by Julia London
Finally, somewhere near midnight, he texted Mia and asked her to meet him at Lookout Point the next day.
He didn’t hear back until almost ten the next morning. When?
Noon. I won’t be late.
True to his word, Brennan was pacing in front of the old bench at noon, thinking, his hands locked behind his head. Mia appeared on the path, walking up from the beach. She was wearing knee-length shorts, a flowing blouse over a tank. She had her hair tied back with a bandana. She looked like she should be painting. “The baby owls are gone,” she said when she reached him. “I saw them last week, hopping around, but now they’re gone, just like that. It’s like we imagined them.”
She moved closer.
“We didn’t imagine them. My God you look so good,” he said, surprised by the emotion in his voice.
She smiled. “You look pretty good yourself.” She touched his face, her honey eyes skating over his features. She frowned slightly. “Are you okay?”
He grabbed her hand and kissed the palm of it. He didn’t want to let go. Ever. “Yeah, I’m okay. I have some news.”
“Right.” She pulled her hand free. “You’re like the baby owls, you know? Hopping around before you leave. And then poof—you’ll be gone.”
He wished he knew some way to soften this news, to let her know how he’d agonized. But what was the point? “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I have to go, Mia. My mother’s life has been disrupted, and I’ve got people all over me, wanting things. I have a lot of work ahead of me that I can’t do here.”
Mia nodded.
“Chance and I had the opportunity to talk, and we’ve come to an agreement of sorts.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked, looking interested.
“He’s going to work with me on the film, and then we’re going back to the studio.”
“That’s great,” she said. But her voice and expression did not match her words. She looked devastated. “Well, that certainly makes things easier.”
He didn’t understand her. “What?”
“I’m breaking up with you, Brennan. Well, wait—I’m not sure I have anything to break because it was never really official,” she said, making air quotes around the word official. “But whatever it was, it’s run its course. I need to move on.”
“Wait, Mia,” he said, and grabbed her hand. “You don’t understand—I want you to come with me.”
“You what?” she said loudly, her eyes widening.
“I’ve thought a lot about it, and I don’t know how it will work. I mean, I’ve tried to figure it out—I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s going to be hard, and I might not be around much at times, and part of me thinks that I am being unfair, that I will ask you to come along on the ride, but a lot of the ride you might be taking alone.” Good Lord, could he make this any more of a mess? For someone who was renowned for heartfelt lyrics, he couldn’t seem to muster the poet when he needed to most. “But I . . . I love you,” he said, his voice catching on the word. “I love you, Mia, and I don’t want to be without you.” He roughly stroked her hair, frantically thinking. “I thought this would be so easy, this thing between us. What I’m trying to say is that you are easy, but life may not be easy. But it’s worth it, right? It’s so worth it.”
She was biting her lip now. There was still hope in her, he could see it in her expression. His gut twisted—with alarm and joy at once, because he did love her, and he wanted her, and although he was scared by how much he wanted her, his panic and fears about what would happen if he uprooted her seemed to fade into the background when he looked at her. Everything but the beat of his imperfect heart and Mia faded away.
He smiled.
Mia pulled her hand free. “That’s . . . that’s very sweet to hear,” she said haltingly, and Brennan’s imperfect heart lurched and shuddered. “But I don’t want to come with you, Brennan. This was just a . . .” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.
“A what? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying n-no,” she said, stumbling on the word a little. “Jesus, this is hard,” she said, and pressed her palm to her forehead a moment. “It’s time to move on. Everyone go back to their corners. You go on with your life and I go on with mine.”
He stared at her, disbelieving. He had just seen the hope in her eyes. Why was she saying this? “I just told you I love you,” he said, dumbfounded.
“I know.”
“Doesn’t that mean something?” he demanded.
“Well, yeah. I mean I am humbled by it, but I—”
Brennan jerked around. He couldn’t look at her if she was going to say she didn’t love him. The old wound of rejection his father had left him suddenly opened, and she had poured fire into it. He looked blindly out at the lake, his heart racing, his thoughts alternating between anger and hurt. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The glass walls were coming up, encasing the priceless jewels. He had to get out of there.
How he managed to collect himself from that punch to the gut, Brennan didn’t know. He turned partially toward her and took her in once more, biting his tongue. “I have something for you,” he said at last. He walked to the bench and picked up the plain brown bag. “This is for you.”
She didn’t move; it was as if her feet were glued to the place she stood. So Brennan brought the bag to her. Mia reluctantly took it and looked inside. She withdrew the painting of the red door she’d admired at the art festival and held it up. “You bought this?” Her voice was full of wonder that made the wound hurt more.
“I did. I contacted the artist. I wanted you to have it. For inspiration. I was hoping that when you look at this painting, you’ll see all the things you pointed out to me, and I hope that it inspires you.”
Mia folded her arms around the painting. “God, Brennan . . . I will always love this painting. I will always admire it.” She looked up at him. “But admiration and inspiration are not the same thing. You know that inspiration doesn’t come from looking at someone else’s work. It comes from living. From being out in the world and experiencing pain and heartache and joy. You have inspired me.”
