22. Carly
CARLY
I pushed through the door of Dee's bar and let the familiar smell of lemon oil and old wood settle around me.
The afternoon light came through the front windows at a slant, catching dust in the air.
A few regulars sat at the far end of the bar, nursing drinks and keeping their eyes to themselves.
The jukebox was playing something low and slow, a song I didn't recognize.
Dee looked up from behind the bar and gave me a nod. I made my way to the stool closest to the wall and dropped my bag at my feet. My shoulders ached from carrying tension I hadn't realized was there.
"You look exhausted," Dee said.
"Thanks." I tried for a smile and it felt wrong on my face.
She poured me a glass of water without asking and set it down in front of me. The condensation ran down the side and pooled on the wood. I watched it for a moment, then wrapped my hand around the glass just to have something to hold. The cold bit into my palm.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out and saw the name of my lawyer on the screen. My chest tightened. I let it ring once more before I answered, like that extra second would prepare me for whatever was coming.
"Carly," she said. "I wanted to let you know the next step came through today. The paperwork is moving forward."
I nodded, even though she couldn't see me. "Okay."
"His lawyer confirmed he's not contesting it. No custody issues, obviously, and his team has already started working on the property division. They're being very cooperative."
The words hit me like a weight dropping.
He's not contesting it. I had expected that, maybe even wanted it, but hearing it out loud made it real in a way it hadn't been before.
Cooperative. Like our marriage was just another business deal to settle, something his lawyer could handle while he moved on to whatever came next.
"Are you still there?" my lawyer asked.
"Yeah. I'm here."
"This is good news, Carly. It means things will move quickly now.
We should be able to finalize everything within the next few weeks, assuming no complications.
You'll be free to move forward with your life, and frankly, given everything you've told me about the situation, I think that's the best possible outcome for you. "
"Right." My throat felt tight. "That's good."
"I'll send over the updated documents by the end of the day. Just review them and let me know if you have any questions. And Carly — you're doing the right thing."
"I will. Thank you."
I hung up before she could say anything else and set the phone face down on the bar.
My hand was shaking, just a little, and I curled my fingers into my palm to stop it.
The right thing. Everyone kept saying that, like they knew what it felt like to sit here with my marriage ending and my heart still holding on.
Dee leaned against the counter across from me, her arms folded. "Bad news?"
"No. The opposite, actually." I tried to laugh but it came out wrong. "The divorce is moving forward. He's not fighting it."
Dee didn't say anything for a moment. She just looked at me, her expression unreadable, and then she nodded slowly. "That what you wanted?"
"I don't know." The words came out before I could stop them. I rubbed my face with both hands and felt how tired I was all the way down to my bones. "I thought it was. I thought I'd feel relieved."
"But you don't."
"No." I looked down at the water glass, at the ring it was leaving on the bar. "I feel like I just lost something I can't get back."
God, what was I even doing? I had asked for this.
I had walked away. I had told him I wanted a divorce, and now here it was, exactly what I said I wanted, and all I could think was that it was over.
Our marriage was over. Ten years, gone. All those songs, all those nights, all the pieces of myself I had given him — it was all just going to be paperwork now, signatures on a line, and that would be it.
Like none of it had mattered in the first place.
Dee was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "He's been outside."
I looked up. "What?"
"Boone. He's been outside the bar. Three times this week."
My heart kicked up hard. "Did he come in?"
"No." Dee shook her head. "He just stood there for a while, looking at the door. Then he left. Didn't try to talk to anyone, didn't ask about you. Just stood there."
I didn't know what to say. I stared at her, my pulse racing, trying to make sense of it.
Boone had been here. Outside. Close enough that I could have run into him if the timing had been different.
Close enough that he could have walked through the door and said whatever it was he came to say, but he hadn't.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
"Because I didn't know if it mattered to you," Dee said. She wasn't being cruel. She was just honest, the way she always was. "You said you were done."
"I am done." The words felt hollow. "I mean, I should be."
Dee studied me for a moment, then pushed off the counter and walked over to the front window.
She stood there with her back to me, looking out at the street.
The light hit her face at an angle and I could see the lines around her eyes, the weariness that came from running this place alone for more years than I'd been alive.
"You want to know if he was really there?" she asked.
"I believe you."
"I'm not talking about my word, Carly. I'm talking about proof."
I slid off the stool and walked over to where she was standing. She pointed to the window ledge outside. There was a guitar pick sitting there, wedged between the wood and the glass. Small, dark, catching the light.
My breath caught.
A guitar pick. Plain, dark, the kind Boone always used.
I reached for my bag, dug through the small inner pocket with hands that wouldn't quite cooperate, and pulled out the engraved pick I had been holding onto like some kind of lifeline.
It was still there, safe where I had tucked it, our names carved in silver.
But that pick outside — it was his. I knew it the way you know a person's handwriting, the way small details add up to certainty. He had stood here and left it behind, sitting on the ledge of the window like a message I didn't know how to read.
