Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Maggie
Can he hear my heart pounding?
The car was silent as we drove, save for that. Dark, but I preferred it that way. He couldn’t see how nervous I was in the dark.
Then again, maybe he could. Brody always had a way of sensing the most subtle of shifts in me.
Was he thinking about the last time we were alone in this car together, driving through the night just like this?
“What? No audiobooks tonight?” I said, more to distract myself than anything else.
He laughed.
“No, actually. I haven’t been listening to any lately.”
“You always have an audiobook playing.” I gaped. “Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting in silence with your thoughts?”
“Nah, I haven’t quite turned into Liam just yet.” He smirked. “I’ve actually been listening to music.”
“Like what?” I asked, because Brody hardly ever listened to music. I knew audiobooks helped him unwind in a way music didn’t. Gave him something to focus on besides his thoughts, he always said.
People thought Brody was all happy-go-lucky and grins and jokes, but the truth was, it took a lot out of him to present that way all the
time.
People didn’t see the other side of him.
But to me? It was my favorite one. Because it was real. I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, hold it in my own. The urge was so strong I had to stretch out my fingers to shake it off.
“Let me see your playlist,” I said, grabbing his phone out of the center console.
He raced me to it, but I got there first, grabbing his phone before he had the chance to—
I stared down at the lock screen. Still a photo of us. One that Cassie had taken of us, with my head leaning on his shoulder, hugging his arm to my body. Him looking down at me, the way he always did.
He stared at me as I looked down at it, neither of us saying a word. I didn’t want to hear an explanation or have him hurry to say he would change it soon—and I really didn’t want to tell him how the sight of it caused hope to bloom in my chest.
So, I ignored it, going to the home page because his phone still recognized my Face ID and opened up for me. I pressed the Spotify logo, looking at the most recent playlists.
sad boy winter.
I clicked it open, scrolling through—
“The Scientist. Dancing On My Own. Skinny Love. Brody, these songs are depressing as hell.”
“Don’t judge.” He pulled the phone from my hands. “Sometimes the deep cuts hit the spot.”
“I’m not judging.” I said. “I think it’s good for you to acknowledge your emotions. Process them.”
Even if I’m not processing mine. Even if we’re both hiding from our apartment, living in a delusional fantasy land where we’ve put all our issues on pause in order to just keep living.
“So, let’s see what Maggie Brynn has been listening to, huh?” He grabbed my phone from me.
In a similar motion, he looked down at my phone, stunned as if it were a bomb about to go off, when he noticed my screensaver similarly unchanged.
“Mags, what does this—” and then I took the phone, opening up my playlists before tossing it back onto his lap.
“Gracie Abrams?” He said, glancing briefly down at the phone as he drove. “A lot of Gracie Abrams. Oh, look. A playlist with the same song repeated thirty times.”
“That’s enough of that,” I said, grabbing the phone back. “Eyes on the road.”
But then I noticed where we actually were at seemingly the same moment he did.
“Shit, sorry.” He said as we drove through our neighborhood. “I guess I wasn’t thinking about where I was going and—”
Forgot what was happening here? Me too.
“It’s okay.” I said. “Actually, I need to grab a few more things. Let’s go back h—to the apartment.”
He smiled and pulled down our street.
How could something feel so wrong and right at the same time?
This place. This is where we were supposed to be. But this wasn’t supposed to be how we were—with this space between us and words left unsaid.
Maybe if I just laid it all out there, told him how I’d let fear ruin our lives, he’d forgive me. Maybe he’d take me back.
But the thought gnawed at me: how could I have fixed myself in the short amount of time that had passed from then and now?
I wanted to be with him. More than anything. But I also wanted him to know and believe that I wouldn’t sabotage it again.
If I tried too early, he might shut me down.
“What are you thinking about, Maggie?” he said, taking a step closer to me.
He reached behind me to pull a lamp string. Beside the faint glow, only what little light streamed in from the city illuminated the space. I felt protected in the darkness.
“What? Nothing.”
“That’s not true.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re lost in thought. I know you.”
“I was just thinking…” I started, “it’s a dump in here.”
