12. Carly
CARLY
I grabbed Dee's wrist before she could walk away from the bar.
"Upstairs," I said. "Now."
She looked at me. Really looked. Her eyes went wide for just a second, then narrowed. She nodded once and called behind the counter that she was taking her break. Someone waved her off without looking up from the taps.
We climbed the narrow stairs to the storage room. My legs felt shaky. I told myself it was just the adrenaline wearing off from the drive into the city. I was terrified of what I was about to say. Of what it would mean once I said it out loud.
The truth had weight. Once you spoke it, you couldn't take it back.
Dee shut the door behind us. The room smelled like old wood and lemon cleaner. Boxes of liquor were stacked against one wall, and clean bar towels sat folded on the metal shelves. The single window overlooked the alley. Sunlight cut through the dusty glass in a hard, bright line.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the shelves. Waiting. Dee was good at waiting. She never filled silence just because it made her uncomfortable.
"What happened?" she asked finally.
I opened my mouth. My throat was so tight I could barely breathe. I pressed my hands flat against my thighs to keep them from shaking.
"I went to Boone's studio," I said.
Dee's face didn't change. She just waited.
"The one in Nashville," I added.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Why?"
I didn't know how to answer that. "I went to see him," I said finally. "At the studio. Yesterday afternoon. I drove straight there from here."
Dee nodded. Waiting.
"The parking lot." My voice cracked. I started over. "His truck was there. And another car. A black SUV I didn't recognize. It was so hot outside. September. But inside it was cool. Dim. I followed the music down the hallway."
I stopped. I pressed my hands against my thighs.
"There's a window in the door," I said. "To the main recording room. I looked through it before I went in."
Dee's face didn't change. She just watched me.
"He was sitting on a stool," I said. The words came slowly, like I was pulling them out of somewhere deep. "With his guitar. Playing something I didn't know. His head was bent over the strings and he looked so focused. So happy."
My chest hurt.
"She was standing next to him," I said. "Savannah Merritt."
Dee went completely still. Her jaw tightened.
The muscle jumped under her skin. Her fingers dug into her arms hard enough that I could see her knuckles go white.
For a second I thought she was going to say something sharp, something angry, but she just breathed out slowly through her nose and kept her eyes locked on mine.
I'd never seen Dee react like that to a name before. It made my chest tighten.
"She was wearing jeans and a white blouse," I said. My voice was shaking now. "Her hair was back. She was standing close to him. So close her shoulder almost touched his."
I swallowed hard. My mouth tasted like metal.
"He stumbled on a chord," I said quietly. "And she leaned closer. Put her hand on his shoulder. Just resting there. Light. Easy. Like it belonged there. She tilted her head to look at the guitar. At his hands. Her hand stayed on his shoulder. He didn't move away."
Dee didn't move. She didn't tell me what it meant. She didn't offer theories. She just listened.
"I went in," I said. The confession felt like it was being dragged out of me. "I pushed the door open and walked into the room. He looked up. Said hey. Not guilty. Just confused. Like he couldn't figure out why I was there."
I dug my nails into my palms, hard enough to hurt.
"Savannah smiled at me," I said. "Said hi. She asked if I wanted to sit in. I told her I didn't want to interrupt. And then I sat down on the couch at the back of the room while he looked at his phone and the two of them talked about the bridge."
Dee's mouth was a thin, hard line. Whatever she was feeling about Savannah Merritt—and I could tell she was feeling a lot—she was keeping it locked down. For me. So I could keep talking.
"I was nobody in that room," I said. My voice broke. "I sat there and they kept working and I was just nothing. He saw me. He said hey. And then he went back to his phone like I wasn't even there."
I stopped. Pressed my lips together hard.
"Last night I drove for hours," I said. "Just away. From here. From everything. I kept circling back to the studio without meaning to. It was late. After midnight maybe. The building was dark. I went back."
"Was he there?" Dee asked quietly.
I shook my head. "Nobody was there. The front door was unlocked. The way it always is when he works late. I walked through the lobby. Down the hallway. The control room was empty. Everything was dark."
