Chapter 19 Take Me to the Beach #4
Nudging the other AirPod into my left ear, I take my phone and scroll down my Spotify home page and stop on the “Discover picks for you” section.
Since this is what Spotify thinks I want to hear based on what I’ve been listening to, it suggests songs like, “Comes and Goes (In Waves)” by Greg Laswell, “Demons” by Imagine Dragons, “All I Want Is You” by the Decemberists, “Hey Sugar” by Daisy Malloy, “Bloom” by the Paper Kites, “Meet Me in the Woods” by Lord Huron, and, wouldn’t you know it, “Not in This Town” by Riff Hurley.
Part of me wants to be cheeky and play Riff his own song, but my attention falls to “Bloom” and I remember his talent show performance.
I tap it and the guitar intro starts to play—individual strings plucking melancholy notes.
Almost immediately, Riff jerks his gaze toward me.
I pinch my lips together, trying not to smile. He doesn’t know I know about this. If I could keep a straight face, he might think it was some fateful coincidence, but I’m an open book.
“How did you—”
Sam Bentley, lead vocals. sings the first few lyrics, interrupting Riff mid-thought.
Gaping, Riff stares at me while we listen.
When I first heard the song, I thought it was beautiful but it didn’t mean anything to me in particular. Now every word seems to speak to me. Like, "You fill my head with pieces of a song I can’t get out," and "Can I be close to you?"
At the chorus, Riff whisper-sings along.
Having heard it a few times myself, and because of the repetition, I’m able to whisper-sing with him, and I harmonize a little too.
During the instrumental interlude (and folksy whistling) that goes on for a bit near the end, he says, “You saw my video.”
“I might have,” I admit.
“On HypeSource?”
“No, just … Facebook.” I realize as I say this that he’ll probably understand I had to go looking for it, which means I made an actual effort to find things about him.
He doesn’t acknowledge that at all, though. “ACKER told me there was an article, and that some other old videos were going around too.”
Which makes sense, since I was the one who shared them. “I thought people should know how versatile you are.”
His brows furrow. “You … you made that happen?”
I nod. “Everyone thinks you’re amazing. I figured it might help if Charles can see how much of a fanbase there is for you outside of country.”
“I … don’t know what to say.”
The chorus plays again, repeating “Can I be close to you?” over and over.
As “Bloom” ends, I press pause before Spotify autoplays anything else.
“Are you mad?” I bite the inside of my cheek.
Riff shakes his head. “No, I just … I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect anyone to ever see those, beyond the people that watched them years ago and have long forgotten about them. I didn’t expect the reactions either, but I read a lot of the comments the other day and people were so … positive.”
“That’s because they recognize your passion. Because the real you resonates.”
He takes a deep breath and looks out at the waves for a moment, then turns back to me. “Thank you for saying that.”
I shrug. “It’s the truth. I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”
“Well, I’m good at hiding it most of the time.
Although, I didn’t want to hide it from you.
I think that was the source of the confusion when we met.
Normally I can get into character like that”—he snaps his fingers—“but for some reason, I missed my cue, and then I was just a walking contradiction. So for that, I’m the one who should be sorry. ”
“Well, I do not accept your apology—because no apology is necessary. I was wrong; you’re not fake. In fact, you might be one of the realest people I know.”
“I don’t know about that …”
“You are. What you say in your songs is real, it’s just a matter of people actually listening to you. Anyone who pays close enough attention can hear your true feelings about country music.” I laugh.
He laughs too. “Finally, someone gets it.”
“As soon as I looked at you logically, it was easy to see. No guy is that much of a country bro unless he’s making fun of the whole idea.”
Riff laughs again before pausing to look at me seriously. He waits a few beats, then says, “And no woman comes off as that much of a man hater as you, unless a lot of men have given her a good reason for it.”
I draw back and avert my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been second-guessing their opinions lately—or listening more closely to what someone else has been trying to say in music.”
“So you …” I can’t quite come up with the words.
He’s been … looking into me? Researching me? Gathering better intel? The same way I did to him?