He laughed.
I looked around. “Looks like we’ve been slacking on the cleaning.”
I had clothes thrown over the couch, cabinet doors open in the bathroom, a blow dryer discarded on the floor.
“Looks like Hurricane Maggie has been through here.”
“I’ve been coming back to get stuff every now and then.” I explained. “I know it’s stupid. I might as well just come back for good. I just… didn’t want to be alone.”
“I get it.” He said, looking around the space we’ve shared for so long. Now a graveyard of memories.
“I’ve missed it.” he admitted.
“I’ve missed you.” I said, despite myself.
“Maggie, I—” But I didn’t hear what he was going to say, because I was already pulling his face toward mine.
His body reacted probably before his mind did. Ours knew each other well. In perfect synchronicity we moved together, until his hands were all over me, remembering something he should’ve never had to forget.
I clawed at the back of his shirt, trying to erase any separation that had ever been between us, while his hands roamed up into my hair, tugging it just enough to angle us into a deeper kiss.
What were we doing? I thought. We’ve been so stupid. Being apart, but not really apart. It’s like it was all leading back to this—
“I’m moving to Michigan.” he said, his lips still hovering over mine.
“What?” I blinked, trying to pull away. As if predicting my next move, his hands came up to cup the back of my head, holding me in place.
“I decided to go back.” he said. “Because—well, I didn’t have any other plan.”
“Oh.” I said shakily. “Oh, okay.”
I would not cry. That would be selfish. Here was Brody, who had never chosen a thing for himself without consulting other people, now for the first time having the chance to navigate his own life.
If this is what he wanted, I would be happy for him.
“What do you think of that, Maggie?” he asked, pleading for something.
Probably for me to tell him it was okay. That it wouldn’t destroy me if he left. That I would manage to survive, somehow.
And for his sake, I would lie.
“I think it’s good.” I told him, nodding up and down like a bobblehead. “Really.”
“What?” he asked, as if he weren’t expecting this response. As if he were expecting the selfish answer.
I couldn’t blame him. It’s the only side of me he’d ever known. I was always selfish when it came to him. Wanting him with me, near me, part of me all of the time.
“If it’s what you want—” I started, but he cut off with a furious shake of his head.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
Of course I wanted him. I think it was pretty clear I wanted him, based on the direction we’d been heading just a few moments ago.
But I wasn’t going to jump in and derail his life all over again. He’d made a plan. He was leaving. And being with him again, knowing that? It would’ve hurt too much.
Brody was leaving.
It hurt. Like I couldn’t take a full breath. Like I’d taken a punch to the gut, and somehow the air would never replenish itself.
“Because Maggie, I want you.” he continued, groaning. “God, I want you. So badly I feel like I can’t go on without you anymore.”
I knew holding him, being with him again, would ease the pain even momentarily, but I couldn’t put either of us through that. Brody was determined to move on, and I was determined to not be selfish anymore. No matter how badly I wanted to.
So, I pushed him away and said, “I can’t. We can’t.”
He sucked in a breath, shutting his eyes as he nodded along with me. “You’re right. Of course.”
Slowly, he stepped away. Though it was only a few steps backward, it felt like the earth had cracked between us, leaving me stranded on the other side, never able to reach him again.
“You’re too important to me. To lose, I mean.” I said, trying to salvage whatever mess I’d just made again. God, what an idiot I’d been to kiss him. Expecting everything could go back to normal.
But Brody was as much of an extension of myself as a limb was, and I knew the only way to keep him in my life was to offer up that root of friendship that had always existed at the heart of our relationship.
“You don’t have to lose me, Mags.” he said, sounding agonized. “That’s not what I want.”
“Good,” I nodded, cutting him off. I couldn’t bear to hear anymore. “So, it’s settled then.”
“What’s settled?”
And though it killed me to say it, I offered up the only solution that let me keep him.
“You and I.” I gestured between us, offering a hopeful smile that tore my soul apart. “Friends?”
And he responded, in the flattest of voices, in a way that made me think he didn’t mean it at all.
“Friends.”