Always a Love Song

by Charley Clarke

Alex, instead of reciprocating the embrace, turned away. And Bridget couldn’t hide from the truth any longer. Sooner or later, something had to give.

  Now

  Alex woke slowly, coming to with a deep breath but refusing to open her eyes. It was warm. The sun shone through the window and right onto the bed, warming the sheets, warming her skin. Her muscles were pleasantly sore. She was usually an early riser, but she could sleep for another few hours without complaint.

  There were better things to be doing, though.

  She reached over to the other side of the bed only to grasp at air and sheets. Finally opening her eyes, she sat up. The bathroom door was cracked open, and through it, Bridget’s bare back was visible.

  Then Bridget’s voice, low, trying not to wake her. “Pip, why do you need to know this now? Why do we need to talk about when I’m coming back to New York when I have a concert to play and an album to write?”

  A pause.

  “Sunday? God, Pip, that’s… That’s soon.”

  The conversation continued, but Alex stopped listening. It wasn’t really her place. Besides, she’d heard all she needed to. She’d heard enough to remind her of the reality of their situation.

  Bridget had a career back in New York. She had a home there. She didn’t belong in a place this small, this static and stationary. She needed vibrancy, excitement. She needed a city as energetic as she was.

  And that meant this couldn’t work. Because Alex couldn’t go to New York. She had friends here. She had a career here, and it was so much more than just taking care of her father’s business now. She couldn’t drop that to follow Bridget to a different state.

  Tears burned, but she refused to let them fall. Not yet. As quietly as she could, she scooped up her jeans and bra and grabbed a fresh T-shirt and underwear from a drawer. She tiptoed down the stairs and dressed in the living room, using the physical movement to keep her mind off the sadness that threatened to spill out of her like a tsunami.

  After filling Benny’s food bowl and topping up his water bowl, she filled the coffee machine and leaned on the counter to wait as it brewed. She’d had vague thoughts of making Bridget breakfast, but that had been when she’d only been thinking about the now. They both had futures to consider, and how could they make such diverse ones fit together?

  And as much as that made her want to run in order to protect her heart, she couldn’t do that. Not again. She wasn’t twenty-three anymore, terrified out of her mind by things beyond her control. She was an adult, and she was going to prove it.

  No matter how much it hurt.

  The coffee machine beeped. She poured two mugs and carried them upstairs, Benny clomping after her.

  Bridget ended the call with Pippa and let out a frustrated sigh. She wanted to throw her phone out the window. Or toss it in the shower and turn on the spray.

  Instead, she splashed cool water on her face, braced her hands on the sink, and regarded her reflection absently. She’d been laser-focused her entire career. She could afford a night off, even if it was two days before a big charity concert. Why didn’t Pippa see that when she was happy, she made better music?

  And Alex made her happy.

  The thought of Alex brought a grin to Bridget’s face. Time to get back to that woman. She could have another hour—or maybe five—of basking in this happiness.

  Careful not to let the door squeak, she shuffled out of the bathroom and into Alex’s adjoining bedroom.

  Only to find an empty bed, the sheets mussed and twisted. Shit. Alex must have woken up. The clock on the nightstand read a little after seven. Maybe she was making breakfast. She always did make the best pancakes.

  Bridget slipped into her underwear and rummaged in Alex’s T-shirt drawer until she found an oversized one. She was just running her fingers through her tangled hair in an attempt to tame it when Alex, dressed and carrying two mugs of steaming coffee, walked back in. She set one on the side table nearest Bridget, climbed back into bed, and chuckled as Benny jumped up and settled between her legs.

  Bridget’s heart warmed at the sight. Alex hadn’t run away. That had to be a good sign. Bridget perched next to her on the bed, legs crossed.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  “Hey,” Alex replied.

  Bridget picked up her coffee, sipped, and let out a contented sigh. Alex had remembered just how she liked it. “Did I wake you?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. That was Pippa on the phone?”

  “Yeah.” Bridget frowned at the reminder. Pippa might know what was best for her career, but Bridget knew what was best for herself. What if the two no longer lined up?

  “Today’s turned into tomorrow,” Alex said softly, staring into her mug.

  Bridget’s heart dropped. That was what they’d agreed to—one day. One day that had bled into one night. It was morning now, though, and things looked different in the cold light of day. “What are you saying?”

  “Your life isn’t here, Bridget. You know it’s not.” She said it without malice or hurt, just stating a fact.

  What if it could be? Her heart was split in two—Alex on the one side and music on the other. What did she have to do to stitch those halves together?

  Eyes watering, Bridget put down her coffee. “You’re saying you don’t want to give us a shot? That’s it? We’re done, just like that?”

  Alex set down her own coffee and gently nudged Benny to the bottom of the bed so she could face Bridget. “All I’m saying is, maybe the timing’s just not right. Maybe we need to think about what we want and whether we can have our careers and each other.”

  After taking a deep breath to center herself, Bridget crawled onto Alex’s lap and wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck. The proximity was intoxicating. For a moment, all she wanted to do was breathe in Alex’s calming, woodsy scent.

