by Ella Fields
Everett didn’t mind, and neither did the rest of the band. If you asked me, I saw through every loaded word of bullshit for what it was.
Hendrix, all of them, still wanted Everett’s input. Not only that, but they also wanted his presence. To spend time with him how they used to. Even so, Everett ran his own business, composing from our large basement for a variety of artists, movies, and even some television shows.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t doing what I loved, too.
Peeking out the shutters of the kitchen window, I watched the last drops of sunlight leak into the sunflower fields beyond the house.
We purchased the farm eighteen months ago when Everett noticed it’d come up for sale. The elderly couple who’d owned it had now moved on to a retirement village near their family.
We weren’t looking to buy a house. In fact, after living in the apartment for a year with Adela while I’d finished school, we’d purchased our first home. It was a beautiful, modern two-story monstrosity, and although I didn’t love it, I was grateful for what it provided. Our own space.
Yet when I remembered how it’d felt to step foot onto Sunny Nights, the name of our farm, before our wedding here, I’d shoved the phone into Everett’s hand, and said, “Make it ours.”
And so he did.
This home held everything our hearts needed to thrive—music, peace, beauty, character, and love.
My soul had never felt more alive or more at peace as it did when I drove down our dirt-packed drive or walked through our back door and took in the outside view, the crisp air sinking into my lungs, my being.
It was hard for darkness to seep in when nothing but light surrounded you. Yet things hadn’t been perfect, and I hadn’t expected them to be. But Everett had kept his promise.
He’d relapsed two years ago after I’d had a miscarriage. It didn’t happen when I would’ve thought it would. He’d been nothing but a solid pillar of support throughout the entire traumatic event, but I should’ve known that even weeks after, he could fall. Yet even when he did, he never left. He started attending meetings and began seeing his old therapist, Ted, again.
Now, he was content to meet with his sponsor should the need arise, and he made sure he saw Ted once a month.
Orange Apples were due to return from their first world tour in two weeks, and we were bursting to hear about their time on the road. They’d made it. They hadn’t been some overnight success, but over the past five years and after releasing three albums, their latest climbing the charts, they’d grown a following that was beginning to engorge their egos, and they were only just getting started.
The phone rang, and I quickly checked on Mason, who’d been coloring in front of the TV after dinner, only to find his crayons deserted, and the door leading downstairs cracked open.
Smiling, I rushed to grab my phone from the countertop, not expecting a business call this late and frowning at the unknown number.
I wouldn’t say business was booming, but I had enough to keep me busy. Still, I called them back, moving into the living room.
I sank into the couch as a breathless, “Hello?” hit my ears.
“Hi, sorry I missed your call,” I said. “This is Stevie from Sunny Nights.”
“Oh yes, hi,” a woman said. “I’m sorry to call so late, but work has kept me swamped, and I need all the sunflowers I can get for my wedding.”
“Congratulations.” Leaning forward, I plucked up a crayon and a sheet of half doodled on paper. Yeah, I ran a tight ship. “When do you need them by?”
I heard a male laugh in the background and felt my neck and shoulders lock. “Two months.”
I bit my lip, unsure, but positive I didn’t want to let her down. “I’ll have to take your name and get back to you, if that’s okay?”
“Sure. Did I scare you? Because as many as you can spare would be perfect.”
I wrote that down. “We’ll make it work. I’m just waiting for some babes to grow a little more is all.”
“Babes?” Her smile echoed in her voice. “I love that.”
I laughed a little. “I call them my other children. So let me grab your details and I’ll call you this time tomorrow?”
“That’d be great. It’s Darby Prince, and this number is best.”
My spine pulled taut, and leaning back, I tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Hello?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Sometimes we get bad reception out here. Um, that’s an awesome surname.”
Her laughter was pattering rain and butterfly wings, a chime that both lit and burned my chest when she sang, “It’s my husband’s. This is our second wedding.”
Unsure what to say, I blurted, “You don’t sound old enough to be getting married for a second time.”
“Well, this one is for his dad. We eloped last year.”
I blinked, shaking my thoughts away. It couldn’t really be… And then a muffled noise, followed by airy breaths. “Are you getting off this thing at some point tonight?”
“It’s your fault I have to do all this in the first place,” she said without a trace of scorn, only affection.
“Mmm, hurry up.”
“Sorry,” she returned. “My husband’s a dick.”