"He left it there yesterday," Dee said quietly. "I saw him put it down and walk away."
I pressed my hand against the glass, my fingers spread wide. He had been right here. Standing where I was standing now, looking at this same door, close enough to touch the wood if he'd wanted to. And he had left that pick for me to find.
I swallowed hard. The tightness in my chest was spreading, crawling up into my throat, making it hard to breathe.
I had wanted him to fight for me, hadn't I?
I had wanted him to see me, to choose me, to prove that I mattered to him more than his career or his family or anything else.
And now here was the proof that maybe he was trying, and I didn't know what to do with it.
"I regret it," I said, the words barely more than a whisper.
"Regret what?"
"The divorce. Asking for it. I thought it was the only way to make him see, but now it's just — it's happening, and I don't think I want it to."
Dee turned to look at me. Her face was serious, her eyes sharp and searching. "Do you truly believe he's changed, Carly?"
The question landed heavy. I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. Did I believe it? I wanted to. God, I wanted to so badly it hurt. But wanting something and believing it are not the same thing, and I didn't know if I could trust what I was feeling right now.
Boone had spent ten years not seeing me.
Ten years putting me last, brushing me off, letting his family walk all over me while he checked his phone and nodded along like none of it mattered.
He had made me invisible in my own marriage, and one guitar pick on a window ledge didn't undo all of that.
It didn't erase the studio sessions where Savannah sat in my chair.
It didn't bring back the nights he chose the tour bus over our bed.
It didn't fix the fact that he never once defended me to his mother.
But he had been here. Three times. Standing outside this bar, not coming in, just being close.
That wasn't the Boone I knew. The Boone I knew would have sent Tuck with a message, or called from the road, or convinced himself everything was fine and gone back to work.
He wouldn't have stood outside a bar in Nashville, alone, holding a guitar pick and trying to figure out if he should knock.
He wouldn't have left it there like an offering, like he knew words weren't enough anymore.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat was too tight and my thoughts were all tangled up, pulling in too many directions at once.
Dee watched me for a moment longer, then nodded slowly, like she understood. "You don't have to know yet."
"I'm scared it's temporary," I said, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "I'm scared he's doing all this because I left, and the second I come back, he'll go right back to how he was. I'll be invisible again, and this time I won't have the strength to leave. This time it'll break me."
Dee reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Her hand was warm and steady, and I felt something in me settle just a little.
"Then don't go back yet," she said. "Make him prove it."
I nodded, even though I didn't feel sure of anything. My eyes burned and I blinked hard, trying to keep the tears where they belonged. But they came anyway, hot and fast, and I wiped at them with the back of my hand like an idiot.
"I need to be alone for a bit," I said.
"Go on upstairs. Take as long as you need."
I grabbed my bag from the bar and headed for the stairs at the back of the room. My legs felt heavy, like I was dragging myself through water, but I made it to the narrow staircase and climbed up to the small apartment above the bar. Each step took effort.
The room was quiet. Just me and the old furniture and the light coming through the window in long golden strips. I dropped my bag on the floor and sank down onto the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest. The cushions smelled like Dee's lavender soap and old fabric, familiar and safe.
The grief came then, all at once, like something breaking open inside me.
I pressed my face against my knees and let it pour out — all the years of being unseen, all the songs I had written and never claimed, all the moments I had swallowed my hurt and smiled through it because I thought that was what love meant. That was what being his wife required.
Our marriage was over. The paperwork was moving forward, and Boone wasn't fighting it, and soon there would be nothing left but signatures and memories and a house I didn't want to go back to. He was cooperating. Being reasonable. Making it easy for both of us to walk away clean.
But God, I still loved him. I hated that I did, hated how much I wanted to believe he could change, how much I wanted to run down those stairs and find that guitar pick and hold it like proof that maybe, just maybe, he was finally seeing me.
That maybe the man I married was still in there somewhere, buried under ten years of neglect and bad choices, trying to claw his way back to the surface.
I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands and took a shaky breath.
The yearning sat in my chest like a living thing, stubborn and aching and impossible to ignore.
I wanted him. I wanted the man I had married, the one who used to look at me like I was the only person in the room.
I wanted the partnership we were supposed to have, the music we made together, the life we had built before it all got buried under his career and his family and ten years of slow, quiet neglect.
Maybe he was changing. Maybe the guitar pick meant something. Maybe standing outside the bar three times took more courage than I was giving him credit for. Maybe he was scared too, scared of what he'd done and what he'd lost and whether there was any way to fix it.
Or maybe it was just temporary, and I was setting myself up to lose myself all over again.
I didn't know. I just knew I wasn't ready for it to be over, even though I was the one who had asked for it to end.
I knew I still wanted him, even though wanting him felt like the most dangerous thing I could do.
I knew the hope and the grief were tangled up so tight I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
The light shifted in the room, the sun dropping lower, and I stayed there on the couch with my knees pulled up and my heart breaking. Alone. Grieving. Yearning for him.