  “There’s nothing I want more than you,” she murmured.

  Alex closed her eyes. “You say that now, but will you still think that in a month? In a year? Can someone like you really be with someone like me? We belong in two different worlds.”

  “Someone like you? Someone who’s intelligent and kind and when she loves, loves fiercely? I’d be honored to be with someone like you.”

  “Bridget…”

  Bridget rested her forehead on Alex’s. “Why are you ending this before it has a chance to really begin?”

  “I can’t move to New York with you.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “So, what? Long distance? I don’t want to do that, either.” Alex pulled away to brush Bridget’s hair behind her ear. “I didn’t really think this far ahead.”

  Bridget opened her mouth and closed it again. Alex didn’t need to be persuaded to talk about it, to figure out the logistics of a relationship split between Pennsylvania and New York.

  Bridget brushed her lips over Alex’s forehead. “That’s not what this is about, is it?”

  Alex couldn’t meet Bridget’s gaze. Bridget kissed her, gently, two, three, then four times until Alex murmured, “Are you going to leave again? Am I going to be enough this time?”

  “Oh, baby…” Bridget held her tight. “We’re older now. We’re mature enough to make it work.”

  Tears glistened in Alex’s eyes. “I just… I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  Bridget ran her thumbs over Alex’s cheeks. “Okay. Okay, baby. We don’t have to rush this. We don’t have to decide this now.”

  Alex nodded and murmured, “Okay.”

  “We can talk after the concert.”

  “And before you leave for New York.”

  “Yeah. Before that.” Bridget twined her fingers into Alex’s hair, and she sank down into Alex’s lap. In this moment, they were the only two people in existence. She intended to hold onto
that. “Until then, do one thing for me?”

  “What?”

  “Kiss me.”

  Alex did.

  After she and Bridget parted, the morning plodded on, and Alex moved through it in a daze. This was for the best. It had to be.

  Was this how Bridget had felt when she’d left the first time?

  Her phone buzzed repeatedly, but she didn’t answer any of the texts, didn’t even open most of them. They were all from Lu, Jordan, and Owen, their inquiries about the date slowly morphing into outright concern at her silence. But she couldn’t face them.

  Couldn’t face the fact that the universe had handed them a second chance, and she was simply throwing it away. They couldn’t be together, and she never should’ve gotten her hopes up that they could. They were from completely different worlds now, led completely different lives.

  The likelihood that her friends would understand that was low, and she didn’t want to have to explain it, not when it felt like every thought of Bridget only cut her heart open again.

  So she hid. She hid in the back office of the bar and buried herself in the accounts, making sure everything was in order. It was. Everything was always in order because this bar and the brewery and the café next door were the only real things in her life. At the end of the day, they were the only things she had, and she didn’t neglect them.

  In the early afternoon, she had to stumble out for food. Once her burger and fries were up, she turned to head back to her office and got stopped by Owen.

  “Hey,” he said warmly. “You haven’t been answering any of our texts, so I came to check on you.”

  “I have a lot of work to do,” she said, moving to walk past him.

  He stepped into her path. “Well, wait. How’d last night go?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Alex, don’t do this. Don’t shut me out.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she said again, more firmly this time. Without waiting for his acquiescence, she brushed past him and into her office. She closed the door behind her, set the food on her desk, and sank into her chair.

  She didn’t drink on the job, but today might be the day she started.

  Instead, though, she rested her arms on her thighs and leaned forward until her breathing slowed down.

  This wasn’t the end of the world. Her life had fallen apart before, and she’d put it back together. She could do that again.

  Couldn’t she?

  Bridget Callahan had never done a walk of shame. She’d never needed to because her first major relationship had been Alex, followed by a period of singlehood, and then what she’d had with Patrick had been steady and unhurried. Even after her first single had hit the charts and she’d become a household name almost overnight, she’d never partied too hard or lost control. So, no, she’d never done a walk of shame.

  Until now.

  She could only hope no one would notice her walking down the street in yesterday’s clothes and post about it online. At least they were sensible clothes, and she didn’t have to toddle home in five-inch heels that were murder on her feet.

  The one silver lining in all this.

  As she walked through the front yard, through the kitchen window, she saw her mom bustling about. Thankfully, there was a separate entrance to the basement, which meant she could sneak upstairs and bypass the awkward questioning. Maybe she’d be able to pretend she got home late last night.

  She was less physically exhausted than she was emotionally, but she still didn’t go straight to bed. As loath as she was to wash last night away, it might be the only thing that kept her from shattering. So she stripped and tossed all her clothes in the hamper. Then she turned the shower to scalding and stepped in.

  The hot water relaxed her muscles without relaxing her mind, which was stuck in a loop of memories—Alex in the sunshine at the farm; Alex across the dinner table; Alex in bed, lips swollen and hair tousled; and then, this morning, Alex sending her away. Over and over again the loop played. Over and over again her heart broke.

  When Alex got something in her head, she didn’t let it go easily. How the hell was Bridget supposed to convince her they could do this?