"I took off my ring," I said. The words came out small and broken. "And I set it down on the mixing board. Right next to the main output fader. The one he touches every single time he sits down to work. Where he'd see it. And then I went home and packed a bag."
Dee's eyes dropped to my left hand. I saw her take in the bare finger. The faint white indent where the silver band used to sit.
"You left him," she said softly.
"I don't know." My voice cracked. "Maybe. I don't know what I'm doing. I just knew I couldn't stay in that house last night. I couldn't lie in our bed and pretend I hadn't seen what I saw."
"Does he know where you are?" Dee asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. Probably. I turned my phone off.
" I rubbed my ring finger with my thumb.
The skin felt too soft there. Too vulnerable.
"I couldn't listen to him call me and act like everything was fine.
Like he hadn't just been sitting there with her, looking at her the way he used to look at me. "
Dee pushed off the shelves. She came closer but didn't touch me. She just stood there, solid and steady.
"How long has this been going on?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know. Months, maybe.
She's been around more ever since his mother got involved with her father's label.
Boone says it's just business. That she's part of the deal his mother made.
That he has to keep her happy or the whole thing falls apart.
But last night didn't look like business, Dee.
It looked like something else entirely."
I pressed my lips together hard.
Dee was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful. "You've never talked to me about this before."
"About what?"
"Any of it. Your marriage. Him. What it's really like."
I blinked at her. That surprised me. "Haven't I?"
"No." Dee's voice was gentle but firm. "You tell me surface things. Funny stories about his tour manager getting lost in Atlanta, or complaints about his mother being controlling. But you've never told me what it's actually like. Being married to him. Living in that world."
I turned away from her and walked to the window. The alley below was empty except for a stack of crates someone had left by the dumpster. A stray cat was picking through the garbage, looking for something edible.
"I don't think I've ever said it out loud before," I admitted. My breath fogged the glass. "Not to anyone. Maybe not even to myself."
"Said what?"
I pressed my forehead against the cool window. The glass was hard and unforgiving. "That I'm drowning. That I love him so much it makes me stupid, and I hate myself for it. Because loving him is what keeps me stuck. If I didn't love him, I could just walk away. But I do, and so I can't."
Behind me, Dee was silent.
"He doesn't see me anymore," I said. I watched the cat in the alley.
It had found something and was carrying it away.
"He looks at me every day. He talks to me.
He kisses me goodbye when he leaves for the studio.
He tells me he loves me before he goes to sleep.
But he doesn't see me. Not really. Not the way he used to. "
I turned back around. Dee's face was careful. Listening.
"I want him to see me as his partner," I said.
My voice was stronger now. Steadier. "Not his help.
Not the person who runs his house and fixes his melodies and keeps his family from imploding at every Sunday dinner.
His actual, real partner. The person who stands next to him.
Not ten steps behind him picking up the pieces he drops. "
The words kept coming. I couldn't stop them now.
"I want him to defend me," I said. "When his mother says something cruel at dinner about how I'm not good enough for their family, or when she makes a joke about me being the hired help, I want him to tell them to stop.
I want him to stand up and say that I'm his wife and they need to respect me.
Instead of pretending he didn't hear it.
Instead of changing the subject and leaving me to twist in the wind. "
My hands were clenched into fists. I forced them open.
"I want my name on the songs we write together," I said.
"Not as a thank-you in the liner notes buried with the session musicians and the sound engineers.
As a co-writer. Because those songs are mine too.
I worked on every single one of them. I fixed his words when they didn't scan right.
I changed his melodies when they were too predictable.
I rewrote entire verses and bridges and choruses, and nobody knows it.
Nobody knows I'm the reason his songs actually work. "
My chest felt tight. I paced to the other side of the room.
"I want his time," I said. "Not the leftover scraps after his career takes everything.
I want him to sit down with me at dinner and actually talk to me instead of checking his phone every thirty seconds because someone from the label texted him, or his manager needs him.