“I’ve been trying to pay better attention. It’s not fair, the shit people give you. Body shaming, critiquing your relationships, the ridiculous pregnancy rumor …”
My breath goes shallow on the last one. I don’t know why; I’ve heard it a million times. But it’s different coming out of Riff’s mouth, even though he’s only repeating it to say it’s unfair. Maybe because of what he doesn’t know—what almost no one knows.
Riff takes one look at me and my trembling chin, and his eyes widen with fear. “Oh, fuck. Did I say something wrong? Were you actually—” He shakes his head at himself.
“I …” There’s no way I can say it out loud. Not to anyone. Especially not to him. But I can’t deny it either. And part of me does want him to know.
When I don’t finish, he scoots closer to me. I watch him mentally put the pieces together, each expression that shifts to another: guilt, pity, even fear.
“If you …” he starts. “If you were … But right now you don’t have … That would mean …”
He has to wait what feels like a very long time before I manage to reply, but he does it with patience.
Finally, I tell him, “I didn’t know … until it was already over.”
“‘Over’ …” he repeats with a knowing tone.
My hands tremble now. I clench them into fists to steady them. My pulse races because I haven’t thought about this in so long, because I’ve buried it deeply and kept it all to myself.
“It was an hour before one of my shows,” I explain. “I had my costume on, I was warming up, my team was all over the place making sure everything was ready. But something didn’t feel right.”
Our marshmallows are dark brown and textured now, but neither of us touches them. Riff waits for me to go on.
“I had … an odd pain. Cramping, sort of. Except it wasn’t time for that. My period was weeks away. Then, suddenly, it was like a tiny dam broke. I didn’t understand how it could be, but I knew I was bleeding—and that it was a lot at once. I hurried to check and …”
Tears brim my eyes.
How do you explain being sad about something you hadn’t wanted, and didn’t know about until after it was gone? How do you describe the rotten, sinking feeling that your body has betrayed you?
This time Riff doesn’t ask permission, he just puts his arm around me, and this time it isn’t awkward. This time I need it—desperately.
“Since it wasn’t on purpose, and I didn’t know a lot about that sort of thing, I wasn’t sure. Except … I was. I knew exactly what was happening.”
He picks up our beach blanket, which has since slid off our shoulders, and puts it around me. “Please say you didn’t go ahead and do the show.”
“Of course I did.” I scoff, letting tears fall as new ones well up. The fact that he would even say that stirs new emotions in me—because that’s not how Luke responded.
“Harmony …”
“What else was I supposed to do? Tell my team I’d been pregnant for a minute, and that I wasn’t anymore?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Did you tell anyone, though?”
“I told Luke.”
Riff pales.
I’m sure he’s aware of my dating history, but that won’t make it less of a shock.
The tabloids, for once, weren’t lying, even if by coincidence. “She’s Having a Baby! Harmony Sonora, Pregnant by Luke Onstenk?”
That header was plastered above a paparazzi photo of me in which a bit of my stomach had squeezed out over my jeans, labeled “telltale bump” with a little arrow pointing right at it. Ironically, that photo had been taken six months earlier, well before the pregnancy scare.
“I called him from the bathroom,” I say.
“And he said you shouldn’t do the show …”
“He said …” I swallow hard. “He said, ‘You’re so lucky, Harm. That was a close one.’”
It’s Riff’s turn to make a fist, I guess, although I suspect his is for a different reason than mine. His jaw flexes like he’s also clenching his teeth.
I wipe my eyes. “When I got upset, he told me I should be thankful—that a lot of women in my position would kill to have an easy way out like that. Even better, it happened before the show, so I could clean up, take some Advil, and no one would be the wiser.”
Riff tenses even more. He looks at me, breathing heavily, and drags his thumb across my cheek to clear more tears. “I’m … so … sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No it’s not.”
“No,” I admit. “It’s not.”
Pulling me up against his chest, he holds me tightly, and I let him.
It’s hard to say how long we stay like that, and we separate only when another group-chat message comes through. Carefully, I tear myself away to see what it says.
JARED: Excellent work! That’s a wrap.