He wasn’t, and we both knew that. Smiling, I tried to keep the tears from my voice. “No worries. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
We hung up, and I stared, unseeing, for the longest time at the phone in my hand.
Happiness warred with agony. Relief muddled with regret.
Locked inside the bathroom, I slumped onto the closed toilet seat, listening to the sound of Mason clunking on the piano downstairs while years of pent-up guilt poured down my face.
He was happy.
He was married.
He’d returned to that someone who’d already stolen half of his soul, and he’d reclaimed it.
Wiping the wet from my cheeks, I headed downstairs and stopped in the doorway, watching Mason.
He’d left the piano and was now watching his father from the couch in the corner with curious green eyes as Everett scrawled in his journal at his desk.
Some people were stronger on their own.
Some people were stronger due to the people they surrounded themselves with.
I’d always known Everett was capable of the former, but all along, I’d also known deep down, I longed to be beside him when he flourished. Though to deserve that, I’d had to learn to accept him at his worst. I wanted to deserve him the way he so desperately fought to deserve me, and that was something I would never lose sight of again.
Everett Taylor had taught me many things during this roller coaster love of ours, the most prevalent of all being courage. When things get hard, you don’t run away, and you don’t give up. You plant two feet into the ground, remember the roots you’ve grown, the life and love you’ve nurtured, and you fight.
He was capable of magic. Not only due to his talent, but in the way he could still make me feel, even after all these years, like I was the only soul on earth worth knowing. His love revealed itself in his smile, his stalking eyes, his voice, his unwavering quiet strength and determination, and in his touch.
Souls were bound to knit to others. And where Everett was concerned, mine had stitched to his a long time ago.
We were never supposed to make something out of moments. We were always meant to build something out of lifetimes. And I couldn’t see us parting and thriving for long on our own in any of those lifetimes.
Even when we fought it, we were destined to collide, and we forever would until we quit trying to let go of something that refused to unthread.
He wasn’t his mistakes or his past, and I wasn’t mine. Like so many of us, he was a culmination of disastrous, wondrous decisions that’d made him exactly who he was supposed to be. The man he’d grown into was worth it all. The man he’d grown into was who I’d always seen behind those damaged eyes, and now that he could see that too, there was no stopping him.
There
’d be no stopping us.
In his torment, during the darkest years of his life, we’d found one another. Now, together, we wouldn’t just be happy, we would no longer hide or be afraid.
Nothing could haunt us anymore.
Sensing eyes on him, Everett dropped his pen, then turned and pinned me with his soulful gaze. His lips hitched, and he crooked a finger for me to go to him.
My feet carried me over the beaten wood flooring and straight into his lap.
Pushing some hair off my face, he furrowed his brow, and his mouth tightened. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, meaning it.
His thumb brushed over my still damp lashes. “Bullshit. You’ve been crying.”
“Hormones, and they’re happy tears,” I said, nodding for emphasis.
He stared a minute longer, then rubbed my five-month pregnant stomach. “You promise?”
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to his, hearing Mason snicker behind me. “I promise.” His mouth slid soft over mine, and I whispered, “Everything is perfect.”
The End
Enjoy Serenading Heartbreak?
You might also enjoy Bloodstained Beauty…
Fresh out of college and headed straight for my dream job, I didn’t think things could get any better.
Then I met my dream man.
In an instant, my happy ever after had begun.
The life I’d stumbled into was beautiful, and the man I loved was perfect.
But perfection comes at a cost, and I’d slumbered through all the alarms.
Then I met my nightmare.
The man whose bright eyes held untamed darkness.
The man who disarmed me with his peculiar behavior.
The man whose cold, merciless hands shook me awake.
In an instant, questions started to dismantle my happy ever after.
But whoever said the truth would set you free was wrong.
It wasn’t going to repair the cracks in my naive heart.
It wasn’t going to caress my face with comforting hands and reassure me it was all just a dream.
No, the truth shoved me down a rabbit hole, and I landed in the lair of a real-life monster.
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Ella Fields is a mother and wife who lives in Australia.
While her kids are in school, you might find her talking about her characters to her cat, Bert, and dog, Grub.
She’s a notorious chocolate and notebook hoarder who enjoys creating hard-won happily ever afters.
Frayed Silk
Cyanide
Corrode
Bloodstained Beauty
GRAY SPRINGS UNIVERSITY
Suddenly Forbidden
Bittersweet Always
Pretty Venom
MAGNOLIA COVE
Kiss and Break Up
Forever and Never
Lies and Goodbyes