Jensen
The studio is dark except for a dim glow from the sound booth.
I’ve been sitting here for two hours—maybe three—playing the same five chords on repeat.
My fingers move through the progression like they’re picking at a scab.
It’s a sad melody, the hollow cavern of my heart translated into fret positions because I’ll have to feel them for real if I stop.
The overhead lights snap on, and I straighten in the chair, blinking against the aggressive brightness.
“That’s the saddest fucking arrangement I’ve ever heard in my life.” Cody stands in the doorway, arms crossed and a look on his face that promises he’s about to make my foul mood worse. “You put any lyrics to it?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“You should call it ‘Wallowing in My Stupidity.’”
“Fuck off, Cody.”
He steps into the room as if he owns it, even though the record label is paying for our studio time this week. “How about ‘I’m a Pathetic Sad Sack’?”
I glare and possibly growl. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be and someone else to annoy?”
“No, no, I’m onto something.” He grabs a guitar off the stand in the corner and drops into the chair across from me, imitating my melody with exaggerated slowness. Then he starts singing.
I’m a pathetic sad sack.
Love is the thing I’m too chicken shit to hack.
I’m a pathetic sad sack.
He adds an unnecessary vocal run at the end, then places an open palm to the strings and grins. “What do you think?”
“You’re the reason career songwriters will always have jobs.” I lean back against the chair. “Also, why are you complaining? I’m here, and you have my full attention. The tracks we’ve laid down in the past forty-eight hours are gold. Probably platinum.”
“I know,” Cody agrees as he rises from the chair, placing the guitar back on the stand with surprising care for a man who treats his belongings like they come from a gumball machine.
“That’s the worst part. I can’t bask in the glow of my own vocal genius when you’re bringing down the damn vibe like someone ran over your puppy.
You gonna write that song next since confessionals seem to be your area of expertise? ”
“I never had a dog get run over.” I do some unnecessary tuning of my guitar instead of meeting his gaze. “And I’ve written a lot of songs that weren’t based on my real life.”
“But the one you wrote about Sloane means the most.”
This conversation is going nowhere fast, much like me after arriving back in Nashville two days ago.
Although I’d never admit it, I feel worse than if my dog had been hit.
I’m the one flattened by the ending I saw coming and walked in front of anyway, because apparently I’m that much of a glutton for punishment.
Crushed by the wheels of love. There’s a line that could play to sold-out crowds.
I should be taking notes, but I can’t bring myself to sift through the shrapnel of my shattered heart to mine the bits that will become someone’s next big hit.
It’s going to be a long time before I write a happy song, and every forlorn note I pull from these strings feels like I’m plucking at my own heartbreak.
“I don’t know what you expected me to do,” I say, knowing I’m not going to get rid of him without having this conversation.
He’s been dropping casual comments and shooting me loaded glances since we got back. I’ve been ignoring all of it, especially the weighted silences that let me know he’s thinking loud thoughts. My own head is enough of a cluster right now. I’m not letting Cody into the mix.
“She told me to leave,” I remind him. “Should I have waited around so she could take off again? You think maybe I could have learned my lesson after the first two times.”
“You love her.”
My heart kicks, and I ignore it. “That’s irrelevant.”
“It’s the only thing that’s relevant,” he insists.
“What part of ‘she doesn’t want me’ don’t you get?
” I push out of the chair and place my guitar on its stand in the corner.
Sitting still while we dissect my experience getting kicked to the curb feels like inviting someone to waterboard me.
“I was supposed to take care of her, Cody. Supposed to. I did the opposite. I showed up without a clue what to do, but it turns out she didn’t need my help.
And when she did, I screwed it up. So what good am I? ”
I want to take the question back. It exposes too much. It’s the question that followed me out of her hospital room, down three floors, through the lobby, and into the Nevada sunlight. I stood there feeling as useless as those dudes playing violin on the deck of the Titanic.
I can practically see the wheels turning as Cody studies me from across the room. It’s not a pretty sight.
“Okay,” he says finally. “This is your problem.”
I press two fingers to my temples like that will help ease the pounding in my brain. “My biggest problem at the moment is that you keep talking.”
“Au contraire, mon frère,” Cody singsongs. The kid really does have the most punchable face. “You’ve got your head so far up your ass, the only view is the one where you have to be the man. The guy everybody relies on.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, it’s great for the rest of us.” He grabs the back of a chair, spins it around, then drops onto the seat and kicks his legs out. “But it sucks donkey dicks for you.”
“Jesus, Cody. Nobody’s sucking—” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Never mind.”
“What if Sloane doesn’t need saving?”
My hand drops, then fists at my side. “For Christ’s sake, I know she doesn’t. She made it loud and clear.”
