“He does have a great voice.”
I looked at Daisy, she was all sunshine and smiles. “And to think, I’ve had Noah Greyson sing to me before. It’s so amazing.”
The rest of the conversation faded into the background. For whatever reason, the thought of him singing to Daisy the way he sang to me made me nauseous. It was a slap in the face to realize something you treasured was absolutely worthless.
My stomach churned. I placed the nail polish on the table, pushed up from the chair, and walked right out of the salon. I was halfway across the parking lot when the bell dinged, and Meg called out for me. “Hey!” I kept walking. “What are you doing?” She grabbed my arm and I spun around.
“I just want to go home.”
“Hannah, you can’t let Daisy get to you, she’s…she’s…”
“She’s just like me, some dumb girl who thinks she meant something to a guy.” I rolled a shoulder. “I just, I just… I’m tired, Meg. I’m angry and yes, I’m hurt, but I’m really just tired.” I sighed.
She hugged me, and I let her, but I just stood there staring across the street at the people milling in and out of the drugstore. “Give it time,” she said.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I lied. “Just annoying really.”
She cocked a brow at me. “He deflowered you.”
“Okay, so I slept with him. Big deal. I would have eventually slept with somebody, right? May as well have been him.” I started toward the car. “He didn’t even know.” The locks clicked, and I opened the door.
“What? Are you kidding me? You didn’t tell him!” Meg stood a few feet behind the car with her mouth gaping open.
“No.”
“Jesus, Hannah. That’s kinda something you tell a guy, you know?”
“Like it would have mattered.”
She walked around to the passenger side and got in the car. I cranked the engine and backed out of the spot. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay.”
_
Momma was sitting in the living room with Daddy and Bo, watching some cooking show when I came in. “Let me see your nails,” she said.
“I didn’t get them done.”
“What? Why not?”
“Judy’s was too crowded.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I’m gonna go hop in the shower,” I said, heading straight up the stairs. When I reached the top, the memory of Noah carrying me up to my room flashed through my mind. I stopped, gripping the railing and taking a breath before I pushed the thought of him away. I had more important things to worry about. I couldn’t waste my energy on someone who wouldn’t waste theirs on me. I grabbed clothes from my room, and when I stepped back into the hallway, Momma was coming up the steps. She glanced through the banister at me and shook her head.
“Come on, sweet girl,” she said when she reached the top of the stairs. I followed her into her room and she closed the door. “Now, what’s going on?”
I shook my head. “I think I screwed up.”
“Oh, honey, we all screw up.” She laughed before taking my hand in hers. “Hannah, look at me.” She skimmed her hand over my chin. “I’m no fool. I know my time’s almost up, but you know what? The best thing about my life has been being a mother. So, please, humor me a little longer and let me mother you.” She smiled. “Don’t shut me out.”
I swallowed, my eyes watering.
“And don’t feel guilty for having a life outside of this… this sadness, okay? I know you, Hannah Marie. Don’t you feel guilty.”
I stared at the floor still fighting those tears.
She guided me over to the bed and took a seat, patting the spot next to her. “Did that boy hurt you?”
“I just misunderstood him, it doesn’t matter though. It’s nothing.”
She nodded slowly. “The thing you need to remember throughout life, Hannah, the prettiest lies can fall like honey from someone’s lips. Lying with your mouth takes little effort, lying with your heart… that takes a lot. You can say you hate someone, but it means nothing if your heart yearns for them.”
But he never lied. He told me I meant something to him, and I’m sure I did. I was the liar—I lied to myself. “He’s not the kind of guy I need.”
“Maybe not…”
She swept my hair behind my ear before pulling my head onto her shoulder. “You know, when you were a baby, this was the best feeling.” She patted my shoulders. “You fit right here on me, right on my chest and you would nuzzle up. It was the best feeling in the world, and no matter how old you get, it always will be.”
