Chapter 33
SADIE
I step into the gondola, enclosed and dim, and sit down on the leather seat.
Milo sits next to me, his arm instinctively wrapping behind my shoulders.
It reminds me of how he pulled my chair out at my parents’ house—movements that are lived-in and stitched into every nerve, your body reacting before your mind can catch up.
I don’t tense up this time, though. I lean in.
The door shuts with a soft click.
I swear I can feel him notice my weight as I relax into his familiarity, his body exhaling against mine.
The Ferris wheel moves smoothly until it stops to let someone else on. This continues for a few minutes, and we remain quiet as we take in a little more of the view with each movement.
We’re almost to the top when Milo turns to me, his focus not on the Atlantic Ocean, which seems to go on for infinity, or the coastline where the moon highlights the foamy water gently lapping up on the beach.
His eyes are heavy on my skin, and my pulse begins to beat against my wrists and echo in my ears.
“Sadie?” His voice is tender, almost pleading.
I swallow and turn, discovering his eyes are misty and his usual grin has fallen into what seems like a shadow of sadness on his face. This is not a version of Milo I know—his confidence stripped down to something raw and unfamiliar.
I feel his pain course through my veins, my eyes beginning to wade in my own hot tears. It’s too much and I look away.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Please look at me.”
I do slowly and reluctantly, but I don’t know when this happened—when being near him again started to feel less like a choice and more like gravity.
“I know you got my note.”
I nod. The note. His apology. My unspoken forgiveness that had been waiting—unsettled and untested.
“And you’ve given me grace through asking me to be part of the list,” he adds, reaching for my hands.
I nod again, his thumbs rubbing a whisper of circles over my thin skin, both spark and comfort radiating through me at the simple touch.
“And I want to believe, maybe foolishly believe—”
“I forgive you.” I release the words between us.
“I don’t deserve it.” His voice cracks as tears spill.
I put my finger up to his full lips and shake my head. Then I wipe away his tears softly. “I forgive you,” I repeat before I turn my body slightly and tuck myself into his side, laying my head on his chest, waiting until I hear his heartbeat begin to slow back to its steady rhythm.
After another quiet spin around the wheel, he whispers into my hair, “Thank you.”
Something in this moment—with the lights glowing outside the gondola, the warmth of Milo against me, and the gentle rotation of the world as it slides by the windows—feels like letting go—of silence, of what has been, of who I’ve allowed myself to become.
While it’d be so much easier to blame the world for moving too fast or being too broken or hurting me, I recognize my part in the life I’ve kept looking right, even when it hasn’t felt right.
The ride slows and our gondola halts at the bottom. I pull myself away from Milo, but he keeps his hand around my waist as he guides me out gently, the heat of his hand never leaving my side.
“Well, what’s next?” he asks me with a gentleness in his eyes and tone. “It is Saturday night.”
I put my left hand over his right hand on my waist, pulling his arm over me until I entwine our fingers and then pull him along. “Let’s go find something!”
He chuckles as his feet hurry to catch up with mine.
We walk along the boardwalk, laughter and the sound of silverware against ceramic flooding out of every open door and window.
I breathe in deeply the unknown—the smell of salt water in the air mixed with smoked meats and strong perfume.
Every place we pass looks exciting, but nothing tugs at my deepest desires until I see a chalkboard sign . . .
Karaoke.
I used to own a karaoke machine when I was a little girl.
My sisters and I would choreograph dance routines and rotate who got to be the lead singer of The Summers Sisters.
We laughed and dreamed about how we’d make it big one day, even though Emma had no rhythm and Sophie was always trying to be louder than all of us.
And then Barbies turned to boys, and the karaoke machine gathered dust in the back of my closet.
But I always wanted to be bold enough to sing karaoke outside the walls of my own room, and for years I’ve had a song picked out for just a moment like this.
“Here,” I say loudly, stopping at the sign in front of a bar where smoke curls out the windows and shouting can be heard over the music.
“Here?” Milo questions, his brows raised. “Are you sure?”
“Never been so sure in my life,” I say with a smile.
And when the guy with the clipboard taking names for karaoke writes mine down along with “Any Man of Mine” by Shania Twain, my stomach flips so violently I’m not sure my knees or my throat will work when it’s my turn.
“You’ll be up next, after . . .” The guy tilts his head toward the stage, grinning.
