9. System to Diagnose
System to Diagnose
Nora
Wednesday morning arrived muggy and gray, a thin warm drizzle blurring the hotel window.
Nora’s phone was already in her hand before she was fully conscious—muscle memory, same as always—and the chest tightening followed immediately, the bone-deep knowledge that today was going to be difficult. Three notifications waited.
The first was a credit card bill—fine. The second was a promotional email from some streaming service—delete.
The third was an Instagram notification that someone had tagged her in a story.
She almost didn’t look. Almost set the phone aside and tried to start the day with coffee and maybe an attempt at writing. But the notification sat there like a splinter, impossible to ignore.
The tag was from @IndieScene_Daily, one of many accounts that tracked musicians and industry gossip. They’d reposted one of Cam’s stories with added commentary: Camilla Swanson with subtle shade? #IndieGossip #SmallTownPhase
Nora’s stomach dropped as she clicked through to Cam’s original story.
A video of Cam in a recording studio, headphones around her neck, looking effortlessly beautiful as she sang.
The caption read: Some people run away to their hometown when things get hard.
I run toward the music. New EP dropping next month.
The words stole her breath. Subtle shade… not.
Her phone rang. Daniel’s name filled the screen.
“Morning,” Nora said, trying to inject energy into her voice.
“Hey. How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. Just… writing. Or trying to.”
“Mom said you sounded thin on the phone yesterday. And then I made the mistake of opening Instagram.” A pause. “I saw Cam’s story.”
Of course he had.
“Yeah, well. Cam’s never been subtle.”
“It was uncalled for. And kind of pathetic, honestly—airing someone else’s personal stuff publicly to look deep.” Daniel said it with flat certainty. “You’re allowed to be angry about it.”
“I’m more hurt than angry,” Nora admitted. “We used to be able to talk to each other. Now she’s using me for content.”
“That’s what people do when they feel threatened.” He paused. “Can I say something and you not bite my head off?”
“No promises.”
“Cam said you ran away. And you keep saying it too. But maybe you’re not running away. Maybe you’re finally standing still long enough to figure out what you actually want.” His voice softened. “When’s the last time you did that? Just existed. No plan, no next step, no metrics.”
Nora blinked, surprised. “I don’t know. College, maybe? Or high school.”
“Right. So maybe this isn’t running. Maybe it’s just stopping.” He hesitated. “And for what it’s worth, I think that’s brave. Scary as hell, but brave. Just be Nora for a while. Not Nora Carter the artist. Just you.”
After they hung up, Nora sat in the gray light, feeling oddly lighter.
Still, Cam’s words kept echoing. Some people run away to their hometown when things get hard.
By noon, Nora had managed half a verse about rain and regret before giving up. The hotel room felt suffocating.
Without fully deciding to do it, she found herself driving toward Livingston Auto. It had become, without either of them quite acknowledging it, the place she went when everything else was too loud, which was most of the time.
The shop was quiet when she arrived, just the sound of rain splattering against the metal roof. Morgan was half-hidden under the hood of an ancient pickup truck, oil smudged across her cheek, completely absorbed in whatever puzzle she was solving.
God, she was attractive like that. Focused, competent, utterly unaware of how the concentration made her face softer somehow. Nora felt heat creep up her neck at the thought.
“Hi,” Nora said from the bay door. “I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”
Morgan pulled out and straightened, wiping her hands on a shop rag.
Those hands. Nora had watched them work for hours at this point—precise, capable, gentle with delicate parts.
She remembered, with sudden warmth, the weight of one of them closing over hers on the wrench. She wondered what they’d feel like—
Stop it, she told herself firmly.
“Car problems?” Morgan asked.
“No. Just… people problems. Ex-girlfriend problems, specifically.” Nora held up her phone, then thought better of showing Morgan the screenshot. She shoved the phone back in her pocket and ran a hand through her hair. “She posted something mean about me online, and I’m spiraling a little.”
Morgan’s expression shifted—something that might have been concern crossing her features. “What kind of mean?”
“The public humiliation kind.” Nora motioned with her hands at nothing, unable to stay still. “Disguised as inspirational content, so she gets to look mature while making me look pathetic.”
“That’s not mature.”
The simple declaration caught Nora off guard.
“No, it’s not,” Nora agreed, feeling tension leave her shoulders. “But it’s effective. Now everyone knows I’m hiding out here.”
“Are you hiding?”
Nora considered the question. “Yes. I mean, sort of. But I’m also trying to just… I don’t know. Figure out who I am when I’m not Nora Carter, musician.”
Morgan nodded, then disappeared into the small office area. She returned with a folding chair and water, setting them up in Nora’s usual corner.
“Hungry?” Morgan asked.
“I… yeah, actually. I forgot to eat.”
Morgan pulled a wrapped sandwich from the small fridge, along with chips and an apple. “Turkey and cheese.”
The offering was so matter-of-fact that Nora felt tears prick at her eyes. No grand gestures, just the recognition that she needed food and the simple act of providing it.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the sandwich and fiddling with the wrapping. “You don’t have to take care of me.”
“I’m not taking care of you. I’m sharing lunch.”
She ate while Morgan worked, the familiar rhythm of tools creating a peaceful backdrop.
Except it wasn’t quite the usual rhythm.
There was something off in it today—a clipped quality to Morgan’s movements that Nora had, over a handful of afternoons, learned to read.
Twice Morgan glanced at the office, at the desk drawer there, then away again, and her jaw set a little harder each time.
“Are you okay?” Nora asked. “You seem… I don’t know. Somewhere else today.”
“I’m fine.” Morgan didn’t look up. The wrench turned, precise and a little too forceful. “Just got a lot to do.”
