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If I kissed him again, I wondered if I could hear all the ways he could describe me. If I was poetry, what kind? If I was in motion, what shape?

So I pressed my mouth against his to seek those answers and got lost in the sound.

SASHA AND I looked at the jumble of chords and lyrics, scratched out and erased and written over. It was done. Or at least so incredibly close. We sat together on the bench, thighs touching. I wasn’t sure if we wanted to be so close because of how comfortable we felt with each other, or because …

“I can barely hear you anymore,” Sasha murmured.

I played with my pen in my hand. “I think all we need is to name it. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a beautiful song,” he replied. And, distantly, I heard him think, “Like you.”

I’d miss that the most. The asides in his head, never knowing if he meant for me to hear them or if I simply intercepted them through happenstance. I liked to think the latter. That even when I no longer lingered in his head, he still thought them. If only to himself.

I held the pen out to him. “Do you want to do the honors?”

He looked down at the ballpoint, and then pushed it back to me. “You’ll come up with something better.”

I couldn’t have done this without you.

“Lies,” he replied. “You’ve done this a dozen times before.”

Written songs, yes. But not like this. Not with this sort of experience, this sort of emotion. I’d written songs for the better half of a decade, but none of them reached so far down into my soul and burrowed there. Not like this one.

I wasn’t sure there would ever be another like it.

But I did know, at least, that I could still write. With a little help, and a little faith, and a little love—I could do anything.

And maybe that meant I could do something new.

I fiddled with my pen again. “Sasha, I’ve been thinking—”

His stomach made a noise. He blushed, grinning with embarrassment. “How about I cook something for you? How do you like your eggs?” He pushed himself off the bench, whatever I was about to say lost in the moment.

“Scrambled,” I replied. I could tell him later.

“Coming right up,” he replied, disappearing into the kitchen.

I stayed on the bench, twirling my pen between my fingers, reading over the song, hearing it full and fleshed out in my head.

It was a good song, I thought.

“It’s a great song,” he corrected me, though his voice was fainter still.

His confidence made me smile. Maybe I should go in and help him with breakfast. I wasn’t sure I trusted a pop star to not burn the toast—

My phone began to vibrate on the top of the piano.

I reached for it, and looked at the caller ID.

It was Rooney, my manager. And suddenly my life in LA came back with a snap , like a rubber band pulled too far.

Dread clawed at my stomach. I didn’t have to answer it, but what if Rooney was calling with something important? Shit.

“Bacon?” Sasha asked.

Um—sure.

I answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Oh, thank god ,” she started excitedly. “Are you sitting down?”

I did, on the edge of the bench. “Now I am … what’s so important you’re calling at—what—six in the morning from LA?” I added, doing quick math in my head.

“You know I’m an early bird,” she replied offhandedly. “And I didn’t check my email last night, though I knew I should have. Are you ready for this?” Before I could answer, she continued, “We heard from Willa’s team, and she’s been asked to perform at the VMAs. With the song.”

“‘If You Stayed’?”

“That’s the one, Jo.” She sounded so proud.

I was silent, stunned. For a few days, I’d sort of forgotten about—well—all of it. My career. Who I was. The world at large.

“How do you like your toast?” Sasha asked.

I—I don’t know , I replied. It was hard to think it to him, my brain loud and spiraling. Holy shit. Willa Grey was going to perform ‘If You Stayed’ on an awards show . That had never happened before. I didn’t care how I took my toast in this moment.

“I know, I know, a year late, but whatever, it’s the Chappell Roan of it all,” Rooney went on. “It’s amazing , and I’m sure this might also mean a nom for you … Maybe, I don’t know, Song of the Year? It’s too early but I smell something good on the horizon!”

I sucked in a sharp breath. My heart skipped. “Oh. Oh my god?”

“And,” she went on, “this is the perfect setup and spike for the Grammys.”

Of course it was. This was good—no, this was better than good.

This was perfect. Exactly what I wanted.

Even with my stomach turning sickly. It was sickly in a good way, I told myself.

This was full steam ahead. This was what my career needed.

I’d been nominated for a Grammy before, but maybe I’d win this time? This was …

“Holy shit,” I said, pulling my hand through my hair. “Holy shit, I can’t believe this is real.”

“As real as it comes, Jo. How’re you feeling?”

“Overwhelmed,” I replied truthfully.

She laughed. “You deserve it. We’ll talk more about it when you get back. Getting some good relaxation in over your vacation? How’s your mom?”

Questions I didn’t want to answer. Especially Mom. Especially now. I had started to mull over never going back to LA, but now … I couldn’t pass up these opportunities. I couldn’t .

“I just finished a song, actually,” I said instead, glancing at the notebook pages.

