Love in Smoke

by Holly Hall

  That voice.

  Those chords.

  I turn the volume up a notch, my stomach dropping to the floorboards as my fears are confirmed. There’s no mistaking that rasp, those painful lyrics. But it can’t be. He told me he wouldn’t . . .

  “Ooooh, precious little girl, too good for this place, too good for this world. . .”

  I mash the knob to turn the radio off entirely. Bile rises in the back of my throat, and the air in the truck suddenly feels stifling. Those lyrics . . . they were only meant for the two of us. I made him promise he wouldn’t ever release that song. Jenson often wrote about situations I’d rather keep private, but he had a way of stringing together words to create stunning verses that I never forbade him from releasing them. Until that one.

  “Hey, you okay?” Dane’s voice is like the crack of a whip, waking me from my internal panic.

  My arms are braced on either side of me, fingers splayed and tense, and I can feel my pulse all the way to my fingertips. There’s nothing I can say to make him understand; I haven’t even told him about the . . .

  “I’m okay.” My voice comes out gravelly, proving I’m not. “I don’t feel . . . I think I might be dehydrated from the hike or something.” I flex my fingers and lean my head against the coolness of the window, desperately trying to drag my mind out of the past. “I’m sorry to flake out on you, but can we take a raincheck on that bottle of wine?”

  I feel his concerned glances, but he doesn’t protest. He pats my thigh, giving it a squeeze on the last one. But I am numbed to everything that’s happening outside of my own mind.

  “Of course. I’ll save it for you.” He offers me a small, sincere smile. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  I nod weakly in response.

  The rest of the trip home crawls by, and before Dane can cut the engine in my driveway, I’m out the door. I don’t know what’s stronger, the pressing urge to vomit or to pass out. Maybe both, simultaneously.

  “Thanks for the, uh, hike, Dane. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow,” I call over my shoulder as I unlock my door. I barely have time to shut it behind me before I’m sapped of any remaining strength and overtaken by sobs that make it feel like all the breath, the life, is being squeezed right out of me. I sink down onto the floor in the dark entry hall, hunching over the pain in my midriff. The pain in my heart.

  Those words were for us to hear. Only us. Now hundreds, if not thousands, of people are listening to our suffering. They’re bearing witness to the most excruciating part of my past. And to find out like that—unwittingly, on a beautiful day with someone who’s hardly more than a stranger beside me . . .

  The shrill creak of my front door, possibly the only thing that could penetrate the sounds of my sobs and the striated layers of my thoughts, permeates the otherwise dead silence of my house.

  “Raven? You left your wallet in the tru—” Dane’s voice tapers off to nothing, and I don’t have a chance to pick myself up off the ground before I feel him.

  His hands are on my back, then they’re encircling me, pulling me to a sitting position and into his side. I crumple against him like wet paper. My emotional stress trumps any possibility of feeling embarrassed by the sudden outburst.

  Dane doesn’t say anything at first, just smooths the hair away from my tear-streaked face. I feel his eyes on me, though mine are closed. I couldn’t be more grateful for his silence. I keep my forehead on his shoulder until the initial waves of shock and hurt have passed and I’m left sniffling, filled with residual exhaustion.

  “It’s all right,” Dane says, smoothing back the frazzled strands of my hair. “Whatever it is, it’s all right.”

  It seems like nothing is all right. But something about what he’s doing combined with the tone of his voice is working.

  “Was that one of Jenson’s?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I reply thickly. I take a few deep breaths before going on. “That song wasn’t ever supposed to be released. He wrote it after we lost our baby. I had a miscarriage. His way of dealing with anything was to lock himself up in his music room and write. He came out one day and handed me the lyrics, and I felt everything all over again, as if it were brand new. We agreed to keep it between us.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep the oncoming surge of grief at bay. Jenson recorded the song himself using a music program on his computer. When he played it back to me, it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to listen to. Now it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to talk about.

  “And he didn’t warn you that it would be played on the fucking radio?” Dane asks, his tone twisted with incredulity.

  “No.”

  He releases a breath, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Raven. For what you’ve been through, that you had to find out that way . . . in front of me.”

  Sorrow rests heavily in my chest. I’m sorry for losing my baby, too, but I don’t want to discuss that further. It’s still a raw subject, and I’ve never felt so vulnerable talking about it as I do now with Dane. Everyone is so quick to offer their sympathies, yet slow to truly understand. The way he’s looking at me now, it’s like he wants to climb into my mind so he can witness just a fraction of what I’m feeling. Despite everything else, that warms my heart a few degrees.

  “I never expected to hear it so publicly, but it’s okay that it was with you.” A flush of anxiety blooms as soon as the words are out, but I force it away. I’ve been both withdrawn and smart-mouthed toward this man, and all he’s done is return my spiky remarks with kindness. A few smart retorts of his own, but mostly kindness.

  Using the hem of my shirt, I clean what I hope are the last traces of my breakdown from beneath my eyes. When I stand, Dane looks questioningly up at me.

  “Sorry about that.” I feel obligated to say it. What else can you do after you’ve bolted from someone’s truck without a word of explanation at the end of a date? I reach out to him, and he accepts my hand and lets me help him up.