“And that kills you, right?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
If Cody had one speck of a self-preservation instinct, he’d know by my tone that this has gone too far. But he doesn’t flinch or flash his usual shit-eating grin, which is how I know I’m not going to like what comes next.
“It means that if you can’t be someone’s hero, you don’t want to be their anything.”
The words are a punch I didn’t see coming, and I practically double over from the force of my breath whooshing out of my lungs.
“You make me sound like an asshole,” I manage.
“Just an idiot,” Cody says conversationally. “Who doesn’t always do the right thing or make the right choice.”
I glance toward the sound booth, and my reflection stares back at me from the dark glass—unshaven and more than a little haggard, with dark circles under my eyes and my hair standing up in all directions. I look like a man who’s losing a fight he never had a chance of winning.
“This isn’t an act,” I tell him, way beyond trying to hide the raw pain in my voice. “You should understand that, Cody. It’s the only thing I know how to do.”
“The old dog needs to learn some new tricks if you want to win your girl.”
Win your girl. Like it’s that straightforward. Like I could just walk up to Sloane and say I’m not here to rescue you, I’m here because I can’t figure out how to breathe right when you’re not around, and she’d believe me.
Except… is it possible that’s been the answer this whole time? I’ve been too busy trying to earn her affection with usefulness to consider that she never wanted useful. She just wanted me to be there.
But I don’t know how to just be there for someone without taking on the responsibility for whether they’re okay.
When my mother got sick, I handled doctor appointments and medication schedules and figured out the exact angle she needed her pillows stacked to sleep without pain.
After she died, I turned that same attention toward Jamie and the artists who needed me.
Toward Cody, volunteering, and anyone who wandered into my orbit and needed help.
Because as long as I was needed, I mattered.
“Stop with the ‘old’ bullshit,” I choke out instead of admitting he might have just made a valid point. He’s already too smug.
He raises a brow.
“She took care of me on the trail,” I say as if that changes anything.
“But that was okay because it was temporary.”
He’s right again. Fuck. I accepted her care—not that I was in any shape to deny it—because I knew when we came down off the mountain, I’d go back to being the me who holds everything together. I could handle a brief respite, letting someone else carry part of the load, as long as it was temporary.
But exposing myself as a man who regularly gets scared and screws up and doesn’t have the answers is a leap I can’t make.
Not can’t. Haven’t.
“This is who I am,” I say numbly.
“You’re not a statue, Jensen. People—even elderlies—have the ability to change.
” Cody places his elbows on the back of the chair and cradles his face in his hands, looking every bit of twelve years old.
Great, I’m taking life and love advice from a child.
“Unless you’d rather sit alone in a dark studio playing the saddest melody ever written because that’s easier than admitting you don’t have all your shit together. ”
“It’s more complicated.”
“It’s not.” He taps his fingers on his cheeks.
“Look, man. I’m not pretending I’ve got my own life figured out.
You’ve covered my ass more times than either of us can count.
But you’ve gotta stop trying to prove you love someone by what you do for them.
Sometimes you just have to say it. Out loud. With words, not song lyrics.”
I huff out a laugh. “Since when are you a relationship expert?”
“Since you started needing one.” He grins, young and stupid and wiser than he has any right to be. “The biggest thing you taught me on that first album is to shut up long enough to hear what the music is trying to tell me. It’s time for you to hear what your life is trying to tell you.”
I draw in a long breath, feeling my ribcage expand in a studio that feels smaller than it did when I was sitting here in the dark. Or maybe I’m just aware of how much room I take up when I’m hauling everybody else’s baggage on top of my own.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. That’s as much as I can give right now.
“You better.” He grins, and I know he knows he got through to me. “‘Cuz if you don’t, I’m shooting my shot with her. I’m younger, richer—”
“One more word, and I’ll kill you.”
“You can’t kill me. You’re responsible for me.”
“Responsible for your death,” I mutter, then shake my head.
Something loosens inside me, a thread pulling free from a knot that’s been wound tight for decades.
“But you’re right that I need to start taking care of me instead of everyone else.
And you need to be responsible for yourself.
My old-man shoulders are getting a little sore, you know? ”
“I know you could carry three people across the Sahara fucking Desert and not complain.” He stands and moves the chair against the far wall. “But you deserve to be happy, Jensen. You’ve more than earned it.” He turns for the door, then looks over his shoulder. “Sloane makes you happy.”
It’s not a question.
Maybe she needed me to leave to prove to both of us that she could stand on her own. But I need her to know that I don’t want to be at her side just to catch her if she falls. There’s simply nowhere else I want to be, even when I have absolutely nothing useful to offer. Especially then.
Cody disappears before I can answer, but I say the words out loud anyway.
“So damn happy.”
I flip off the overhead light and pick up my guitar. This time, the chords don’t sound like heartbreak. They sound like hope.