“WHO HAS YOUR BACK, GAVIN? WHO’S LOOKING OUT FOR YOU? Tell me. Tell me who holds you up when you start to fall? Who is there for you when you need them?”
You. I answer Dixie’s questions in my mind for what feels like the thousandth time. They’ve played on repeat in my head since I walked away from her on that damned porch. The answer is the same. Every time.
But I didn’t tell her. I should have. I wish to fuck I had.
“Garrison? Did you hear me?” Dallas sets his cell phone on the nightstand in our hotel room and lowers himself onto the bed across from mine. “Dude.”
I heard him. He said, “We’re in.”
The audition went well. Dallas sang the song Dixie had handed him when we left, “Better to Burn” she’d titled it, and it fucked with me the entire time. And now we’re going on tour. Without her.
I look up from the lyrics I’ve been reading. The ones that are breaking me apart and building me back up again.
“Yeah, man. I heard you. That’s awesome.” I offer him a halfhearted fist bump and he grins.
“There’s more. Since Afton Tate’s band joined up with the tour, more venues have signed on. Instead of three weeks it’s going to be six. And instead of a dozen cities, it’s going to be thirty-six. Thirty-six cities, man.”
I glance at Dixie’s lyrics again, then lift my eyes to Dallas. Dude is about to start jumping on the bed and squealing like a fucking five-year-old. Meanwhile I feel like the floor is being ripped out from underneath me. “Yeah. That’s great.”
“Stop bein’ all broody. They loved us. Kind of a big deal here, brother. Thirty-six cities. Hear me? Three-six. You and me. On a sponsored tour.”
His enthusiasm is contagious so I grin at him. But my Bluebird’s words are burning a hole in my head and in my hands.
Even her handwriting is beautiful.
This one goes out to the one I love. These words I wrote while trying to rise above. You’re the one I can’t get past—the flame I knew would burn too fast. Deep down we both know I’m a dreamer, looking for the hope in world of doubt. But how will we know what we could be, if we’re not willing to find out?
Something fucked-up is happening to me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s akin to having my ass kicked while on a bad acid trip.
Dallas stands up and rattles off some shit about flights and times but I can’t hear him over her lyrics coming to life in my mind. I can already feel the beat that belongs behind them. I rub one hand roughly across my denim-covered knee. It heats, but it would be better to set my leg on fire than hit something and alert Dallas to my five-alarm situation.
I’d rather have one night of finally feeling alive than to live forever holding everything inside. I finally get it, the other half of love. It’s pain and loss and all of the ugly above. And when it ends, and you wish we’d stayed just friends, I won’t be able to deny the truth. There’s no price I wouldn’t pay for you.
A mirrored reflection of her gloriously naked body in front of mine is permanently tattooed behind my eyes—imprinted as deep as the ink on my skin. It’s as if my blood has turned to kerosene and Dixie Lark tossed a match at me.
Every line of her song is fuel to the flames in my chest.
It’s better to burn, better to risk it. ’Cause I’d rather have scars than take a chance on missing this. I flew too close to the flame. Just couldn’t stay away. We ran out of time for playin’ it safe.
“Dallas,” I say on a wavering breath before clearing my throat. “We gotta talk.”
He stops his yammering about the tour and looks at me. “What’s up?”
My eyes fall to the paper in my hands. How it hasn’t burnt to dust is beyond me.
You turned my night into bright blinding day. Let me be the angel that chases the darkness away. We don’t have to live this life alone. You don’t have to keep doin’ this on your own. If when it’s all said and done, I turn to ashes, only ashes, scattered on the wind, it won’t change a thing. ’Cause given the chance, baby, I’d do it all again.