“Her parents were very strict. She was pretty, popular, everyone saw great things in her future. I don’t know why she didn’t tell Ryder—or why she did what she did. I guess she just didn’t see a way out. Thought she was alone. Perhaps she didn’t think she had any other options,” Maggie says.
“Has anyone ever considered the fact that she may have been mentally ill? And that the pregnancy may have exacerbated it?” I ask, and Maggie shrugs. “How did he find out about the baby?”
“Her mother,” she says quietly. “A few days after Julia’s death, she confronted Ryder. Told him it was his fault. It was ugly. He actually ran into her when he was in Colorado for Knox’s wedding. She did a real number on him.”
“I knew he was off when he got back. I wish he’d told me why.”
“After Ryder struck it big, Ms. Cassidy came sniffing around, making threats to go to the press.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Spite? Anger? Sorrow? I don’t know,” Maggie says. “I can’t imagine the sadness she lives with. It’s not rational, but she blames Ryder to this day. I paid her a huge sum of money, made her sign an NDA, to keep her quiet. I didn’t want Ryder to have to relive it all. It almost destroyed him the first time. She hates him. But no one can hate Ryder more than he hates himself for what happened.”
“How did you keep this out of the press? I mean, surely someone else in a town that small knows what happened?” I ask.
“It’s because Haven’s Point is a small town that it has stayed out of the press. Everyone loved Ryder’s mom, felt his dad’s devotion for her after she died, and sort of looked on the boys as their own. They don’t discuss it, at all,” she explains. “And no one knew about the baby other than the two families.”
“I never imagined anything like this.”
“Do you understand now?” Maggie asks. “You did what Julia couldn’t. You found him. You told him about the pregnancy. It was like a second chance.”
I see where this is going. I’m not sure what she expects me to say or do. “I’m sorry all that happened,” I say.
“But it doesn’t change things between you and him?”
Shaking my head, I know what I need from a man, out of a relationship. I know what I can live with and what I can live without.
And I can’t live with love being a dirty word.
She pulls up a website on her phone and holds the screen out for me. “He just announced this today.”
Ryder Merrick Retiring After Loss of Unborn Child.
My eyes dart to Maggie. “But he loves music. Why?”
“Says he can’t do it anymore. I haven’t seen him like this since Julia. Dark, blaming himself. He’s in a bad place.”
“Me, too,” I say softly.
“He’s doing one last show. All proceeds will go to the neonatal unit at the hospital,” she says, getting to her feet. “The concert’s in less than two weeks.”
She tells me the date of the concert. It’s the same date as my planned move to Tennessee. If I needed a sign from the universe that Ryder and I aren’t meant to be, that’s it. I give Maggie a nod.
She reaches for the door then turns back. “As always, there will be a seat open for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
New girl buried in a small town
Matching graves in a small town
Ryder
Demons surround me in the darkness of my recording studio. The faces of all the dead fly around me, swirling, taunting me. My mother, the faces of dead children just wanting to see a country music festival, Julia . . .
I suppose some things you just can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. They stay with you, follow you, haunt you, in the light and in the dark.
My ghosts and demons, they’re always there, waiting, lurking, eager to pounce and punish. All my awards, trophies, record-breaking albums along my shelves and walls are no match. They provide no defense.
Julia’s is the one that haunts me the most, playing in my head like a broken movie projector that flips back and forth between scenes—one of her in a homecoming tiara, another with a noose around her neck. Back and forth, back and forth. Shiny fake diamonds, broken neck, smiling and laughing, swinging in the wind.
Never ending hell.
Clenching my eyes shut, I try to push it all away, but then the whispers start again. Her voice softly tells me she loves me. I say it back to her, not knowing what love really was, but believing I did, at least thinking I loved her.
Her gentle fingers touching my face as she whispered she was ready. She wanted me to be her first. I swear I didn’t say the word just to get her to drop her panties, but I know that’s why she finally gave in.
“I’m sorry, Julia. So sorry.”
The way her eyes looked when I broke up with her—an awful mixture of sadness and anger—is forever burned into my soul. I was barely seventeen, just a kid.
At that age, love is fleeting. That’s how I know I didn’t really love her. If I did, it would’ve lasted longer. I didn’t mean to lie to her.
“Forgive me, Julia. Forgive me,” I beg in the dark.
Her body swinging on the goalpost, my struggle to try to get her down, the rest of the football team standing there in shock—I relive it every day of my life.
She’d come to see me, to try to talk to me. I thought she was just trying to win me back. I blew her off. I was seventeen, immature, impulsive.
Looking back, her hysteria wasn’t about me. It was about our baby. And I didn’t know.
Days after her death, her mother showed up to my house, autopsy in hand.
Julia was seven weeks pregnant.
“You were supposed to love her,” her mother screamed. “But your love killed her!”
She killed herself because of me.
I stood at her grave, knowing two people were buried inside.
“I would’ve loved you,” I whispered to my child. Then I promised both of them, “I’ll never say the words again.”
Love had cost me too much.
Our baby died with her.
Now I’ve lost another.
Another child I never got to love. Another mother I should’ve loved more.
I called Addison countless times after Kailey was released from the hospital. She told me repeatedly that Kailey didn’t want to see me. Eventually, she stopped even answering. I’ve considered showing up at Kailey’s door, but that would only bring more paparazzi attention, and I can’t do that to her. She deserves some peace. But not hearing her voice, or seeing her face hurts so fucking bad.
Music has never failed me. It saved me more times than I can count. It’s more reliable than a woman, more potent than whiskey, and packs a harder punch than any foe.
Music has saved me from myself.
It can take you back, or take you where you want to go.
Kailey’s where I want to go.
Where I need to be. Where I belong.
Turning on a lone light and picking up my pencil, I press it to the paper, writing two words at the top. The recording studio is dark. I’ve been in here for days, living only in this part of the house. It’s where I’m most comfortable. It has the fewest memories of Kailey.