7. Carly
CARLY
I waited for him in the front room of the studio.
The chairs were old leather, cracked at the seams and worn soft from years of musicians sitting in them, waiting for their turn, hoping for their break.
I picked at the stitching with one fingernail, thinking about nothing, about everything, about Savannah's hand on his arm and the way he hadn't moved it.
The way he'd just stood there and let her touch him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I'd told myself I would stay. I'd told myself I would wait. So I sat there like an idiot, perched on someone else's furniture in someone else's studio, and I waited for my husband to remember I existed.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, a low persistent buzz that got under my skin.
I could hear voices somewhere deeper in the building, muffled through the heavy studio doors that were built to keep sound in and the world out.
I couldn't make out the words. Just the low rumble of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter, the kind that meant someone was working, someone was busy, someone had more important things to do than check on the woman they'd left sitting alone.
God, what was I even doing?
I should have left when I saw Savannah with her hands on him.
I should have walked out right then and saved myself the humiliation of waiting around like some desperate fool who couldn't take a hint.
But Dee's voice was still in my head, telling me to go to him as his wife, telling me to stop running, telling me to fight for my marriage like it was something worth fighting for.
The clock on the wall ticked louder than it should have.
I watched the second hand drag itself around the numbers, slow and relentless and utterly indifferent to the fact that every passing minute felt like a knife twisting in my chest. Five minutes.
Ten. Fifteen. My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a fist around my ribs and squeezed until there was no air left.
I shifted in the chair. The leather creaked. My wedding ring caught the light, and I looked down at it, that thin band of silver that was supposed to mean something. Ten years. Ten years I'd worn this ring. Ten years I'd believed in what it stood for.
Then I heard him.
His voice came through the hallway to my left, familiar and warm and everything I'd been waiting for.
My whole body reacted before my brain could catch up.
I sat up straighter. My pulse kicked up without my permission, and I hated that it did.
I hated that I still reacted to him like this, like I was some lovesick girl who couldn't get a grip, who couldn't accept that maybe he didn't feel the same way anymore.
But there was another voice with him.
I recognized Tuck's drawl before I could place the words.
They were coming this way, their footsteps echoing down the hallway.
I stood up without thinking, smoothing my hands down my jeans even though they didn't need smoothing.
My palms were damp. I wiped them on the denim and took a step toward the hallway, drawn by the sound of Boone's voice like I always was. My stomach flipped.
"Just give me a minute," Boone said, his voice clearer now. "I need to wrap this up."
I stopped.
My feet planted themselves on the scuffed linoleum floor, and I couldn't make them move.
I was close enough to hear them, but not close enough to see them.
The hallway bent around a corner, and I stood there in the space between, caught in the middle like I always was.
Like I was stuck to the floor. My hands went cold.
"You sure about this?" Tuck asked. "Because once you commit, there's no backing out. You know that."
"I know."
Boone sounded tired. I'd heard that tone before, late at night when he came home from tour and didn't want to talk about it. When he didn't want to talk about anything. When he'd walk past me like I was part of the furniture and head straight for the shower without even saying hello.
"It's just," Tuck said, and then he paused. I heard the shift of weight, the scrape of a boot on linoleum. "You've been carrying this thing a long time, man. You sure you're not making a mistake?"
My breath caught.
What thing? What was he carrying? And why didn't I know about it?
"I've thought about it," Boone said. His voice was quieter now, like he was choosing his words carefully, like he was afraid someone might hear. Like he was afraid I might hear. "I've thought about it more than you know. I don't think about her the way I used to."
The air left my lungs.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I just stood there with my hand pressed flat against the wall, feeling the texture of the paint under my palm, feeling the world tilt sideways beneath my feet.
I don't think about her the way I used to.
He was talking about me. About us. About our marriage.
I wanted to move. I wanted to turn around and walk away before I heard anything else, before he said the words that would make it real.
But my feet wouldn't listen. I stood there, frozen, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack them.
I thought it might just break right through and leave me bleeding on the floor.
"She doesn't know?" Tuck asked.
"No," Boone said. "And I'm not ready to tell her yet. I need to figure out how to do this without—without making it worse than it already is."
She doesn't know.
I'm not ready to tell her yet.
God.
I pressed one hand to my chest, trying to breathe, trying to think, trying to do anything other than stand there and fall apart in the hallway of a recording studio where anyone could walk by and see me.
My skin felt too tight, like it didn't fit me anymore, like I'd outgrown it and it was suffocating me from the outside in.
My pulse hammered in my throat. I knew I should leave.
I knew I should turn around and go before they saw me, before they knew I'd heard, before I had to look at him and pretend I didn't know he was done with me.
But I didn't.
I stayed where I was, rooted to the spot like some pathetic fool who couldn't accept the truth even when it was staring her in the face. Even when it was being spelled out in words so clear a child could understand them.
"You really think she's not gonna see it coming?" Tuck's voice was careful, like he was stepping around broken glass. Like he knew how fragile this was, how easily it could all shatter. "She's not stupid, Boone. She's gonna notice something's off."
"She already has." Boone let out a breath, long and heavy, and I could picture him running his hand through his hair the way he always did when he was stressed. "She's been trying to talk to me about it. I just—I didn't know what to say. I still don't."
My jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Of course he didn't know what to say. Of course he'd been avoiding me, checking his phone when I tried to talk to him, leaving me sitting alone in this studio like I didn't matter.
Like I was nothing. Like ten years of writing songs together and fixing his words and rewriting his melodies before every record didn't mean a damn thing.
Like I was just some woman he'd married once and now regretted.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to walk in there and demand answers. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and make him look at me, really look at me, and tell me why I wasn't enough anymore. Tell me what I'd done wrong. Tell me how to fix it.