  “You don’t need to apologize. Especially for that.”

  “Still, that was . . . probably the last thing you were expecting. Do you want something to drink before you go?” Although it was sweet the way Dane comforted me, this night is one I need to handle on my own. Dane is from a completely different era of my life than Jenson, and my baby that never came to be, and I’m not sure what to do with the overlapping of those two worlds. So I box it up like I do with everything else and shove it away.

  “I’m all right. Are you?”

  I laugh bitterly. “I don’t know what to do with this. But I’m okay. And I know you can’t tell from the way it ended, but I had a good time today. So thank you.”

  He smiles. It’s just an upturn at the corners of his mouth, but it still counts. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  As much as I don’t want to see the amount of concern in his gaze, I force myself to meet it. I’ve been running from feelings and emotions for so long it’s exhausting, and although I thought I would get on with my life just fine without them, it’s clear from today that I still have a lot I need to address. To poke and prod so that when the time comes, I really and truly can move on.

  I give him the strongest smile I can muster and nod to emphasize my next words. “You need to. It’s something I have to come to terms with on my own.” Not to mention he would just distract me. The freedom I felt today—being able to speak without restraint and without worry of being judged—perforates the sorrow I feel. It’s a nice diversion, but it’s just that: a diversion. At some point those suppressed feelings will return, and I’ve learned they only grow stronger the longer they’re buried.

  “I know. I just wish you didn’t have to do it alone.” He starts toward the door, then, thinking better of it, he turns and snags me with one arm, drawing me in and surrounding me with reassurance. I give in to it, my head landing naturally on his sternum while his chin rests in my hair.

  “Good night, Raven,” he says when he pulls away, just a hint of his melancholic smile
remaining. Before the front door closes behind him, he peeks his head back in. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

  “I won’t,” I say, but it’s swallowed by the silence.

  I’m hurting. Not just my heart, but my entire body. I feel soreness in places I didn’t know existed. It doesn’t escape me that that phrase is often used after a particularly strenuous round of sex, and I’m using it to describe how my body feels following what was essentially a long walk. I really need to start working out again. Maybe tomorrow.

  I stretch and, as my mind wakes up, pieces of last night slowly begin to reassemble. So much was revealed and admitted that I don’t know where to begin to process it. Then, the melody of Jenson’s song, “Skyward,” resurfaces in my memory. I drag my aqua-blue quilt over my head—something I bought to brighten up my mood. It isn’t quite working as intended.

  Betrayal nips at me, igniting my anger, but I don’t know how to react. I want to call my ex-husband and rip him a new one. I want him to know how much he’s betrayed me. I want to burrow into a cave and never have to face the ugly parts of my history again.

  It would be helpful to call somebody; someone who understands Jenson and I, and what we’ve been through. But Caroline and the rest of the traitors made it clear whose side they’re on, so asking them how to handle a Jenson-related issue is off limits. I feel a flash of regret that I didn’t stay close with my only college roommate—at least then I’d have a friend who wasn’t shackled to the memory of my ex-husband. Then I remember how she used to stack a week’s worth of dirty dishes outside her bedroom door and I’m over that in a heartbeat. Looks like I’ll have to do the next best thing.

  “He did what? Oh hell no. I would be livid,” Lynn exclaims. Calling her is the first thing I’ve done today; I haven’t even gathered the strength to get out of bed. Lynn skipped right over the niceties and went straight to sympathizing with my anger.

  “I am. Well, after the initial shock, that is.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear it on the radio like that. You have every right to be upset,” she says. Remembering Dane’s words of warning, I left out the part that I happened to be with him when I heard it.

  “Thanks. I just don’t know what to do now. Pay no attention to it to prove that I’ve moved on?”

  “Oh no. He has to know that even though you two might be finished, that doesn’t give him an excuse to go sing about whatever the hell he wants, especially with this being something you both agreed not to release.” Her voice has raised a few more octaves by the end of that sentence, and I feel a burst of gladness that I had the good sense to become her friend.

  I chew on my lip, weighing the options. I know deep down that a subject as sensitive as this needs to be addressed, but I have no desire to hear his voice again. It feels like a little piece of my heart that he still owns is dangling by a thread, just waiting to be sewn back up to the rest of it by his caramelized words.

  I know my faults, and one of them is compartmentalization. While it’s useful in some situations, it’s not ideal in relationships. I stuff what I’d rather not feel into a tiny box I can stash in the shadowy corners of my mind with the rest of the junk I’d rather not think about. There is no chance of reconciliation between us, I firmly believe that, but I did my best to shove my old life into one of those boxes, and I’m afraid of what would arise—the magnitude of the feelings that would be unearthed—if I spoke to him again.

  “Although I fully want you to roast his balls on a spit, I know there’s a sensible way to go about this,” Lynn says, though she sounds regretful.

  “Do you have any clue what that is? Because it’s difficult for me to think sensibly right now.”

  “Well, it’s important to get all your feelings across. There are two halves to every past relationship, and he should know better than to think he owns all your hardships. Let him know how it felt to hear that song come on without warning.”

