8. Carly
CARLY
I pulled into the studio lot late that night.
The building sat dark against the Nashville skyline, all brick and tall windows, the kind of place that looked expensive even when nobody was there.
My hands shook on the steering wheel. I killed the engine and sat in the silence, staring at the entrance like it might swallow me whole if I got out of the car.
God, what was I even doing?
I'd been driving for hours. Not toward anything, just away.
Away from Dee's bar, away from the house, away from the image of Savannah's hand on his arm and the sound of his voice saying words I couldn't unhear.
I kept circling back to the studio without meaning to, like a dog with a bone.
My chest ached with it, this terrible pressure that wouldn't let up no matter how many miles I put between myself and what I'd seen.
The ring felt heavy on my finger. I twisted it without thinking, the way I always did when I was anxious, the metal warm from my skin.
Ten years I'd worn it. Ten years of writing songs together, of fixing his melodies and rewriting his words, of being his partner in everything that mattered except the credit.
I was in over my head and I knew it, but I couldn't stop my hands from shaking or my heart from pounding against my ribs like it wanted out.
I got out of the car. The night air hit me, humid and thick, carrying the smell of asphalt and distant rain.
My legs felt unsteady beneath me, like I'd been at sea for days and couldn't find my balance on solid ground.
I walked to the entrance. Every step felt deliberate, heavy, like I was walking toward something I couldn't take back.
The door was unlocked. It always was when he was working late, when inspiration hit him and he needed the space to chase it down.
I pushed it open and stepped inside. The lobby stretched out in front of me, all concrete floors and low lighting, the kind of professional quiet that always made me feel like I was trespassing even though my name was on half the songs that got recorded here.
Well. My name wasn't on them. That was the problem, wasn't it?
I moved through the lobby toward the main studio.
My footsteps echoed too loud in the empty space, announcing me to nobody.
The hallway opened up into the control room, then the recording booth beyond it, all dark wood and soundproofing and equipment that cost more than most people made in a year.
The lights were off. The mixing board sat silent, its rows of faders and knobs catching what little light came through the windows from the street outside.
Boone wasn't there.
The realization hit me like whiplash. I'd expected him to be hunched over the board, or standing in the booth with his guitar, or pacing the way he did when a lyric wouldn't come together.
I'd expected to walk in and find him exactly where I'd left him earlier tonight, before everything fell apart.
But the studio was empty. Just me and the silence and the weight of what I was about to do.
The air felt too thin. I stood there in the doorway, frozen, my pulse kicking up for no good reason except that I was alone and this was real and there was nobody here to stop me or talk me out of it or ask what the hell I thought I was doing.
My hand went to the ring again, turning it, the familiar motion grounding me when everything else felt like it was spinning out of control.
I looked down at my hand. The ring caught the light from outside, a simple silver band engraved with both our names and the date we'd gotten married.
He'd given it to me on a Tuesday afternoon in this very studio, down on one knee between the piano and the drum kit, his voice shaking when he asked.
I'd said yes before he finished the question.
God, I'd been so sure then. So sure of him, of us, of the life we were building together one song at a time.
I twisted the ring. It moved easily, looser than it used to be.
I'd lost weight over the summer without meaning to, the kind of thing that happens when you're too busy running someone else's life to remember to eat.
The metal slid over my knuckle, catching slightly at the widest part before coming free. I pulled it off.
The ring sat in my palm. Small. Simple. Heavier than something that size had any right to be.
I stared at it, this tiny circle of silver that was supposed to mean forever, that was supposed to mean partnership and protection and being seen.
My vision blurred. I blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall, because if I started crying now I wouldn't stop and I needed to finish this before I lost my nerve.
The engraving caught the dim light. I remembered the way he'd slipped it onto my finger that first time, his hands steady even though his voice wasn't, his eyes on mine like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
I remembered believing him. Trusting that look, that promise, that vision of a future where we'd write music together and build something real and lasting.
I'd been twenty-three years old and so desperately in love I couldn't see past the next moment, couldn't imagine a day when I'd be standing here alone, taking off the ring he'd given me and leaving it behind like a note I couldn't bring myself to write.
Ugh. My hands were trembling. I curled my fingers around the ring, felt the metal press into my skin, sharp enough to hurt if I squeezed.
The pain helped. It gave me something to focus on that wasn't the sick feeling in my stomach or the voice in my head screaming at me to put the ring back on and pretend none of this was happening.
I lifted my head. The studio spread out around me, familiar as my own reflection.
I knew every inch of this place. The coffee stain on the concrete floor near the door that never quite came out.
The photograph on the wall of Boone holding his first platinum record, his smile wide and genuine in a way it hadn't been in years.
I turned, taking it all in. This was where we'd built everything.
Every song, every late night, every moment of inspiration and frustration and the kind of creative partnership I'd thought meant something.
The piano sat in the corner, its keys covered, dust gathering on the lid because nobody had played it in weeks.
The guitar stand held three of his instruments, each one perfectly maintained, ready to play.
The microphone hung in the booth, waiting for a voice that wouldn't come.
There were memories everywhere I looked.
The couch where we'd fallen asleep tangled together after a sixteen-hour session.
The spot on the floor where I'd sat cross-legged at three in the morning, rewriting the bridge to his first number-one hit while he paced and muttered and trusted me to make it work.
The window where we'd watched the sun come up more times than I could count, exhausted and exhilarated and so completely in sync I'd thought nothing could ever break us apart.
I'd been wrong about that. Wrong about a lot of things, apparently.
Where would he see it?
