Page 126 of Stolen Harmony

“I should go,” he said again, and this time he meant it.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough with tears I was too proud to shed in front of him. “You should.”

He left without another word, without looking back, without giving me anything to hold onto except the memory of a perfect day.

When the door shut behind him, the silence that rushed in felt different from any quiet I'd experienced before. Not peaceful, not restful, but hollow, like all the sound had been sucked out of the world along with whatever hope I'd been stupid enough to nurture.

Roxie emerged from wherever she'd been hiding during the confrontation, picking her way carefully across the floor to wind around my legs. Her purr was a comfort, but it couldn't fill the space that Elias had left behind, couldn't ease the ache that had settled in my chest like a stone.

I sank onto the couch, pulled her into my lap, and tried to understand what had just happened. This morning I'd woken up to a text that had felt like possibility. Tonight I was sittingalone in my apartment, listening to the echo of words that had torn apart something I'd barely begun to understand.

My jacket was still draped over the chair where I'd thrown it, and I could see the corner of the envelope peeking out from the pocket. The letter. My mother's letter that I'd been carrying around like a talisman, too afraid to open, too afraid to throw away.

I reached for it with trembling fingers, the paper soft from being carried close to my heart for days. Maybe Elias was right about everything—maybe I was too damaged, too young, too much of a disaster for anyone to love. But at least I could hear it from her. At least I could know what she'd really thought of me before she died.

The envelope tore easily, the paper inside unfolding like a secret I'd been keeping from myself.

My dearest Rowan,

I know I haven't been the mother you deserved. I know I made mistakes when you were young, chose my own hurt feelings over what you needed from me. I know saying sorry doesn't fix twenty-five years of distance.

But I'm getting married next month to a good man named Elias, and it's made me think about family, about the people we choose and the ones we're born to love. I want you to meet him. I want you to see that I'm happy, that I've learned how to build something lasting.

I want you to know that not a day goes by that I don't think about you, don't wonder what kind of music you're making, what kind of man you've become. I'm proud of you, son. I always have been, even when I was too stubborn or too hurt to say it.

Elias asks about you sometimes. He wants to know what you're like, what makes you laugh, what your favorite songs are. He wants to be part of your life, not as a replacement for your father, but as someone who loves the woman who raised you and wants to understand what made her so proud.

We dream about having you visit, about playing music together, about becoming the family I always wanted us to be but never knew how to create. It's not too late, is it? To start over? To try again?

I love you. I never stopped loving you, not for one single day.

Mom

By the time I finished reading, I was sobbing. Not the angry tears I'd shed when Elias left, but something deeper, more broken. Because here it was, everything I'd needed to hear for two years, written in her careful handwriting. She'd loved me. She'd been proud of me. She'd wanted me to meet Elias, wanted us to be a family.

Elias asks about you sometimes. He wants to know what you're like, what makes you laugh, what your favorite songs are.

And now I was homeless again, adrift in a world that felt too big and too small at the same time, carrying the weight of another failed connection, another person who'd decided I wasn't worth the trouble.

Chapter 24

Dissonance

Rowan

The suitcase lay open on my bed like a mouth waiting to swallow what was left of my life in Harbor's End.

I moved through the apartment in jerky, mechanical bursts—grabbing shirts from the closet, shoving them into the case without folding, pulling books from shelves and letting them fall where they would. The rhythm was frantic, desperate, like if I just moved fast enough I could outrun the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

Roxie sat on the windowsill, green eyes tracking my movements. Every few minutes she'd meow, soft and questioning, as if asking why I was destroying the small sanctuary we'd built together.

“I know, girl,” I muttered, stuffing socks into corners of the suitcase. “I know it's fucked up. But we can't stay here.”

My hands were shaking as I reached for the acoustic guitar in the corner—the one my mother had bought me when I was sixteen, the one that had traveled with me from Harbor's End to New York and back again like some kind of musical boomerang. The case was scuffed and covered with stickersfrom venues I'd played, dreams I'd chased, hopes that had turned to dust.

I couldn't fit it in the suitcase. Couldn't carry everything at once, which seemed like a metaphor for my entire fucking life.

The packing had started as purposeful action, a way to channel the rage and heartbreak into something concrete. But now, an hour in, I was exhausted. The apartment looked like it had been ransacked, clothes and books scattered across surfaces, half my possessions still homeless while the suitcase remained stubbornly finite.