He couldn’t possibly have inspired her in the way she had inspired him these last few weeks. She’d changed him—look at him, professing his love!
“Thank you for this,” she said.
“Is that it, then? You’re going to tell me I’ve inspired you, then walk away? You’re going to turn my world around when no one else could and then end it?” Maybe that’s why this was so excruciatingly painful to him—she had seen through his bullshit and called him on it. She had seen inside him, had pulled the man he was out of the ashes of his fame. She had picked up where Trey had left off, and he was going to miss her as much as he missed Trey.
Brennan felt at sea, riding roughly over tsunami waves of emotion he’d not felt quite like this.
“I wish it were that simple,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. “It’s not like I’m dead. We can still talk, can’t we? When you come back, we can have a drink or something.”
“A drink?”
Mia smiled sadly. “Brennan,” she said softly.
It was his fault. He should have told her. He should have given her the chance to bail out in the beginning with the truth, but he hadn’t. He’d been too selfish, too stupid.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “We’re better off as friends, aren’t we?”
Brennan relented then. He couldn’t bear it, and gathered her in his arms with a choke of emotion, kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, Mia,” he murmured into her hair. Sorry for being who he was, sorry for having omitted the truth. Sorry for ever having fallen in love with her. It was an unbearable pressure, this suffocation of his heart.
It hurt like hell.
Twenty-six
Mia was so dumb—why had she ever said they’d be friends? She should have cut it off at the head, ending it once and for all, but she’d been too heartsick to let go completely. And now, in spite
of her best efforts to put Brennan behind her, he was making it difficult. He insisted on keeping in touch, and Mia was too weak to stop it.
She wished he’d go back to his fame and stardom and leave her alone. And yet, she couldn’t stop picking up the phone. She hated that she wanted to hear his voice. She hated that she longed to know what he was doing. She wanted to get on with her life and stop living the fantasy of Brennan Yates.
He sent text messages and called. Sometimes, he talked about his work, and how hard it was to produce a soundtrack that hit all the emotional beats of the movie. Mia was interested, but when he asked her opinion, she responded sparingly. She’d say things like, “I always try and find the natural rhythm,” and then cringe at how absurd she sounded. Who was she to advise Everett Alden?
“Like, how do you mean?” he would ask curiously.
“It’s hard to explain,” she’d say, and change the subject. Because the last thing, the very last thing she wanted was for him to perceive her as a clingy girl. As someone who made up shit just to stay on the phone.
The last time Brennan called, she heard women in the background.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“A restaurant,” he said. “I’m meeting my agent in about ten minutes.”
She didn’t want to be suspicious, but she wondered if he and some actress or model was meeting his agent. But she said cheerily, “That’s about ten minutes more than I have!”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. Of course he was—he was used to beating off admirers with his imaginary stick. Hell, he probably had someone assigned to do that for him. He knew better than anyone that her life was not exactly a hotbed of activity. “How is work?” he asked.
“We’re almost finished with the north wing.”
“I meant your art,” he said.
Outside of her mother, and occasionally one of her brothers or her father, Brennan was the only one to ever ask. The question made her feel heavy. How was her art? It was dormant. She’d lost more than him, she’d lost the desire to paint. It seemed to have withered along with her heart when Brennan left. “The painting of the lanterns is almost done,” she said. That much was true. She didn’t say it had taken her two weeks to go back to the painting. She didn’t tell him that the red door painting hung on her wall, and that she looked at it every morning, every night, and thought of him. That she was trying, unsuccessfully, to replicate the use of light with her lanterns.
“I’ve made a lot of clothes,” she said, changing the subject. “I made an extra twenty-five hundred dollars this month.”
“Hey, that’s fantastic!”
She pictured him trying very hard not to laugh right now. That must seem so ridiculous to him, to crow about making an extra twenty-five hundred dollars.
“What would you think about flying out to LA later this week?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated, sounding annoyed. “I’d like to see you, Mia.”
As if that were an easy thing to do, to pay for a ticket at a moment’s notice and leave a job where she got paid an hourly wage and fly to the West Coast. “I’m kind of busy.”
She heard nothing but the clink of glasses and the sound of the woman talking. “Yeah, I’m sure you are,” he said, sounding defeated. “I just remembered I have to be in San Francisco.”
“Maybe some other time,” she said with a breeziness she didn’t feel.
“Definitely. I’ll call you. Listen, baby, I’ve got to go. Phil is here.”
Mia knew how this would all end, the phone calls, the endearments. She knew, she knew, and yet, she couldn’t erase that horrible feeling of anticipation, or the hope that every time he called there was going to be some huge surprise announcement. I can’t take it here, I’m coming back to East Beach! There was the undying hope that he would figure it out and he would come back for her, and they would have this wonderful life together. He would write music for big feature films, and she would paint and make clothes, and somehow, somehow, they would make it work.
Like that was ever going to happen. Mia had to pull on her big-girl panties and get over it. This was how it was with summer people. They flitted through your life and that was it—it was over.