I needed somewhere he'd look. Somewhere he couldn't miss it, but not so obvious that anyone else would find it first. Not Tuck. Not the sound engineer. Not her. Just Boone. This was between us, even if he didn't know it yet, even if he wouldn't understand what it meant until it was too late to ask.
The mixing board. He always started there when he came in, checking levels, adjusting settings, losing himself in the technical details before he ever picked up an instrument.
My feet carried me forward before I'd made a conscious decision to move.
I stopped in front of the board, my free hand reaching out to trace the edge of a fader, the smooth metal cool beneath my fingertips.
This was where he sat when he worked. Where his hands moved across the controls with a confidence he never showed anywhere else.
Where he'd turn to me and ask if a mix sounded right, trusting my ear even when he wouldn't trust my judgment about anything else.
I could picture him so clearly, leaning back in the chair, headphones on, completely absorbed in the music in a way he'd never been absorbed in me.
I opened my hand. The ring sat in my palm, small and bright and final.
My fingers ached from holding it so tightly.
I flexed them, watching the ring shift slightly against my skin, catching the light one last time.
My heart was doing something complicated in my chest, beating too fast and too hard, like it was trying to convince me to stop, to reconsider, to find another way that didn't involve this irrevocable gesture.
But I was done finding other ways. Done waiting for him to notice. Done being invisible in my own marriage.
I set the ring down on the board, right next to the main output fader, the one he touched every single time he sat down to work. It made a tiny sound when it hit the surface, metal on metal, barely audible but somehow deafening in the quiet of the empty studio.
There. It was done.
I should have felt relief. Or grief. Or something other than this numb, hollow sensation spreading through my chest like ice water.
I just stood there, staring at the ring, at this tiny piece of metal that represented ten years of my life, and felt absolutely nothing except the absence of its weight on my finger.
I stepped back. One step, then another, putting distance between myself and what I'd just done.
My hand felt naked. Wrong. I resisted the urge to reach for the ring again, to take it back, to pretend this moment hadn't happened.
My heart hammered against my ribs. My stomach dropped.
This was it. This was me choosing, finally, to say something without saying anything at all, to make him see me even if I couldn't make myself speak the words out loud.
The ring sat there on the mixing board, small and alone and impossible to miss. He'd come in tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever he finally dragged himself away from whatever was more important than coming home to me, and he'd see it. He'd pick it up. He'd know.
What he'd know, exactly, I wasn't sure. Maybe he'd think I'd forgotten it.
Maybe he'd assume I'd left it there for safekeeping while I worked on something.
Maybe he'd convince himself it didn't mean what it so obviously meant, the same way he'd convinced himself our marriage was fine while I'd been drowning right in front of him for months.
Jesus. I was shaking all over now, my whole body vibrating with nerves and adrenaline and something that felt dangerously close to panic.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold it together, trying to keep from falling apart right here in the middle of the studio where we'd built everything that mattered and lost it without either of us noticing when.
I turned away. Turning my back on the ring felt like betrayal, which was ridiculous considering what he'd done, what she wanted, what I'd heard him say to Tuck in a voice that didn't sound like he was talking about someone he loved.
But guilt twisted in my gut anyway, sharp and insistent, because I'd been raised to stay, to endure, to make it work no matter what it cost me.
Walking away went against every instinct I had.
But I was so tired of not being heard. So tired of being the help instead of the partner, the secret instead of the story, the woman who fixed his words and changed his rhythms and made his music work while he took all the credit and gave me nothing but his leftover attention and his family's contempt.
I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be defended.
I wanted my name on the songs and my voice in the decisions and his eyes on me when I was talking instead of on his phone.
I wanted him to notice I was gone before I actually left. And maybe that made me cruel, or manipulative, or just as bad as the games his mother and Savannah played. I didn't know anymore. I didn't know anything except that I couldn't stay in this studio another minute or I'd lose my nerve entirely.
I walked toward the door. Each step felt easier than the last, like I was remembering how to move, how to choose direction instead of just drifting wherever the current took me.
My hand trailed along the wall as I went, fingertips brushing over the switch plate, the doorframe, the photograph of us from five years ago when we'd thought we had forever.
The hallway stretched out ahead of me. I didn't look back.
Looking back would make it real in a way I wasn't ready for, would turn this into a decision instead of just a moment, a gesture, a ring left where he'd find it when he finally bothered to show up to the place we'd built together.
My throat ached. I swallowed hard, pushing down whatever wanted to come up, keeping it locked behind my teeth where it couldn't escape and ruin everything.
The lobby appeared. Then the door. Then the parking lot beyond, empty except for my car sitting where I'd left it under the streetlight.
The night air hit me again when I stepped outside, warmer than it should be for September, carrying the promise of a storm that hadn't broken yet.
I sucked in a breath. It rattled in my chest, shaky and uncertain, but it was mine.
My breath. My choice. My ring sitting on his mixing board where he couldn't possibly miss it.
I crossed the parking lot. My keys were already in my hand, though I didn't remember pulling them from my pocket.
I unlocked the car and slid into the driver's seat, my whole body sagging the moment I was inside, safe, alone, where nobody could see me fall apart.
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
The left one felt strange without the ring, lighter, like part of me was missing.
Like I was missing. Like I'd left myself behind on that mixing board along with the ring, along with ten years of believing I mattered, along with every hope I'd ever had that he'd wake up one day and see me the way he'd seen me that Tuesday afternoon when he'd gotten down on one knee and promised me everything.
I started the engine. The studio sat behind me in the rearview mirror, dark and quiet, holding my ring and my marriage and everything I'd thought I was building for the last ten years. I put the car in drive. And then I left.