  After thirty minutes, she forced herself out of the shower to towel off. She threw on sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt before crawling under the covers. If she had any tears left, she’d still be crying. Because she didn’t, and because she couldn’t fall asleep like this, she turned on the TV for background noise and scrolled through old photos of her and Alex until her eyes got heavy.

  Night had fallen by the time the door to Alex’s office opened. She looked up as her three friends stepped inside and lined up in front of her desk.

  “I’m busy,” she said dismissively. She was quiet, sure, but she wasn’t normally so outright mean, especially not to the few people who truly cared about her.

  Lu pushed her rolling chair, with Alex still in it, to the other side of the desk, where Owen and Jordan were pulling three other chairs into the room to make a little circle.

  “No. No, guys, I don’t want to do this,” Alex said, her voice bordering on whiny. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “We know, but this is an intervention,” Jordan said.

  “Yeah, you’re not supposed to want to participate,” Owen said.

  “I don’t need an intervention.”

  “I think you do,” Lu said.

  Jordan and Owen chimed in their agreement.

  Sighing, Alex slumped in her chair. “Fine. Let’s get it over with, then.”

  Jordan grabbed a paperweight shaped like a miniature dragon from Alex’s desk. “This is the talking dragon, okay? Since I have it, I’ll start. Alex, we love you so much, and we know you retreat into yourself when you’re sad. It’s exactly what happened before, when your dad died,” she said gently, “and when Bridget left. We don’t care if you’re with Bridget or you’re not or if you love her or you hate her. All we care about is you dealing with your emotions in a healthy way. We want you to talk to us, okay?”

  She passed the dragon to Lu.

  “Oh, um…” Lu said. “I kind of feel like that says it all, don’t you? Just talk to us, Alex.”

  She set the paperweight in Alex’s lap. Alex stared at it through watery eyes. Wasn’t this exactly what Bridget had hated, too? Her tendency to shut down, to run away and not come back until she had successfully bottled up all her emotions?

  And her friends were right. It wasn’t healthy. She didn’t want to be this person anymore. She didn’t want to carry around so much hurt that she had to push it down in order to function.

  She picked up the dragon and, holding it tightly in her palm, told her friends everything. She told them why Bridget left. She told them how she shared the blame. She told them about their date and how it had ended.

  When she finished, Owen leaned forward and asked, “Why don’t you think it can work?”

  Alex shook her head. “We’re not the same people we were.”

  “Of course not,” Jordan said. “In fact, you’re both smarter and more mature. I’d say you have a way better chance of making it last this time.”

  Alex’s leg jiggled. She couldn’t say it, couldn’t give voice to the fear that threatened to consume her.

  “Alex?” Jordan prompted.

  Without taking her gaze from the dragon in her hands, Alex asked, “What if it doesn’t last this time, either?”

  There was the crux of it, the reason she found it so difficult to open herself up again, especially to someone who’d already hurt her.

  Bridget wasn’t that person anymore, though. She wasn’t a twenty-three-year-old who thought running off was the best way to solve a problem. In fact, over the past few weeks, Bridget had shown amply that she’d changed, that she was sorry beyond words.

 
It was Alex who’d refused to forgive her, refused to forgive herself, really. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized that she, too, needed to change. She’d started to let go of the anger, but she still had a lot of room to grow. She always would.

  “You won’t know until you try,” said Lu.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said.

  “That’s okay,” Jordan said, rubbing Alex’s knees. “You don’t have to know right away. Just promise us you’ll think about it?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Good,” Owen said. “And when you need us, we’ll be here every step of the way.”

  Bridget woke to a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Max sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” he said. “I was getting worried about you.”

  “Wha’ time’sit?” she asked, pushing into a sitting position.

  “Almost one.”

  Shit. She’d slept all morning. The concert was tomorrow. She needed to be on top of her game, and right now, she was the furthest thing from. She rubbed her face. Her first instinct was to wallow. She wanted the comfort that came with wrapping a blanket around herself and burrowing into the couch and watching crappy reality television.

  That wasn’t what she needed, though. That wasn’t what this town needed. They needed a concert that would bring in money so they could pay their teachers so their kids could have decent educations.

  “Let me change into real clothes,” she said as she headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth, “and then I’ll be ready.”

  Max scrunched his face at her. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. We have a set list to finalize, three arrangements to finish, and I still can’t get the second verse of ‘In Another Universe’ straight.”

  Max grinned. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Then

  Bridget’s bags were packed, and her decision was made. It was the right thing for them. It was the only thing for them. So why did she feel so fucking awful about it?

  She zipped up her backpack and sat on the couch with Benny to wait for Alex. The rest of her bags were loaded in Ian’s truck, and he’d already left for their mom’s house. Her mom was being good enough to help her out by storing what she couldn’t take and agreeing to pay her rent until she got on her feet. She’d already found a place with three other aspiring musicians. In her head, this had been in the works for weeks now. And Alex had never wanted to talk about it. So now, Bridget had to force the issue.