I want him to remember that I exist when I'm standing right in front of him trying to tell him something that matters. "
I stopped in the middle of the room. My breath was coming too fast.
"I want what we used to have," I said quietly.
"When it was just the two of us and the music and nothing else mattered.
Before his mother made that deal with Savannah's father behind our backs.
Before Savannah decided she deserved him now that he's successful and famous.
Before he got so big that he forgot I was the one who helped him get there in the first place. "
Dee didn't say anything for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "That's not asking for much, Carly."
Hearing my name in her mouth like that, gentle and understanding, almost broke me.
"It feels like it is," I said.
"It's not." Dee's eyes were steady on mine. "It's the bare minimum. That's what a marriage is supposed to be."
I looked down at my hands. My ring finger was bare.
The indent was still visible, a pale line pressed into my skin, but it was already starting to fade.
Another week and it would be gone completely.
Like the ring had never been there at all.
I touched the indent with my thumb, rubbing the soft skin there.
It felt strange. Wrong. Like I was missing a part of myself.
"You still love him," Dee said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah." My voice broke on the word. "That's the whole problem. If I didn't love him, this would be easy. I could just pack up and leave and never look back. Find someone else. Start over. But I do love him. I love him so much it's killing me, and I don't know how to make it stop."
The confession hung in the air between us. Heavy and true.
Dee stepped closer. She put her hand on my shoulder. Her palm was warm through my shirt, solid and real.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
I didn't have an answer. I didn't know. Run, maybe. Stay here at the bar until I figured out how to breathe without feeling like my chest was caving in. Avoid thinking about Boone's face when he found the ring sitting there on the mixing board. Avoid wondering if he even cared that I was gone.
Downstairs, the music got louder. Someone laughed, bright and carefree. A door slammed hard enough that I felt the vibration through the floor under my feet.
Dee's hand tightened on my shoulder for just a second. Then she let go and turned sharply toward the door. Her whole body had gone tense. Alert.
"That's probably just someone coming in for lunch," she said. But her voice had changed. There was something careful in it now. Something watchful.
I looked at her. "Dee?"
She glanced back at me. Her expression was neutral, but I could see the tension in her jaw. "You want to stay up here for a bit? Take some time?"
My stomach dropped. "Why? What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. She just opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, pulling it shut behind her with a soft click.
I stood there alone in the sudden quiet. The storage room felt too small suddenly. The walls pressed in on me. I couldn't hear anything over the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears.
I crossed to the window and pressed my hand flat against the glass. It was cool under my palm, almost cold. I could see my reflection in it, faint and ghostly against the bright sunlight outside. I looked like someone I didn't recognize. Pale. Hollow. Lost.
Downstairs, I heard Dee's voice. Low and careful, but firm. Then another voice. Deeper. Male.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
Oh, God.
I knew that voice. I'd know it anywhere. In a crowd of a thousand people, in the dark, in my sleep. I'd know it until the day I died.
Boone.
He was here. Downstairs. Right now.
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't move. Couldn't think. My hand was still pressed against the window, fingers splayed wide like I was trying to hold myself up.
How did he find me? Did he call Dee? Did he just guess?
Of course he guessed. Where else would I go?
The music kept playing downstairs. People kept talking and laughing like nothing had changed. Like the entire world hadn't just tilted sideways.
I heard Dee say something I couldn't make out through the floor. Her voice was steady but guarded. Then Boone's voice again, louder this time. He sounded tired. Desperate. Like he'd been driving all night and hadn't slept.
I closed my eyes. My chest ached. The pressure behind my ribs was so intense it felt like something was going to crack.
Don't come up here. Please don't come up here. I'm not ready.
I didn't know what to say to him. Didn't know how to look at him without seeing Savannah's hand on his shoulder. Without hearing that warmth in his voice when he talked to her. The smile I used to think belonged to me.
The voices downstairs went quiet. Or maybe I just couldn't hear them over the roaring in my ears and the frantic beating of my own heart.
I stayed where I was. Frozen at the window. Watching the empty alley below. Waiting.