It wasn’t a real answer, and they both knew it.
Nora unpacked her guitar and began playing quietly.
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a while.
“You don’t have to ask permission every time.”
“Right. How do you deal with people who are mean to you?”
Morgan paused, wrench halfway to a bolt. “I avoid them.”
“What if you can’t? What if they’re part of your world?”
Morgan set down her tools and gazed at Nora. “Then I still avoid them. My peace is worth more.”
Nora ran her fingers over the hem of her shirt. “I don’t know what my peace is anymore.”
“Then maybe you should figure that out.”
Nora played a few chords, considering this. “Is that what you did? Figure out your peace?”
“I’m working on it.” There was something in Morgan’s tone that suggested this was harder than it sounded—and that, today especially, the work wasn’t going well.
“For what it’s worth,” Nora said, “this place feels peaceful. What you’ve built here.”
Morgan’s hands went still on the engine. Then Morgan just nodded, once, and went back to the bolt.
“Thank you,” she said. Nothing else.
Nora let it go. She played for a while, soft progressions that didn’t go anywhere in particular, and Morgan worked, and the rain kept on against the metal roof.
“I wish I could be certain about things like you are with your cars,” Nora said after a while.
Morgan stilled. “It’s practical for cars. Not for other things.”
Nora cocked her head. “I mean, sure, people aren’t cars, but it still seems good to have a… system. Not just…” She motioned with her hands, trying to convey the chaos that always surrounded her.
“People aren’t cars.” Morgan’s voice was even, but this time, Nora had the sense that Morgan was working hard to keep it that way. “I’ve been told that’s… that I can’t do people. Because I just treat them like a system to diagnose.”
“I don’t think you’re bad at people.” Nora gave a small smile, which wasn’t returned. “You don’t treat me like a system.”
Morgan gave her a long look.
“And I have lots of problems,” Nora said, trying for funny. “You’d have to spend days diagnosing me.”
That earned a small snort, at least.
“Who told you you weren’t good at people?”
Morgan returned to the car. “No one important.” A small, mechanical pause. “But there were things she said that… stayed. That I wasn’t as self-sufficient as I thought. She always got frustrated when I didn’t do all the socializing she wanted me to.”
The shop was very quiet. Even Rusty had gone still.
“She was wrong,” Nora said, and she heard how certain her own voice was.
“You are great. And just because you don’t enjoy being in crowds or meeting new people all the time doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.
I mean, you treat me like a person, like just anyone.
Which—” her throat tightened, “—you have no idea how rare that is. Everyone in my life always wants something from me. Well, except maybe my brother, but he’s the only one, and even he can’t stop himself from giving advice. You just… let me be me.”
Morgan was watching her now, fully, the wrench forgotten in her hand. Her expression had gone careful and uncertain and almost unbearably open.
“My mother thinks the same thing Hannah did,” Morgan said quietly. The name came and passed; she didn’t explain it, and Nora didn’t ask. “That I should be different. Out there more. You heard her. Wanting to be alone means there’s something wrong with me.”
“It isn’t.” Nora set the guitar aside and stood, crossing the small distance to where Morgan stood by the truck. “You’re just you. And I—” the words were out before she could decide whether to be brave, “—I really like that. You. I really like you.”
Heat climbed her face. It was more honest than she’d meant to be, more honest than was safe, and she didn’t take it back.
Morgan went very still. Her gaze dropped, once, to Nora’s mouth, and came back up.
“Me too,” she said. “You, I mean. I—” and for once Morgan, who always had the precise word, didn’t seem to have one at all.
So Nora stopped waiting for it.
She closed the last of the distance and kissed her.
It was careful at first—a question, her hand light against Morgan’s jaw, the oil-smudged cheek warm under her palm. For one suspended second, Morgan didn’t move, and Nora’s whole chest dropped, certain she’d misread everything.
Then Morgan’s hand came up and settled at Nora’s waist—steady, deliberate, the way Morgan did everything—and she kissed her back. The rain fell on the roof and the smell of motor oil hung in the air, and Morgan’s lips, unhurried and certain, pressed against her own.
When they finally broke apart, they didn’t go far. Morgan’s hand stayed at her waist. Her forehead came to rest against Nora’s, and she let out a breath that wasn’t quite steady.
“That changes some variables,” Morgan said.
Nora’s laugh startled out of her. “Yeah. It does.”
“I’m not good at this. People. You should know that going in.”
“But you’re good at me.”
“Nora—”
“I’m a catastrophe held together with breathing exercises and screenshots,” Nora said with a warm smile and a shrug. “I think we’re about even.”
Something eased in Morgan’s face.
Rusty huffed from under the desk, unimpressed by all of it, and the ordinary sound let them both step back into the ordinary world. Morgan picked her wrench back up. Nora retrieved her guitar with hands that weren’t quite steady.
But neither of them pretended it hadn’t happened.
When she left that evening, she paused at the bay door. Morgan stood backlit in the shop, and there was still that tightness in her shoulders, the a-lot-to-do thing she hadn’t named, the drawer she’d glanced at twice.
“Morgan?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever it is, the thing you’re not telling me.” Nora kept her voice gentle. “I’m not going to push. But when you want to… I’m here. Okay? You’re not as alone as you’ve decided you are.”
Something crossed Morgan’s face—caught, almost—and for a moment Nora thought the door might open.
It didn’t.
“Thank you,” Morgan said. Just that.
Driving back to the hotel, Nora caught herself thinking about Morgan’s hands. About the way she’d looked when her defenses came down on purpose. About the kiss, and the breath Morgan had let out afterward, and the one thing—whatever it was—that Morgan still wouldn’t set down.
There was trouble ahead. The good kind.
Probably.