I look up at the stage and there’s a woman, maybe in her fifties—hair done up like the ’80s with big bangs and wearing a neon-pink jumpsuit—belting out “Total Eclipse of the Heart” like she’s personally responsible for the sun not coming back.
She doesn’t miss a note. Not one. In fact, she adds notes. Notes I’m fairly certain don’t exist in the original recording.
The crowd eats it up—clapping, cheering, someone in the back howling like we’re at a full-blown concert instead of a bar that smells faintly like fried pickles, cigarette smoke, and regret.
The guy with the clipboard leans toward me. “Tough act to follow,” he mutters, not even trying to make it sound encouraging.
My stomach drops somewhere near my sandals.
“Great,” I whisper. “Love that for me.”
On stage, the woman hits the final note and holds it . . . holds it . . . holds it—until I’m completely convinced she might actually pass out.
The room erupts when she finishes.
The woman bows like she’s been waiting her whole life for this exact moment, and honestly . . . she might have been.
The clipboard guy claps twice, then looks at me. “You’re up, Sadie. Good luck.”
I freeze. My knees decide they no longer know how to bend.
Then I feel Milo’s hand on the small of my back before his lips graze my ear, a soft fluttering of butterflies replacing the somersaults, and in a teasing tone he says, “Sadie Summers, I bet you can’t get up on that stage.”
A small smile tugs at my lips. “What do I get if I win?”
“I’ll buy you ice cream. Lemon,” he says easily.
“And if I lose?” I let out a shaky breath, the nerves loosening in my chest.
His voice dips, just enough to warm my skin. “I’ll eat my mint chocolate chip in front of you while you regret everything.”
I turn slightly, catching the glint in his blue eyes. “You’re going to lose.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I take one step at a time, my sandals feeling like stilts and my legs like sifting sand, but somehow, I make it to the microphone in the middle of the stage.
There’s a small screen placed at the base of it, the words to the song I’ve known by heart since I was nine years old beginning to appear as the tune begins to blast through the speakers.
I miss the first line, my cheeks instantly flaring hot. I bite my lower lip, my gaze flicking over to Milo. He begins to mouth the words intentionally and quite dramatically until my lips sync with his and my voice finally releases from my throat into the microphone.
My eyes startle wide as I hear myself loudly in the speakers, but a slow smile begins to part my face as I begin to remember and feel the rhythm of the song.
By the second chorus, I can feel my legs again, enough that my body begins to sway along with the melody. My voice grows steadier, louder, until I’m belting out the words from somewhere deep within.
I glance over at Milo, his hands in his jeans pockets, and he’s grinning that sunset of a smile that makes the world feel brighter and better. I grin back, the words now part of me as I finish out the song while dancing on the stage, the way I used to when I was a kid.
When the song ends, the crowd claps. Some even whistle. I start to walk toward the stairs when someone from the bar shouts, “Another song!”
I look at the guy with the clipboard, and he shrugs, showing me the list with no names after mine.
“Do you have ‘Bye, Bye’ by Jo Dee Messina?” I ask.
“I’ve got whatever you want,” the guy replies.
I go back to the microphone, waiting for the words to appear when a waitress in a cute black dress and a small apron appears at the bottom of the stage with a drink on a tray.
“For you!” she shouts, lifting what looks like a pina colada.
I scrunch my brows at her.
“From the guy at the bar,” she says, tilting her head toward the man who yelled for another song.
“Thanks,” I say, bending down to grab the fun-looking beverage.
The truth is I’ve never had a drop of alcohol in my life.
I was the girl spending time with fictional characters on a Saturday night instead of people at a party.
It’s not that I thought less of those who chose bonfires over books; I just didn’t think it sounded fun—not when Darcy was finally confessing his love or Peeta was at the threshold of death.
As I stand up and look at the tropical umbrella, I smile. Why not? I’ve always wondered what the hype was about.
I smile at the man with dark hair wearing a dark T-shirt, a speck in the back of the room, toasting him with the drink, and take my first sip. It’s fruity, sweet, and honestly . . . absolutely delicious. I swallow down some more as the next song cues up.
This time I don’t miss the first line. This is my stage, and some guy thought I was good enough to send me a drink, and right now, that’s good enough for me.
Play that country music, clipboard guy.