But I didn't.
I didn't go in. I didn't say a word. I stood there in the hallway with my hand pressed to my chest and my throat burning and my heart breaking into a thousand jagged pieces, and I didn't do a damn thing.
Because what was I supposed to say? I heard you talking to Tuck, and now I know you don't love me anymore?
God, I sounded ridiculous even thinking it.
I sounded like a frivolous girl who couldn't handle the truth, who couldn't face reality, who couldn't accept that people fell out of love and moved on and left you behind like you were never there in the first place.
"You gonna tell her soon?" Tuck asked.
There was a long pause. I held my breath, waiting, my whole body tensed like I was bracing for a blow.
"I don't know," Boone said finally. "I need to figure out the right way to do it. I don't want to hurt her more than I already have."
More than I already have.
Like he knew he'd been hurting me. Like he'd known all along and just hadn't cared enough to stop.
My eyes stung. I blinked hard, forcing the tears back, refusing to let them fall. I would not cry. Not here. Not now. Not where anyone could walk by and see me standing in the hallway with tears running down my face like some pathetic woman who couldn't hold it together.
I took a step back. Then another. My legs felt shaky, unsteady, like they might give out if I moved too fast. I turned around slowly, carefully, like I was afraid the floor might crack open beneath me if I wasn't careful. Like the world might just swallow me whole.
The front room was exactly the same as I'd left it.
The cracked leather chairs. The humming fluorescent lights.
The clock on the wall, still ticking, still dragging its second hand around and around like nothing had changed.
Like my entire world hadn't just collapsed in the space between one breath and the next.
I grabbed my purse from the chair. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the strap. The leather felt foreign in my palm, like it belonged to someone else, like everything belonged to someone else and I was just borrowing it for a while.
I walked to the door. Each step felt like dragging weights behind me, like my body didn't want to move, like some part of me still thought I could fix this if I just turned around and went back and asked him what he meant.
If I just made him explain it to my face instead of overhearing it in a hallway like some spy.
But I knew what he meant.
I don't think about her the way I used to.
She doesn't know.
I don't want to hurt her more than I already have.
I knew exactly what he meant. He was done with me. Done with our marriage. He didn't think about me the way he used to—he didn't love me anymore. And I'd just been too stupid, too stubborn, too desperately in love with him to see it.
I pushed the door open. The heat hit me like a wall, thick and suffocating and so heavy I could barely breathe through it.
The parking lot stretched out in front of me, shimmering in the late-afternoon sun, waves of heat rising off the gravel like ghosts.
My car was parked at the far end, a dark spot against all that brightness.
I made myself walk toward it. One foot in front of the other. Don't think. Don't feel. Don't stop. Just keep moving.
My throat was so tight I thought I might choke on it. My chest ached like someone had hollowed it out with a spoon and left nothing behind but raw edges and empty space. I fumbled with my keys, nearly dropped them, caught them at the last second and finally got the door unlocked.
I slid into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut. The sound echoed in the silence, final and absolute. I sat there, staring at the steering wheel, my hands gripping it so hard my knuckles went white. The leather was hot under my palms. Everything was hot. Everything hurt.
He doesn't love me anymore.
The thought hit me like whiplash, sudden and sharp and so devastating I couldn't breathe around it.
Ten years. Ten years of writing songs with him.
Ten years of fixing his words and changing his rhythms and rewriting his melodies before every record.
Ten years of running his house while he toured, of waiting up for him when he came home late, of defending him to his family when they acted like he'd wasted his life on music.
Ten years of being his wife and his partner and the woman who knew him better than anyone.
And it wasn't enough.
I wasn't enough.
I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel, the hard plastic digging into my skin.
My whole body shook. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come.
They were stuck somewhere behind my ribs, trapped with all the other things I couldn't say, couldn't ask, couldn't fix.
All the words I'd swallowed over the years.
All the times I'd stayed quiet when I should have spoken up.
I'd come here because Dee told me to go to him as his wife.
I'd stayed because I thought I could make it work.
I thought if I just waited long enough, if I just gave him space, if I just kept my mouth shut about Savannah and her hands on him and the way he didn't move when she touched him, maybe things would go back to the way they were.
Maybe he'd remember why he married me. Maybe he'd see me again.
But they wouldn't.
He'd already decided. He'd been carrying this for a long time, according to Tuck. He'd been thinking about it more than I knew. He'd already made up his mind, and I was just the last one to find out.
I lifted my head. My reflection stared back at me from the rearview mirror, pale and drawn and devastated.
My eyes were too bright, my face too pale, my expression too raw.
I looked like someone who'd just had the ground ripped out from under them.
I looked like someone who didn't know what to do next.
I looked exactly like what I was—a woman whose husband didn't love her anymore and didn't know how to tell her.
I started the car. The engine rumbled to life, low and steady and familiar, and for a second the sound was almost comforting. Almost normal. I put it in reverse and pulled out of the parking spot, the tires crunching on the gravel.
I didn't look back at the studio. I didn't check to see if he'd come out, if he'd noticed I was gone, if he cared at all that I'd been waiting for him and left without saying goodbye.
I just drove.
The road stretched out ahead of me, long and empty and leading nowhere I wanted to go.
The sun burned low on the horizon, turning everything gold and red and too beautiful for how I felt inside.
Nashville spread out around me, all those buildings and streets and people living their lives like nothing had changed. Like the world hadn't just ended.
My wedding ring caught the light. I looked down at it, that thin band of silver that suddenly felt like a lie. Like a promise someone had broken without telling me. Like ten years of my life I'd given to someone who didn't want them anymore.
I kept driving.