Girl in Love (39 page)

“Don’t go like this,” he whispered. “Don’t leave mad. Please don’t.”

“Okay. I’m okay,” she said, using both hands to push him out of her space. “I’m not mad.” She took a deep breath and used every ounce of strength to pull those old familiar walls back down over her heart. Indifference took the place of the hurt inside of her. Hurt was warm and soft—messy and yielding. Indifference was cold and hard—solid and tangible. Something she could hold on to.

Trace stood upright and opened his mouth to answer, but his gaze widened when she pulled back, as if he could literally see the transformation that was taking place before his very eyes.

“It’s just seeing you…and her…” she began, her voice coming out as shaky as her legs felt. “Seeing her reminded me of how we’ve been living in a bubble. The outside world doesn’t disappear just because we do. Your family needs you and I need to get back to the tour, so we should probably take a step back anyways.” She forced herself to swallow and look away from the torment filling his eyes. “Everything’s been so crazy lately that we haven’t really had time to think about what’s best for everyone.”

“Kylie, I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I don’t really give a damn what’s best for everyone.
You’re
what’s best for me. And I’m trying my hardest to be what’s best for you. But if you’re having second thoughts—”

“
Second
thoughts is hardly the right term.” She tried to smile at him but her mouth wasn’t cooperating and it resulted in more of a smirk. “More like we’ve been rushing into things without bothering to have any
first
thoughts about them.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t bail on me now, sweetheart. I hear the words coming out of your mouth, but you forget I know what’s really going on in that head of yours.” Trace pulled her close once more, and she held her breath so as not to breathe him in.

Her own words echoed around them.

Don’t do this. You don’t mean it. I don’t believe you.
She’d once begged him not to leave her. And he’d had to go too. She finally got it. Sometimes it was better to walk away. Painful as it might be, sometimes that was the only option.

“Well unless you’re going to explain what the hell she’s doing here, I guess we’re out of luck. I need to go, Trace. One of us has to be the grown up and finish this tour.”

He stepped back as if she’d shoved him. She flinched as well, knowing that had been a cheap shot.

“I didn’t mean that.” She wanted to hit something. “It’s just her…and you. And—”

“She’s a friend, Kylie. A good friend. One that I trust and have been through a lot with. That’s it. For the most part. But it’s not like you think. Not like what you and I—”

Kylie put a hand up between them. “Then tell me, this friend you trust, what does she think of us being together? And what are you going to do the next time you slip up and drink? Who are you going to turn to for advice? Let me guess, the good friend you trust and have been through a lot with. Who also happens to despise me.”

She couldn’t know for sure, but she’d be willing to bet Gretchen was a firm supporter of his decision to walk away from her last year. And she’d be damned if she was getting a repeat of
that
performance.

“You already planning my next rehab stay, Kylie Lou? Nice. That’s hard to hear from the girl who just gave my mom a big speech about her faith in me.”

His words broke something inside her. She was upset and didn’t want to keep saying hurtful things. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him when everything was already so screwed up. She needed space. Needed room to think clearly without him disorienting her all over again.

“I just…need some space, okay? Can you give me that? Please?”

His shoulders dropped as he stared at her with an unreadable expression. He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can give you that. If that’s really what you want.”

She leaned up and kissed him softly on the cheek, stilling for a moment so she could feel the rough stubble against her lips, could breathe him in one last time. Slowly, and without another word, she walked to her truck, climbed calmly inside, and pulled away.

But because she’d never really be able to move on from the natural disaster that was Trace Corbin without looking back, she glanced in her rearview.

He stood there with both hands on top of his head, growing smaller. Looking lost and alone.

Just like she felt.

O
KLAHOMA WAS
a lot prettier when you’d been gone awhile.

It blurred into sight as she crossed the state line. She had three hours to get to Oklahoma City and rehearse for tonight’s show. But she had a stop to make first. Two, actually.

Pride is Proud of Kylie Ryans,
the sign announced when she entered her hometown.

She’d heard about it, but this was the first time she’d seen it for herself. On one side was her formal senior yearbook photo. On the other was a shot of her smiling for the very first promo shots she’d ever taken when she’d signed up for Trace’s
Back to My Roots
tour.

It was like seeing two different girls up there. And then a quick glance in the mirror revealed a third. One she didn’t even know herself.

A brief lyric flitted through her head. Something about where you go when you don’t recognize the face in the mirror.

Home, apparently.

She rolled to a stop in front of her old house. A late-model minivan with a handicap tag was parked in the driveway. For a few minutes, she let herself remember.

Sitting on the front porch with her daddy, playing music, catching fireflies, and talking about everything under the sun. But once he was gone, that small faded white house with blue shutters had stopped being home.

She could practically see herself running out the door with nothing other than her guitar case the day Darla had thrown her out. Cringing at the painful words that had accompanied her eviction, she’d walked to work. Where she’d promptly gotten fired and hopped a bus to Nashville.

It felt like a lifetime ago. Or someone else’s life.

She placed her hand over her mouth to keep the tears from coming. She’d left that place and she’d found another home.

One with a man who might be more than even she could handle.

For reasons she couldn’t justify even to herself, she got out of the truck and approached the front door. Hopefully a stranger showing up out of the blue and saying, “Hey, I grew up here, can I come inside for five minutes,”
wouldn’t creep out whoever lived here. Or at the very least, maybe they wouldn’t call the cops.

Just as she made her way up the front walk, stepping over the cracks the same way she had as a kid, the front door opened.

