I shake my head to clear the stifling picture and start making a list of everything that needs to be done.
I’ll have to call Jaggerd to take me to pick up Dallas’s truck from the airport. The thought reminds me that I want to see my grandparents’ RV. I’m grateful for Jag’s friendship, for having someone here to help with the mountain of responsibilities I have to deal with now that Papa is gone. As much fun as turning into a younger version of Mrs. Lawson while Gavin and Dallas go on tour seems like it could be, or possibly to jail in Gavin’s case, I’m going to do my best not to sit around and wallow.
I’ve never really thought much about what I’d do with myself without the band, other than my brief hiatus last year. And as much as my brother is going to fight me on it, and I know that he will, I’m not going back to Houston for fall semester. Life is short. My parents and grandparents are nonliving proof. Maybe my band doesn’t need me anymore, maybe it never will again. But I will not move backward.
I meander slowly through the empty living room. Without Nana or Papa, I feel like the shadow of a ghost haunting their house.
Folding myself in a shawl-style chenille throw that we keep draped over the back of what was once Nana’s favorite rocking chair, I peruse the pictures that have adorned these walls for as long as I can remember. When I come to one of me, Dallas, and Gavin at our first official band rehearsal in the shed out back when I was fifteen, I stop and run my fingers over us, passing my brother’s dopey grin, my own worshipful expression turned toward the boy on my left, and linger on Gavin’s smirking mouth below his soulful eyes. I move my fingers to my still-tingling lips.
Wait for me, Bluebird.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, with us, with the band, with my brother. But I have one memory, one solid piece of the past that I can hold on to and add to my internal memory box while I wait for the universe to help me figure it all out.
For one night, I held fire. And then a few nights ago, fire held me, too.
I thought it would destroy me, being that close to him. In some ways it did. But as I take a long, lonely walk down memory lane, I realize that the fire Gavin and I created has fueled me as well.
I will wait for him. Feels like I’ve been waiting on him for most of my life.
But I will not put off living for another second.
Chapter 32
“I’M GLAD THAT YOU CALLED,” JAG TELLS ME AS I CLIMB INTO THE metallic blue classic Mustang he and his father rebuilt when we were dating.
“I’m glad you were in the neighborhood. And thanks again for having your guys get Dallas’s truck. That was really sweet of you.”
Her grins over at me as we back out of my driveway. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”
“My hero,” I say with an eye roll. “So tell me about this RV.”
Jaggerd rakes his hair out of his eyes with one grease-stained hand. “Oh, you know. Standard American Coach. Kitchenette, bedroom, small bathroom. It was nice back when they first bought it, but it’s aged a bit. I checked around online. Might be able to get more like seventy-five for it these days.”
“I can’t believe they never sold it.”
Jaggerd gives me a strange look. I suspect he wants to ask what’s going on with the band—the one that I so easily chose over him. But thankfully he doesn’t.
“They put their life savings into that thing. Touring the world in it was their dream. Dreams aren’t exactly easy to give up on or let go of. You of all people should know this.”