An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(67)

He swallows. “Would that be so bad?”

Would it?

Vulnerability is a gateway to attachment. Once someone unearths all your scratched, damaged bits, there’s no hiding them away again. They’re just there, out in the open, every flaw and defect on display. You lose a sense of control—and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, depends on the person doing the unearthing.

It depends on how much you trust them with your imperfections.

“I don’t know,” I admit, nibbling my lip.

Cal sets his plate down on the side table, pulling Cricket into his lap. Leaning back against the loveseat, he shrugs. “One way to find out. Play me something.”

“What? Right now?”

“Sure. Sing me a song you don’t normally play when you’re performing.”

A song instantly comes to mind, but I’m gripped with hesitation.

Playing just for Cal, for only Cal, has my heart hammering in my chest. My ears are ringing, skin buzzing. My equilibrium feels wobbly. Singing this song for him will either have him running the other way, or it will connect us even more deeply, and I’m not sure which option I prefer.

The truth is, I like us the way we are. Safe, uncomplicated, tiptoeing just outside the edges of heartbreak.

And yet, my feet pace forward until I’m seated across from him in Dad’s favorite worn recliner. It rocks beneath my weight, still lingering with the scent of leather and smoky tobacco as I move into position and place my fingers on the strings. I close my eyes and tune the guitar, feeling him watching me. Studying me from a few feet away, though he might as well be right on top of me.

Unearthing me.

Heaving in a rickety breath, I center myself.

And then, I sing.

It’s a song called Can’t Go Back by Rosi Golan. I’ve never played it live before because it’s not overly well-known to the public—or maybe because it’s too well-known to me. It takes me someplace else. The melody is melancholic, a little soulful, nostalgic, and glum. Reminiscent of things severed, of things long gone. A past we can’t get back.

But it’s beautiful, too. Raw with humanity, steeped in emotion.

I let it all bleed out of me in painful rivulets of hope and regret. I sing for Cal, I sing for me, I sing for Emma and Jessica, for my father, for his father, and for all the things we can’t get back but can’t let go.

I didn’t want to cry, but I knew I would.

When the last note is strum, my cheeks are damp with tears. I inhale a long breath, my eyes fluttering open. Cal is bent forward on the loveseat, elbows to his knees, hands steepled and pressed against his chin. He’s staring at me. Staring at me, like he’s in a trance, like he choked down every chord and now he’s drunk on them.

I blink through wet lashes. My mother is standing to my left, her hands clasped across her heart. She’s also crying quiet tears, her smile love-laced, while the rest of my family gathers around her. Uncle Dan is first to clap, a sound that has me jolting in my seat, back to reality, away from the past. Everyone joins in the applause except for Cal. He’s still staring at me, hands now cupped together at his mouth while his brows furrow into a deep crease. It looks like he’s deciding if he wants to run away or kiss me, both options stealing us from the comfortable safe haven we were sheltering in three minutes ago.

Clearing my throat, I force a smile. First at him, then at my family. “Thank you. Sorry I got a little misty-eyed,” I laugh lightly. “That song means a lot to me.”

“You sing beautifully, Lucy,” my uncle says. “Straight from the heart.”

“Just like your father did,” Mom adds, wiping her tear stains on the sleeve of her blouse. “I know he saw that, sweetie. He’s smiling so brightly right now.”

My heart squeezes. Aunt Millie blows me a kiss before spinning around to finish piling her pie with whipped cream, while my uncle follows behind her. Life returns to its standard state of blissful chaos while I continue to strum guitar strings, and Cal continues to watch me like I’ve bewitched him somehow.

After a few moments of plucking aimless chords, I prop the guitar against the wall and rise to my feet. “I’m going to get some air,” I murmur, observing the way he follows my movements with only his eyes. Part of him is here, but part of him is somewhere else. He says nothing. “I’ll be right back.”

I traipse over to the foyer and slip into my boots, coat, and beige mittens, then slink out the front door. The lawn is sheathed in immaculate white, glittering under the lone streetlamp. It’s so quiet tonight. Mom lives off an unpopulated road, tucked way back in a wooded lot, making the world feel soundless. I wrap my arms around myself, the air bitter but calm. There’s no angry draft or howling wind; only a still, peaceful serenity.

As I gaze up at the skyful of stars twinkling down on me like fireflies at midnight, a weightless feeling fills my chest. That strange sense of déjà vu sweeps through me again, like it did not long ago when I left the sanctuary early to help Cal with inventory. The day I cut my hand.

The day he called me “sunshine” for the first time in years.

It’s a feeling of familiarity tied to nothing specific, like a lost memory I can’t seem to locate.

A warm, nostalgic tickle.

And in that moment, with my nose kissing the blue-black sky and my favorite song still vibrating through me, I decide that it’s Emma.