But I guess when you loved someone, you were willing to accept all the pieces and factors and fragments that made them up, the sum of those adding up to the whole, and you were left with no choice but to wholly accept the total of that creation.
And in the end, I’d been completely willing to accept everything that amounted to Sebastian Stone, to face what it may bring, as long as it meant I got to be with him.
Funny how Sebastian had helped me overcome one of my greatest fears without him even knowing it.
The night passed in a blur. Emily’s soothing voice was really the only thing I could decipher. The rest of the sounds were just barely acknowledged—words, nods, and forced chitchat, motions meant to get me by.
Whether I felt up to it or not, I had a job to do, and Charlie had stood beside me for so many years, supporting and protecting and encouraging, and I wasn’t about to let him down now.
Each time I approached the bar, he watched me with that gentle fatherly concern, and each second I adored him a little more.
Each moment I respected Tamar a little more, too.
Because while they’d been the ones to issue me cautions, telling me to be careful when I’d just turned around and endeavored to be the most reckless I’d ever been in my life, neither of them did anything but continue in that support, as silent as it was, because I couldn’t bear to answer their questions.
They really didn’t need answers anyway, because they were obvious enough.
Sebastian was gone and I was not okay.
Two days ago when I’d fallen apart in my kitchen, I’d accepted it, but I realized now that in time, that sharp ache would fade and become a permanent part of me, those feelings dulled and blunted, though somehow they would remain just as significant.
I’d also resolved I would never regret loving him. Maybe it was foolish, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t right, and I’d found myself certain that all those scars he’d left me with might become precious after all. Because I was clinging to every memory as if it were a receding wave, toiling and struggling to stay afloat in the murky waters that threatened to sweep me away in the undertow.
While my face remained just above the surface.
Where I brushed on beauty and light and life.
Refilling my tray with another round of drinks at the bar, I angled back into the crowd where I delivered them, then set my tray on a table that had recently been abandoned, a slew of empties of all different sizes piled on the high-top table. Carolina George was playing my favorite song, the one that gripped me with melancholy, the one I always felt compelled to sing along to under my breath.
But tonight…tonight while I cleaned that table with my back to the stage, I felt my mouth moving, the words slipping free. No one could hear me above the riot of noise, anyway, but there was something freeing in the form. Freeing in the fact that I was letting myself go.
That gorgeous song trailed off in its somber finale while I slowly swayed, lost in it, lost in the power that struck like a chord in the dense air.
Emily spoke into the mic. “We’re going to take a short break and we’ll be right back with you.”
Applause lifted around me, and I ducked my head as if it would make me invisible, taking the time to tuck that feeling back deep inside my chest. I tossed a rag to the table, wiping it down while a rush of energy stirred through me.
A clamor took over at the stage, spilling over into the crush of people who gathered at its foot. The high-pitched screech of feedback from a speaker set up on the stage sent my nerves racing, the confused rustle of bodies setting me on edge.
At the mic, a throat was cleared. Deep. Deep. Deep. I realized the sound had hit my ears, but really I felt it. Felt all that strange intensity sucking the air from the room, rippling as a billow of curious energy through the crowd before it powered into me.
Chills lifted at the nape of my neck with the light strum of a guitar.
Words came rough where they were muttered into the mic. “Forgive me for stepping in this way, but I have something I’ve got to say.”