I closed my eyes, trying to burn this moment into my mind, filing it in that place where it would be safe forever, so when I missed her I could remember what it felt like to have her.
“Why make someone feel like you mean more to them than you do?” I asked.
“You don’t know what he feels, Hannah. You can’t. He’s just young. You’re young. Sometimes we meet the right person at the wrong time, but that doesn’t mean that what you felt wasn’t real.”
I laid in bed all night, thinking. When my brain hurt, I grabbed my phone and went to his Facebook page. The last picture he’d posted was from a month ago. A selfie of him on stage at Tipsy’s. I skimmed the comments, most of them from girls commenting on how attractive he was, how pretty his smile was. I rolled my eyes. One girl said she missed him, he commented he missed her too. Jealousy ate me up and I hated it. When did I become that girl? The one who doubted herself? The one stalking someone’s page and getting jealous over other girls? When did I become the girl who gave herself away to a guy who made Max Summers look like a saint?
When I fell in love with him, that’s when.
As much as I hated it, I loved him. I did. His smile, his voice—until I didn’t. As good as he could make me feel, he also could make me feel terrible. I was driving myself crazy second guessing, trying to make sense of every comment, every smile. Every post from a random girl on his page. The right person at the wrong time or the wrong person at the right time?
Noah came along at the right time.
When I needed a distraction.
When I needed to feel alive because I was surrounded by death.
But he was the wrong person for me, and as much as it broke my heart to admit it, I knew I couldn’t do that to myself. Loving a man like Noah Greyson was like putting a gun to your head while walking toward the edge of a cliff, one way or another, you were going to kill yourself. It was just a question of which way you would go.
I opened my Messenger and stared at the lone message from him. One message over four days. Just enough to say he tried, but not near enough to say he fought for me. You fight for what you love.
Maybe he did care about me, but if I really mattered that much, he’d fight, and if he was too much of a coward to fight, I didn’t need him anyway.
35
Noah
The three days I was supposed to be in Nashville turned into seven. Brice wasn’t full of shit after all. The guys had left the studio for a smoke break and I sat in the recording room by myself. I’d managed to get a new phone when I got to Nashville, but I was one of those assholes who never backed anything up to the cloud, which meant I didn’t have Hannah’s number.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the message I had sent her via Facebook. The little blue circle below the message had turned to her profile picture. She had read it, but not responded. Thanks Facebook for letting me know, I thought as I shoved my phone back into my pocket and grabbed my guitar. I strummed out the first few notes of the song I wrote for Hannah, closed my eyes, and sang.
Halfway through the song, Brice entered the room with a smile on his face. “Tell me that’s your song?”
“Yeah.” I rested my arm on the side of my guitar, fiddling with the pick.
Brice scrubbed a hand over his face. “You got any more?”
“A few.”
“We could get you an EP together.” He grabbed his guitar from the corner of the room and took a seat on the other stool, strumming out a chord. “Women would eat that song up.”
“I don’t know…”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Alright, let’s go over the last bridge again. Once that’s nailed, go back to Alabama and pack your shit. Your life is about to change.”
36
Hannah
The pharmacy was empty except for Martha checking her blood pressure next to the counter. A little boy came running down the aisle with an action figure clutched against his chest. Seconds later, a frazzled woman skirted around the corner. Shaking her head, she snatched him by the arm. “I’m not getting you that toy, Matthew.”
“But I wannit!” he wailed. I stared at the floor, trying to block it out. My nerves were on edge.
My phone dinged with a text:
Bo: What’s the difference between Yukon Potatoes and Baking Potatoes?
Just get normal potatoes.
Bo: What’s Culantro?
Cilantro, Bo. CILANTRO
Bo: You still in the pharmacy?
Yes
“Ms. Blake,” the technician said. I shoved my phone into my purse when I stood up. Martha’s eyes followed me all the way to the window. The technician laid the white paper bag on the counter. “Do you have any questions.”