Chapter Thirteen
Music was supposed to help. It usually did.
I sat at the piano, the soft lamplight turning the sheet music gold. My fingers moved automatically, chasing a melody I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore. The sound filled the room. Soft, steady, and safe. Every note was a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
On the corner of my desk sat a pile of envelopes, and I knew within that was mail from at least one college. I wasn’t planning on opening it anytime soon. It was the same reason I’d been ignoring my personal email too and I stayed off the application portals.
I wasn’t ready to face what may be in my future. It had been closed to me for so long that not knowing was familiar. Felt safe for some reason. But now I was supposed to have all these options.
What was I supposed to do with options?
I played through the bridge, deciding it’d work. I needed to get the tone right though. Tender and restless. Hopeful but haunted. My lyrics sat scribbled in my notebook.
“You said someday we’d find our light again,
But the sun keeps changing sides.
Every truth feels half-forgotten now,
And I’m running out of skies to hide.”
It still didn’t feel right. The rhythm was off, maybe the phrasing too long. I muttered the lines under my breath, shifting the beat of each word until it felt like it landed properly.
“You said someday we’d find the light again...
But even dawn forgets to rise.”
I paused. That sounded sadder, but honest.
I scribbled down the change, then kept going, the words spilling quietly, raw and unpolished.
“I built a home in the echoes of laughter,
Painted walls in borrowed time.
If I reach, will the silence catch me?
Or just let me fall behind?”
The melody came with it, slow and deliberate, a ghost of a heartbeat. I let my voice follow, almost a whisper. The notes cracked near the end, but I didn’t care.
The piano keys blurred as I leaned forward, resting my head against my hands.
“Come on, Cadence,” I muttered. “You’ve written through worse.”
But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure if that was true anymore.
My phone buzzed and I jumped. I glanced at the message from Seth.
Seth: Downstairs. Let this poor man in please.
I smiled and made my way downstairs, where I could hear him knocking.
I opened the door and he stepped through, holding a takeout bag, the smell of sesame oil and rice instantly grounding me.
“Hey,” I said, my voice a little hoarse from singing. “You know, normally people text that they’re coming over, not that they’re already here.”
“I know, but I wasn’t giving you the opportunity to tell me no.”
He wasn’t wrong, but now that I saw him, I was happy he was there.
He set the food down on the counter, looking around at the sad state of my kitchen. There were a couple of unwashed dishes, a glass cup of water, not much else. I didn’t have much here, considering how much I spent my time at Seth’s instead.
“Were you in your studio working on music?”
“Trying,” I said, leaning against the counter as he put our plates of food together. “It’s not cooperating.”
He leaned over and gave me a piece of maki. I ate it off his chopstick, chewing slowly.
“Come on. Eat before your brain short-circuits.” Seth didn’t push, didn’t ask about what was taking up space in my head. Just handed me a plate and led the way to the couch.
The smell of warm food wrapped around us. For the first time all day, my chest loosened as Seth simply took care of one of my most basic needs. What was going on with everyone and their obsession with making sure I was eating lately?
Halfway through, Seth spoke quietly. “You look tired.”
“I feel it.”
He nodded, understanding what I meant. I wasn’t tired from a long day or from physical exertion. I was just tired.
Finally, I whispered, “I’m scared.”
Seth’s eyes softened. “Of what?”
“Everything,” I said, the word catching in my throat.
My voice became scratchy as I talked. “Of losing everyone. Of ruining what I’ve been given.
Of all of it changing before I can even catch up.
Despite all the shit that happened, I’ve had so much these last few months.
So much more than I thought possible. And it still feels like I’m about to lose it at any second.
Like one wrong move and poof. It’s all gone. ”
Seth set his plate down and turned fully toward me. “You’re not going to lose us, Cadence.”
I shook my head, blinking back tears. “You can’t promise that. People leave. That’s what they do.”
He hesitated, then said quietly, “Not everyone does. And those who do, they sometimes come back.”