An attractive middle-aged Hispanic lady looked at her and gasped.

“Hi. Um, so sorry to bother you,” Kylie began.

“It’s you,” the lady said, seemingly not surprised, as if she’d expected this random confrontation for some reason. “He said you might come by some day.”

“He?”

“We’re just heading out. Isabelle has piano lessons at the church,” the woman explained as she pulled a young girl in a wheelchair out onto the porch. “But if you’d like to come back later, we’ll be home in an hour or so.”

Kylie smiled at both of them, trying to cover her confusion. “Um, gosh, no. I have to be somewhere. I just… I grew up here and I was in town so…”

“Pride is proud of Kylie Ryans,” the lady said with a wink. “Yes, we know. I’m Marlena Gutiérrez. And this is my daughter, Isabelle.”

So someone recognized her then. Well, that made one of them.

“Is that really her?”

Kylie glanced down at the girl, who looked to be around nine or ten.

“It is,” her mother confirmed.

“She’s really pretty.”

Kylie smiled at the girl. “Isabelle was it? I bet you sleep in my old bedroom.”

“I do! The kids at school didn’t believe me until he put the sign up.”

Kylie glanced at her mom for clarification. Marlena pointed to the small wooden plaque by the front door.

Childhood Home of Country Music Singer Kylie Ryans - Official Property of the A Hand Up Foundation,
it read.

Below was some small print about restrictions on changes being made to the house, but the water welling in her eyes made it too blurry for her to make out.

“He’s a good man, that Mr. Corbin,” Marlena said softly. “You didn’t know?”

Do not cry in front of these people.

“Yes. He is.” Well, that answered the question of who had bought her house. She’d always wondered. And yes, she knew he was a good man, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t what the lady had meant. “And no, I didn’t know. But I’m glad this old house has so much love in it.” Kylie nodded at each of them. “It was wonderful to meet both of you. I hope y’all have as many good memories here as I do.” She turned to leave before her tears fell.

“Miss Ryans? Before you go, could you sign something for my daughter?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat once more. “Of course.”

Marlena dug an envelope and a pen from her purse. After Kylie had signed it, she thought about Trace, what he would do in this situation.

“Listen, do y’all have plans tonight? I have a show downtown and I can send a car…or a van. Whatever y’all need. Would you like to come as my special guests?”

It was ten minutes before they stopped thanking her. Kylie was pretty sure she’d made Isabelle late for her piano lesson. But it felt good to be able to do something nice for someone else. She could see now why Trace’s foundation was so important to him.

It reminded her that she was human.

But Marlena’s last words wounded her right down to her soul. After they’d told her they’d come to her show and that she was welcome in their home anytime, the lady added one last sentiment.

“He spoke very highly of you when he visited. Went on and on about how amazing you are and how much you changed his life, inspired him to be a better man. A love like that…” She paused to look at her daughter, and Kylie’s heart ached. “It’s special. And it’s rare. I hope my own daughter is lucky enough to find such a love some day.”

“Looks like she already has,” she said, nodding at the woman before closing her door so she could have her breakdown in private. Once she was safely in the cab of her truck, she gave up her stubborn battle and let her tears fall.

T
HE CEMETERY
was empty when Kylie arrived. She made her way to where her mother and father lay from memory.

“Hi, Daddy. Sorry I haven’t been home in a while. Life has been…interesting.”

It was the first time she’d seen the headstone Trace had purchased for him in person. Running her hand over the cool marble slab and through each of the letters of her last name, she let out a breath of reverence. It was beautiful.

Even her hometown was a reminder. There was no escaping Trace Corbin because her feelings for him, the impact he’d had on her life, was as much a part of her as her DNA.

She crouched down and admired the guitar etched into her daddy’s headstone before she sat between his stone and her mom’s.

“Bet y’all are surprised to see me.” She sighed, wondering if it was possible to pour her heart and soul out until she had nothing left. It was beginning to feel like it was. “I wonder if you’d even recognize me. Sometimes I see a stranger in the mirror.”

She watched a few small birds take flight in the distance. Then twirled a blade of grass around her finger as she collected her thoughts and tried to do the same with her emotions.

“I wish you were here tonight. I’d get you front-row tickets so you could finally see me living my dream. Well, our dream, Daddy.”

The sound of her own voice startled her. It was hollow.

Nothing at all like the way a girl’s voice should sound when talking about living her dream.

“I miss y’all so much. Floating around in the world with no family to speak of… feels like I hatched from an egg sometimes.” She shook her head at her own ridiculousness. “But then I remember how I learned to play guitar. And how Daddy always said I had your eyes, Mama.”

She wiped her tears from her face and leaned her cheek against the cool marble.

“They call me Nashville’s Sweetheart.” A small humorless laugh escaped her lips. “Pretty crazy since being sweet was never really my thing, huh?” Tremors began to rack her body from the inside out. “I just…I just hope you’re proud of me.”

Using both hands to brush her hair back from her face, she stood. “I met someone. He’s…well, he’s kind of a mess. We both are. But together it seems like…maybe we’re not so messed up. I wish y’all could meet him.”

She looked down at the two stones side by side, knowing this was probably not a place she’d return to. At least not anytime soon.

“I miss y’all—more than I can hardly stand most days. But I’m glad you’re together now.” She kissed her fingertips and touched each of their carved names before walking back to her truck.

She’d just pulled onto Main Street when she saw it. The ghost of a girl carrying a faded pink suitcase with a black guitar case strapped to her back.