“Bird?” Sasha asked, but I barely heard him.

Rooney cheered. “Oh, good! I knew going back home would shake you out of your funk! When’s the soonest you can send it to me? What is it? We have artists already champing at the bit …”

I hesitated. Oh. “Well, actually, I think it might already be spoken for …”

She sighed, and I could just see her rolling her eyes. She sounded like she was somewhere busy—car horns blared in the background, people chatted, a city in motion. “Look, if Willa Grey wants it, she has to talk with her manager and they have to come back to us with a better offer—”

“It’s not Willa.”

That surprised her. “ Oh? Then whoever it is has no say.”

“No, he does—I kind of wrote it with him.”

“ Him? ” She sounded curious. “Okay, this is new for you … I’ll bite: Who?”

“Sebastian Fell.”

“Ah …”

I hesitated, chewing on my bottom lip. “What’s wrong?”

“That is not what I expected, honestly. I haven’t heard that name in years!”

“I know. We kinda bumped into each other and one thing led to another and …” I waved my hand in the air. “Stuff happened. But it’s good. I promise it’s good. I can send it to you.”

“And you’re excited?” she asked.

“I am.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Rooney?”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” And on her end, there was some shifting and muttering. I twirled my finger around my hair nervously. What if she didn’t like this idea? What if it was a bad career move? What if—“So, do you think a cowriting agreement?” she asked.

The worry that had twisted in my chest unwound with relief. “I can do that?”

“Sure, why not? He wants cowriting credit, right? And I assume he’d want to perform the song. Obviously we’ll have stipulations with how long he’ll have the exclusive, but …” I could hear the shrug in her voice. “I don’t know how, but he got you writing again. That’s all I care about, Lark.”

I wanted to melt to the floor, I was so relieved.

“Who are you talking to?” Sasha’s worry rippled through his words.

Rooney called , I reported excitedly.

“Rooney … Rooney Tarr?”

We have a plan, don’t worry.

“In the meantime, I’ll mock up a cowriter agreement and send it over just for legal. Is his father in on it, too?”

“That has-been?” I said, tongue in cheek, because it was a song for Sasha and me. No one else. “He’ll never touch this song.”

Rooney cackled. “What’s the title? For the contract.”

I froze. It was the last thing we had to do. The final touch. I looked at the notebook again, chewing on my bottom lip. Sasha said that I could name it, but …

I hesitated. If this was the last piece of this song, and if we finished it after this, would his thoughts go away? Would he? I scanned the lyrics, looking for something we could use for now. It didn’t have to be final.

“Bird?” I heard Sasha call again, his voice so small I almost couldn’t hear him at all. “I don’t think I want to—”

My gaze fell on a lyric.

And so I told her.

It was like a red string snipping in two. One moment he was there, warm and comforting and golden in the back of my head, and then the next he was gone. A light switch turned off. A bulb shattered.

No , I thought.

No, no, no—

“Ooh, I love it! A much stronger title than your last one. You just keep getting better and better. I’m glad you’re writing again, Joni,” she added, sounding sincere.

I barely heard her over the silence in my head.

The resounding, awful silence. “You have so much talent. I’m glad people finally see it. More soon, ta !”

She hung up. I sat there, at the piano bench, staring at the doorway to the kitchen. That same terrible, chest-tightening panic started to settle in again, the kind that clawed at my throat. The kind that I couldn’t push down anymore.

Breathe , I told myself.

My head was so empty.

Breathe—

Sasha appeared around the corner, and came into the doorway, and didn’t move. He simply stood there, looking lost and confused and—

Heartbroken? Was that the look? I didn’t know, I couldn’t feel his thoughts anymore, I couldn’t puzzle out his emotions—

“What did you name it?” he asked, his voice raw.

My heart leapt into my throat. I could hear the loss there, just like in my own voice. A dazed kind of shock. I stood from the bench and moved through the living room toward him. My mouth trembled.

This was good, right? This was what we wanted.

But then …

Why did …

Somehow, over the weeks, he’d become the first person I wanted to talk to in the morning, and the last person I wanted to tell good night.

I realized like a lightning strike—I didn’t want him out of my head.

And it was too late.

“Hey,” he said gently, dislodging himself from the doorway and making up the distance in the living room to me. He cupped my face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away the tears on my cheeks. I hadn’t even realized I’d started to cry. I just felt—I felt—

Nothing.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeated, and bent to kiss my forehead. “It’s okay.” He muttered it into my hair, consoling me, though he sounded a thousand miles away. I burrowed my face into his chest, but I couldn’t get close enough. I wanted to and I couldn’t. “Good job. You did good.”

Then why did it feel like I had suddenly lost a piece of me?