7. Bailey
bailey
. . .
Things have been strained since the last time we were in the same room.
Since he turned down opening for the tour.
Luke texts constantly now. Long messages.
Apologies wrapped in explanations. Promises stacked on top of promises.
Every morning starts with Good morning, Sunshine, I love you, and every night ends with I miss you.
He sends flowers to shows he can’t make it to, big arrangements that draw attention, cards written in his familiar scrawl.
The kind of gestures that look good from the outside, but they don’t fix what's wrong between us.
The tour has settled into a rhythm now, I live out of bags and a planner, measuring my life in set lists and sound checks. The shows are incredible. The crowds are growing. The dates keep stacking up.
Rachel keeps a running countdown on her tablet. “Three weeks until you’re home,” she reminds me one afternoon. “Two and a half, technically.”
Home.
Not Nashville. Hawthorne Ridge.
I video call Sadie whenever I can, usually from quiet corners of venues or hotel rooms just before I crash. She answers tonight already grinning, phone propped up as she spins slowly in front of the mirror.
“What do you think?” she asks.
She’s holding up her wedding dress, soft fabric, simple lines, exactly her. She looks radiant, so happy it makes my chest ache.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “Sadie. You’re beautiful.”
She laughs. “You have to say that. You’re my sister.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “Cole’s not going to survive this.”
She snorts, then softens. “I wish you were here.”
Guilt hits me immediately. “I know. I’m sorry. I hate that I can’t help more. I feel like I’m missing everything.”
“You’re not,” she says firmly. “You’re doing what you have to do. We’ll have you back soon.”
“When?” I ask quietly. Because the logical part of me knows, but I need her right now. I need her to anchor me to the reason I am doing all of this.
She glances at the calendar taped beside her mirror. “Two weeks before the wedding. Plenty of time. We’ll put you to work.”
I smile, blinking fast. “I can’t wait.”
After we hang up, I sit on the edge of the bed for a long time, phone still warm in my hand. Sadie has always been my why. The reason I kept going when things got hard. The reason I still believe in the dream we talked about around that campfire all those years ago.
Our parents died when we were young. Sadie had just turned eighteen when the world cracked open and dropped everything in her lap.
Overnight, she went from sister to guardian, from kid to adult, fighting paperwork and grief at the same time.
With the Carters’ help, rides to school, groceries left on the porch, support when pride wouldn’t let us ask, she managed to keep me.
We stayed in our parents’ trailer, patched together with duct tape and memories, until I left for Nashville. Sadie lingered a little longer before moving in with Cole.
Home was never a place for us, it was a person, and for most of my life, that person was her.
I flop backwards on the hotel bed, and a memory slips in.
Luke and I were lying on the hood of his truck back home, stars scattered above us like spilled light.
His arm around my shoulders, his voice low as he promised me we’d never lose each other to the noise.
That music would always be a way to bring us back home.
I was so nervous about leaving our families, about chasing a dream that had no guarantee.
"Nothing will ever be more important than you", he’d said. "You are my home, Bailey, as long as we are together, that is all that will matter."
I hold onto that memory like a lifeline. That’s when I decided to try again.
Luke texts while I’m scrolling festival schedules.
Luke
Miss you. I wish I were with you.
I look at the lineup again. We’re performing close together. Same day. Different stages, but close enough. It feels like a sign.
I type before I can talk myself out of it.
What if I come to your festival?
I can stay for your set. Maybe an hour after.
His reply comes almost immediately.
I don’t think that’s a good idea.
My stomach drops.
He doesn't think it's a good idea for me to go see him?
Why?
There’s a pause. Just long enough to sting, just long enough for all the rumours and speculation to creep into my mind.
It’d be a distraction. For me. For the crowd.
I need this to be my moment.
I stare at the screen, rereading the words until they blur, until I realize I am crying.
I wouldn’t stay long. I just want to see you.
Another pause.
People will make it about you.
I need this to be about me.
I feel the tears run down my cheeks. This hurts more than the tour rejection ever did. Because this time, I didn’t offer him my stage. I offered him my presence.
A memory crashes in before I can stop it.
The last show I went to for him.
I’d slipped into the side of the stage quietly, baseball cap pulled low, hoodie zipped up. I just wanted to watch him. Support him. Be his wife.
It lasted all of thirty seconds.
Someone recognized me. Then another. Then the crowd shifted, energy spiking in a way I felt more than heard. My name rippled through the audience, soft at first, then louder.
Luke saw me. For a split second, his face lit up the way it used to, shock, pride, something dangerously close to joy.
The chants started.
He laughed into the mic, shook his head, and without planning it, without even looking back at me, he launched into one of our old songs.
The one we wrote on the floor of our first apartment.
I stepped up beside him like it was instinct.
The crowd went wild.
It was electric. Exhilarating. Familiar.
Us.
Then the song ended.
And the fight started the second we were offstage.
“You stole my moment,” he snapped.
“I didn’t ask for that,” I said, stunned.
“What did you think would happen?” he fired back.
That was the first time I realized it, my success no longer inspired him; it threatened him.
The memory fades, leaving the present sharper in its place.
I’m not trying to take anything from you…
I just miss you.
The typing bubble appears. Disappears.
I set my phone down.
For the first time, I don’t pick it back up.
I think of Sadie. Of her dress. Of the wedding countdown taped to her mirror. Of the life waiting for me back home.
I didn’t steal his show. I reminded him of what we used to be, and he doesn’t want that anymore.
I stop offering, stop bending. I stop trying to meet him halfway.
Because halfway only works when both people are walking toward each other, and I’ve been walking alone for a long time now.