That grabbed my attention.
His voice lowered. “Look at your dad. He came back. Not perfectly, not all at once, but he did. And Janice...you thought she was gone for good, but she found her way back to you. And think about Lindie. You mentioned the news of her doing well. While she was never mother of the year, at least she’s returning as someone reminiscent of who she used to be rather than the danger she had been for so long.
” He drew in a breath. “People don’t stay gone, Cadence.
Sometimes they just need time to find the road home again. ”
“You think if we lose Paxon, that someday he’ll find his way back?”
Our eyes met as I finally voiced the root of my fears.
Seth’s eyebrows lifted as his steady gaze caught mine and held it for a long unreadable moment. “If we do lose him,” he said carefully, “I think he’ll want to. I think he’ll realize where home really is. Sometimes it just takes people a while to see it.”
There it was again, his unwavering belief that things were going to work out for the good.
Either it was the hope or the fear inside of me that cracked.
I wasn’t sure. Maybe both. I could see both outcomes.
Where Paxon left and never came back and where he left and did return. I swallowed hard. “And if he doesn’t?”
For a moment, Seth didn’t answer. He reached over, brushing my hand with his before he finally laced our fingers together.
His grip wasn’t steady. It wasn’t confident.
It was tight, like he needed the contact as much as I did.
When I looked at him, really looked, the strong front he’d been putting on slipped just a little.
There was fear in his eyes. Real fear. Not just for himself, but for all of us. My heart skipped a beat or two as I realized Seth wasn’t as unwavering as I thought. He was worried and uncertain too and it was starting to show through the cracks that were stretching.
“Then we keep moving forward,” he said in a rough voice.
“We live our lives, continue to do the things we love. We adapt.” His thumb brushed my skin in a slow, grounding motion.
“It’ll suck. It’ll be hard. But we can do it.
” He hesitated, his jaw working like he was fighting something back.
“Together,” he finished in a fragile tone.
His words hit me hard, like the first chord of a song I wasn’t ready to play yet. For the first time, I saw that he wasn’t fearless. He was terrified. But he was choosing to be strong anyway. For me, for Paxon, for all of us.
My throat tightened. “I don’t know if I can keep doing that,” I whispered. “The surviving part. Every time I start to feel okay again, something happens. Someone pulls away. Or I do. It hurts, losing people, or being the problem.”
“You don’t have to keep doing it alone,” he said. “Not anymore.”
That was the last push against the dam. My breath hitched, and the tears I’d been holding back for weeks finally broke free. I covered my face with my hands, but Seth moved closer, pulling me into him before I could hide.
I didn’t even have the strength to resist.
His chest was solid beneath my cheek, and I clung to his shirt like it was the only thing keeping me anchored. The sobs came hard and fast, raw enough to scrape my throat. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t quiet.
Seth didn’t try to fix it. Didn’t tell me it was okay. He just held me, one arm around my shoulders, the other smoothing over my hair.
I wasn’t sure how long I cried. Only that it was long enough for my chest to ache and the food to go cold. When I finally pulled back, my face was hot, my eyes swollen. I tried to apologize, but he shook his head before I could get words out.
“Don’t,” he said gently. “You never have to apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered anyway. “I just...I don’t know how to do this right. Any of it.”
Seth’s thumb brushed the side of my face, wiping away a tear I hadn’t realized was still there. “You don’t have to do it right,” he said. “You just have to keep trying. That’s what makes it worth it.”
His words did nothing to ease the ache in my chest. It was too big for words, too tangled in everything we hadn’t said.
Seth smiled faintly, a small curve of his mouth that somehow made it worse. “It’s fine,” he said, the promise slipping from his lips like a vow he’d already made a hundred times. “We’ll make this work. This is worth the fight for.”
His words should have comforted me. It usually did. Instead, they hollowed me out because I wasn’t so sure this fight would be enough. And I realized Seth wasn’t so sure either.