booked, I planned all kinds of romantic shit she and I are both way-the-fuck overdue for and I’m not canceling it for some last-minute promo appearance to appease the label.
They want Knox and The Wilds, they can have ‘em. They’ll just be short one bass player.
They’ll get over it.” I finally end my call and take a gander at the time.
Soundcheck should have started at least ten minutes ago.
I hurry off the bus and in through the back door of tonight’s venue, House of Rock.
As soon as I step foot inside, I can hear plenty of commotion coming from the stage, but two sounds are clearly absent.
Cass impatiently tapping her snare drum and Knox obnoxiously counting down over the mic, threatening us like he’s the mom and we’re all in for a timeout if we don’t make it to the stage by ten.
Clearly, I’m not the only one running behind schedule, which is perfect because I have one more call to make.
Still moving, I glance down at my phone to find her name. I’m about to tap it when I nearly get hit by a door swinging in my direction.
“Holy shit!” I stumble back just in time.
“Oh.” Cass looks both startled and guilty when she sees me. “Sorry.”
Before I can respond, Jason follows her. “Matti. Shouldn’t you be on stage?”
I frown. “Bit of a weird question coming from you, don’t you think?” But since we’re asking weird questions, “What were you two doing in the beer cooler?”
“We were...,” Jason starts, gaze shifting sideways like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Tasting,” Cass fills in when he can’t seem to finish his own train of thought.
“Tasting?” I laugh. “What, like you were just helping yourself in there?”
Jason shrugs, smirking. “Something like that.”
I’m still tempted to pry and poke holes in this sketchy little scene when I hear it.
When we all hear it.
“One. Two.” Knox clears his throat, creating a loud unpleasant sound over the speakers. “Three. Four.”
I roll my eyes. “Guess we better go out there before we get in trouble.”
Once we all finally make it on stage, soundcheck doesn’t take much to complete. We’re just finishing up when I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. It’s Ness.
Since it’s mostly just Knox fiddling around with the lighting guy now, I take the call and start to move off-stage. “Hey,” I whisper, “Give me a sec. We’re just finishing soundcheck.”
“You’re just finishing?” her voice sounds funny. “That’s fine. I’m actually just calling to let you know I’m not going to be home this week when you get back.”
I’ve just barely left the stage when I stop abruptly. “What?”
“Yeah. I got a call from my grandmother this morning. She’s got this friend whose daughter is hosting a wilderness retreat or something, it’s like summer camp for adults, I don’t know,” she rattles off.
“Anyway, their yoga teacher flaked at the last minute, and they offered me the gig. They know I’ve never actually given lessons, but they don’t care.
So, I’m going to go stay with my grandmother for a few weeks and teach yoga.
The kids are away at camp anyway. Nate’s already asking to extend his stay for their leadership training and Isobel has been hounding me to go visit your sister when she gets back.
Plus, you have your tour through October, so I figured, why not? ”
Why not? A million thoughts overlap inside my head, most of them reasons why I don’t want her to go, but I don’t say any of them out loud. How could I? “Sounds like a great opportunity.”
“So, you’re good if I go?”
“Of course.” I shake off the immediate disappointment of realizing I won’t see her in two days. “Maybe I’ll just come your way on my days off. Visit with Nana Lila while you do your yoga thing.”
“I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble,” she shoots me down gently but undeniably. “You’re already traveling non-stop, and I’ll be busy with the retreat and prepping for classes. You’ll probably get more out of your days off just staying home, enjoying the peace and quiet.”
The empty and lonely is more like it. But I get it.
She doesn’t want me crashing her party or distracting her.
This isn’t about me. It’s about her. And I’m nothing if not all about Ness.
“You’re probably right,” I say the only thing I can think of that doesn’t sound like I want to convince her otherwise.
“I’ve got a few projects around the house I’ve been putting off for too long anyway. Maybe I’ll finally get those done.”
“Sounds good.”
Except somehow, nothing about what we’re saying sounds good. The words are right, but the energy behind them is all off. I just can’t put my finger on why.
“Great.”
“Great.”
I nod, still trying to convince myself. “I’m excited for you. A new adventure.”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t sound nearly as thrilled. “I gotta go sort out the rest of the details.”
“I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Then she ends the call.
I guess I should text Gary and tell him he’s getting his way after all.
“You look confused.”
I look up from staring at my phone to find Knox staring at me. “Nessa just called to tell me she’s taking a job out of state for the summer. Teaching yoga at a retreat.”
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
I shake my head. “I think it’s a great idea.” I muster a smile. “But I’m going to miss the hell out of her while she’s gone.”
NESSA
I don’t know how long I just stand here in my kitchen, staring at the sink. It’s empty but for one dish. One cup. Mine, from this morning, when I had coffee. Alone.
I remember the moments when I relished being alone. Leaned into the few minutes I had to myself of uninterrupted thoughts, tending to my own needs. They were luxuries then.
Now, they’ve become a nuisance.
Endless streaks of time serving only to show me that I’ve become the backdrop to my own life. The stagnant space everyone comes back to, relies on even, to stay put, stay the same. Stay waiting.
“He didn’t call,” I mutter out loud as my brain struggles to sort out what it means, if it means anything at all.
“He always calls before soundcheck. Always.” Back when the band first went on the road, it was a ritual of sorts, a last jolt of faith from me to him that the show would go well.
Then, over the years, it became routine.
Until now. When ritual and routine have turned obsolete, it seems. Like me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the lonely mug from my mind. When I open them again, I return my attention to my phone. I hit call.
“Nana? Tell Doris, I’ll do it. I’ll come to teach yoga.”