It was over! Get on with it! Stop pining, stop wishing, stop believing you love him!
Over the next two weeks, Brennan’s calls grew fewer and farther apart. Mia found herself scouring magazine racks looking for stories about him. There were still a few articles about him living in a rustic cabin, but People finally ran a story based somewhat on truth—that he’d been here, at Lake Haven . . . caring for a sick mother. She couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Work at the Ross house eventually moved into the south wing. Jesse started dating someone from Black Springs, and for reasons that escaped Mia, he was very keen to share the details with her.
As for herself, Mia just put one foot in front of the other and kept moving through her days, hoping that distance and time from Brennan would somehow make it easier. She had more people wanting dresses, which kept her busy. She was experimenting with different fabrics that she found interesting. The thought occurred that perhaps fashion design was her true calling. She still had a strong desire to paint . . . but she’d always struggled to be really good at it. She didn’t struggle to make wearable art, and the fans of her work were increasing. The appeal of making the clothes was getting stronger every day. “You know what they say,” Grandma said one afternoon as she examined a dress Mia had made for her—a shift, with the big pockets that Grandma had requested. “When one door closes, another one opens.”
That seemed true for her art. But Mia didn’t know what the door closing behind Brennan meant. She wanted to ease the ache in her, but the more she tried, the angrier she became. Not with Brennan. Not with herself. But with Skylar.
Naturally, Skylar seemed completely oblivious to Mia’s hurt. She talked endlessly about her new friendships with the music festival organizers, thanks to finding Everett Alden right under their noses. She’d also kept up communication with the drummer for Whittaker. Damien, Daniel, something like that; Mia could hardly listen to Skylar talk about him. Unlike Mia, who would rather die than be a hanger-on, Skylar was more than happy to constantly text and call the man to keep her tenuous hold on him.
Mia realized she was irrationally angry with her cousin, and yet the anger was boiling, hotter and hotter every time she saw Skylar’s smiling face. Her anger exploded in the shop one afternoon.
It didn’t help that Skylar came in woefully late. She’d taken to coming in when she wanted, because Skylar never took any job seriously, and Aunt Bev didn’t insist that she take this one seriously. That day, Skylar excitedly reported to Mia that she was going to Seattle to a music event. “Damien’s going to be there,” she said, and leaned across the counter to whisper, “and we are going to hook up in a major way. The dude is hot.”
“Good for you,” Mia muttered.
“Sourpuss,” Skylar said cheerfully. “Hey, you should come with me!”
Why Skylar thought Mia would want to go anywhere with her was amazing in and of itself. But that Skylar couldn’t see how angry Mia was, or how she’d ruined Mia’s life, finally detonated something in Mia. “Yeah right. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the money to do that,” she said coldly. “And I’m not about to ask my parents for it.”
Skylar blinked, clearly stung by the dig. “Then call your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Mia shouted. “And if I ever had any hope of him being a boyfriend, it was blown the minute you ran your damn mouth!”
“Ladies, ladies!” Wallace said, appearing from somewhere in the back, his hands up. “This is a place of business, not a beer hall.” He put his hand on Mia’s arm, tried to force her around to face him. “It’s not worth it, Mia.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Skylar demanded.
“I know,” Mia conceded. “But I can’t take it. She’s been doing
this to me since we were kids.”
“Doing what?” Skylar exclaimed.
“Creating bad situations and then leaving me behind, that’s what.”
Skylar gaped at her, clearly stunned. “I don’t do that!” She sounded appalled and indignant and surprised. How could she be surprised?
“Oh no? You left me on the beach that night and you knew how drunk I was. You knew how Shalene felt about me.”
Skylar gasped. “You’re blaming me?”
“You left me, Skylar! You dragged me to that fucking party, you talked me into drinking that shit, remember? Just try it, you said, don’t be an asshole, you said,” Mia shouted, her arms flailing. “And then you left me. You create situations and leave me behind.”
“Oh dear,” Wallace said.
“I didn’t drag you to the Ross house. That was all you, Mia,” Skylar shot back. “I can’t help it that you fell in love with some guy who was doing a number on you.”
Mia’s heart began to pound with hurt. Skylar had hurt her feelings, but it was more than that—what Skylar said was true. She’d fallen in love with a guy, the wrong guy, and it had done a number on her. “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “But you dragged the world up there, didn’t you.” It was not a question.
“All right, that’s enough!” Wallace said sternly, stepping in between them. “If you’re going to fight, take it to the alley!”
Skylar was furious—Mia could see it in her gaze. But slowly the anger and indignation faded away into an expression of disbelief. “Jesus, Mia,” she said, her voice softer. “You didn’t think Everett Alden was actually going to stick around for you, did you?”
Mia couldn’t speak. She was so angry, so hurt, and on the verge of tears. Of course she didn’t. If she’d believed that, she wouldn’t have broken it off, would she?
“Oh my God, you did,” Skylar said, her voice full of amazement.
“For heaven’s sake, Skylar, do you ever know when to stop?” Wallace snapped. He put his arm around Mia’s shoulders.