  “Okay,” I agree with a sigh, though I’m dreading making this phone call.

  “And by the way . . . keep your radio off for a while. Probably forever. That song is playing nonstop.”

  I end up staring at my phone screen for an indeterminate length of time. An adult would just call him and get it over with. A super adult might set up a meeting in person. But I don’t want to crack a window into my past, much less open the front door and invite him right in. So I text him, like the coward I am, letting him know he had no right to release that song without my approval. I try to keep my cool, but my emotions get the best of me. When I re-read the message I’ve already sent, I cringe a little before finally settling on the idea that he deserves my reaction.

  My ringtone chimes repeatedly, signaling I have an incoming call, and I regard my phone through one squinted eye as if shutting the other will somehow spare me the blow of seeing my ex’s name on the screen. I don’t want to talk to him. I already decided that. I hit the button on the side to send him straight to voicemail, where my greeting has nothing better to do than listen to him and his laments.

  Sure enough, an alert sounds not long after to notify me of a new message. I glare at the notification, my mind bouncing between the options of deleting it, unheard, or listening to a voice that will drag me right back to the past.

  I press play and squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Raven”—a long sigh—“God, I wish you would pick up the phone. I never meant to go behind your back with that song, I just felt in my heart that I needed to release it. That it would help me heal. Things haven’t been the easiest since you left. I’m . . . well, I’m sorry you were unprepared to hear ‘Skyward.’ It was one of those things that happened so fast it was like I was in a haze the entire time.” That’s called being drunk, moron, I think before biting back my cynicism. “And I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me. Obviously.” A bashful chuckle. “Anyway, please give me a call back. I understand that I didn’t go about things the way I probably should’ve, and I would like to apologize properly for it. All right. Well. Bye.”

  Click.

  I wait for sadness to swell into the hole left where my heart was, but it doesn’t. What I feel is more like the ebbing pain of an old wound that’s partially healed. That’s good, I guess. Progress. But rather than cauterize the live wires of my anger, that voicemail only sparked them. He “didn’t go about things the way he should’ve”? You think? I guess some people can be fully in tune with their emotions while having zero perception of others’.

  My reflex is to call him back and let him have it, but I know that’s my passion talking. I’m not the only one who’s hurting, mourning the end of our relationship so soon after the end of our child’s life. The baby girl we never got to meet. I get it, even if I don’t have an artist’s heart.

  Instead of calling him, I just do what any other woman would do. I Google him. There are a few articles in the search results I scroll past, with headlines that are like digital pitchforks directed right at me. It’s strange that they don’t bother me anymore, but I guess there’s too much on my mind to worry that I’m still the scapegoat.

  Then, one headline makes me pause, one finger suspended over the scroll pad. JENSON KING SUSPENDS TOUR; CRITICS SUSPECT EARLY RETIREMENT. The presumptuousness of it does just what the writer intended: sucks me right in. I click.

  The adoring screams that have become synonymous with Jenson King concerts tapered off into apprehensive silence on Saturday when the country singer announced he would be canceling his spring performances in favor of seeking treatment for an undisclosed health concern. This news came just after he performed his new single, “Skyward,” for the first time. King became tearful during the last verse as he sang lyrics that alluded to the loss of a child.

  No matter how sentimental the moment, some attendees voiced their protests loudly and clearly, but more expressed their support and concern for King. “We came all the way from Texas for this show, and we would do it again in a heartbeat,” said Fallon Mckinney, a devoted fan. “His true suppo
rters understand that sometimes even guys like him come on hard times. We’ll be looking forward to his return.”

  When that return will be is unclear. As far as whether “Skyward” refers to the loss of his own child, presumably with ex-wife Raven Sutter, that continues to be only speculation. The couple finalized their divorce in December amidst rumors of infidelity. Jenson King declined to comment on the matter when we caught up with him after the show. Despite King’s impending absence from the live music scene, we anticipate that “Skyward,” as well as King’s recovery, will be met with nothing but support in the weeks to come.

  I skip past the burn I feel reading about my supposed “infidelity”—fucking lies—and focus on the words “undisclosed health concern.” So he finally accepts the serious threat his alcoholism poses. Now. After everything. That stings more than the rest. And because I’m more hurt than angry, I shove my phone into my bedside drawer and put off calling him.

  Despite the emotional downpour from the weekend, life resumes as it should on Monday. For once, I don’t resent the monotony—the coffee-making, the dealing with patients who’ve clearly been lying about their flossing routines, the chatty, invasive coworkers.

  But just as I’m leaving work, my phone vibrates almost angrily, knocking against the contents of my purse. A bubble of anxiety forms as I fish for it with one hand while starting my car with the other. Is it Jenson, feeling guilty? He should be. Or is it Dane, wondering why I’ve avoided him ever since he scraped me off my entryway floor on Saturday?

  I don’t want to face either one.

  When I finally locate the damn thing, it’s somehow worse than I expected. The name Serena glows on the screen—my sister. The one I “forgot” to call to update on my new, exciting life in Heronwood. Though it’s less about forgetting and more about avoiding. I consider blowing her off, but I know from experience she’ll only get more persistent the longer I evade her.