Two hours later, I’m packed and on the road. The irony of having a map and destination while feeling utterly lost at the same time is impossible to escape.
The first few days, Matti calls morning and night, sending thoughtful texts sporadically, but I find myself brushing him off and cutting him short at every turn.
It’s childish and unreasonable. And yet, I can’t stop.
I don’t even know what I’m hoping for. Matti to go against everything I’m asking him to do and bulldoze through all my efforts to push him away.
Or prove that my irrational insecurity isn’t so irrational.
That we’ve gotten so comfortable at being apart, he could carry on without me. He could let me go for good.
Three weeks pass before the opportunity to meet in person occurs too conveniently for me to find a reason not to go. I want to go. I miss him. But things are...different.
“So, you’ll be passing through town around two a.m.?” It’s not the grandest of dates we’ve ever had, but an hour over coffee at a twenty-four-hour diner in the middle of the night isn’t the worst date we’ve ever had either. Nor will it be a first for us.
“If all goes according to plan, yes.”
I know what that means. Nothing ever goes according to plan.
“Just let me know when you’re close.” I park my car.
From here, it’s a mile hike up to the cottage where the retreat is being held.
I’ve been doing it every morning since I arrived, and it’s become my favorite part of the day.
Because I don’t do it alone. Nadia, the retreat’s energy worker, is on the same schedule.
“Nessa.”
“Yeah?”
Silence fills the space between us for several seconds before he finally answers, “Never mind. It’s nothing we can’t say later in person. I love you.”
“Love you, too.” And another call ends fueling the distance between us.
Hours later, I’m back in my car. This time, parked outside Louie's Diner, the only all-night diner in town. It’s almost three in the morning with no sign of Matti.
If he’s tried to call me, I don’t know. I was so distracted all day, thinking about tonight, about seeing him, I forgot my phone at the retreat.
When three-thirty rolls around and he’s still not here, I decide I gave it my best shot and leave.
I’m maybe five minutes down the road, when I notice a semi behind me, flashing me with its lights. “What the?!”
Wait. Not a semi. The tour bus. “Matti.”
I pull over into the first abandoned parking lot I can find, a strip mall with zero overnight businesses.
“This, this is the worst date we’ve ever had,” I mutter under my breath as I get out to meet my husband under a dimmed streetlight, less than thirty feet from a tobacco shop and nail salon.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” he demands the second he’s within earshot. “I’ve been freaking out trying to reach you.”
“I forgot it at work.” Though even as I say it, some small voice inside my head denies it was an accident. “I’m sorry.” I look past him at the bus and the insanity of this moment. “I can’t believe you found me out on the road.”
“Yeah.” He nods, slowing to a stop a few feet in front of me. “I can’t believe a lot of things right now.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs, shaking his head. “What’s happening here, Ness?
First, you tell me not to come visit you on my days off.
Then you become harder and harder to reach – and I get it, you’re working, this is a new thing and you’re putting it first, I want that for you, believe me, but now, we finally have plans to meet up and see each other in person after weeks of being apart, and you just happened to leave your phone somewhere?
When you know damn well I’ll be calling you to update you on my arrival?
It’s almost like you were hoping to get out of seeing me. ”
“I wasn’t hoping that.” I should take a step toward him. Get closer. Touch him. Remind myself of what’s real and what isn’t. Matti is real.
But my feet don’t move.
“Just be honest with me.” He swallows like he’s trying to gulp down a rock the size of his fist. “Do you want out? Is that what this is?”
Is it? That’s not where it started, my desire to get out and do my own thing was never about getting away from him. From us. But is that what it’s become? “You really want to have this conversation here? In a parking lot?”
“No.” His amber eyes look black, darkened by night and sadness. “But I don’t want to go on pretending nothing is wrong either. Tell me the truth, Ness. What’s really going on?”
The truth. The only truth I’ve known for months is this feeling in the pit of my stomach, this dull, unrelenting ache, that I don’t matter.
That my purpose has been served. My dream has run its course.
And the fears born of this ache, fears of being left behind by the one person I never imagined myself apart from, now surge through me, giving voice to words I don’t even know until I hear them spoken out loud, “I don’t think we work anymore. ”
Matti sucks in air like he’s taken a punch to the gut. “You don’t.”
“I think you know we don’t, too.”
“I know this isn’t working.” His jaw tightens and his lips press into a line so firm and so thin, they nearly disappear.
“I don’t want to fight.” I feel like I’ve been trapped in a car with no brakes going a hundred miles an hour. It’s all I can do to keep spinning the wheel and avoid a crash.
“I won’t fight you.” Surrender softens his expression. “If you want freedom, I’ll give you freedom.”
“It’s what we do, right.” I used to think it was a beautiful thing we did for one another. Now, the feel of it leaves a bitterness in its wake strong enough to turn even the softest parts of my heart brittle.
He nods, kicking at pebbles of concrete on the ground. “So, this is it.”
“This is it.” It can’t be though. Because it’s all too surreal to be true.
Matti looks up, meeting my gaze one last time. “I’ll make sure my stuff is out of the house before you get home.” He starts to turn. “We can figure out how to tell the kids together once we’re all in the same place at the same time again.”
“Okay.” The word comes out of my mouth on autopilot. Nothing about this is okay.
I watch as he moves further and further away, taking the steps back to his tour bus until he disappears inside. Never turning around. Never looking back.
Clinging to my pride, I march back to my car and get in, turning the key and taking off.
Tears fall faster than I can drive to escape them, escape this.
I set all of this in motion. It was my choice. I left first.
But it still didn’t save me from the agony of having to watch him walk away.
And he did.
He just...walked away.