Always a Love Song Read online

  “Oh.” Bridget’s gaze dropped. “So…my mom didn’t ask you to look for me?”

  “Why would she?”

  Bridget shrugged, clearly embarrassed. “I needed some time to think.”

  Alex nodded, understanding despite the words left unsaid. She shoved her hands into her pockets. For the first time since Bridget had returned, she didn’t feel completely unbalanced. Only mostly.

  Before she could think up a way to extract herself from the situation, Bridget said, “Talk with me?”

  Alex licked her lips. Last time they’d tried that, it hadn’t turned out so well. This was different, though, wasn’t it? They weren’t so conscious of Bridget’s family right inside the house, and somehow, here in this theater, the past wasn’t so much a monstrous specter than it was an old, neglected friend.

  “Five minutes,” Bridget said, voice cracking. “All I’m asking for is five minutes.”

  She could do five minutes. With a nod, Alex followed her to the stage, where they sat on the steps, the light between them. Alex sniffed and rested her arms on her knees. They had to clear the air eventually. Maybe the sooner they did that, the sooner Bridget could go back to her real life. That would be better for both of them.

  Wouldn’t it?

  “Do you remember the first time we kissed?” Bridget asked.

  Something squeezed Alex’s heart. “Of course I do.” How could she forget one of the defining moments of her life?

  “This feels a lot like that.”

  “That’s just because we’re in the same place.” It wasn’t anything more than that.

  “It means something, though, doesn’t it? That we both showed up here tonight?”

  Alex rubbed her eyes. “No, Bridget, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a coincidence.” They were two of a handful of people who even knew the theater could still be accessed.

  Bridget’s sigh was too loud in the empty theater. “Why do you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  Bridget gestured erratically. “Act like I meant nothing to you. Act like we don’t have years of history.”

  Because you broke my heart, Alex wanted to say, but she bit her lip instead. Then she asked, “Why’d you kiss me?”

  Bridget was quiet a long time, her unfocused gaze on the aisle floor. This was what they did now, weighed their words until they found some that wouldn’t destroy what little footing they’d gained.

  “I wanted to,” she finally said. “But I shouldn’t have because you didn’t want it. I’m sorry.”

  Had Alex wanted it? Because despite all her anger, despite the bitterness eating up her insides, she’d kissed Bridget back. For a moment, just a moment, her knees had gone weak and she’d wanted to turn back the clock to simpler times. She was stronger now, yeah, but less happy.

  “Do you have any feelings for me at all besides anger?” Bridget murmured.

  Now that thing squeezed Alex’s heart so hard it stopped altogether.

  “I act like this—angry—because…” Her shoulders heaved. It felt like she couldn’t quite get enough breath in her lungs. “You made me feel…” She searched for a single word into which to distill the most devastating event of her life. “Worthless,” she breathed, and with the word came all the sadness she’d kept bottled up.

  “Oh, Lex,” Bridget breathed.

  Tears pricked at Alex’s eyes, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat. She’d spent so long convincing herself otherwise that it was almost cathartic to speak the truth into the world. “Like I was too broken to deserve to be loved.”

  Bridget lifted her head to look straight into Alex’s eyes. Even in the dim light, Bridget’s eyes were cornflower-field blue, and Alex had never failed to imagine a future just as sunny every time she looked into them.

  “You told me you loved me and that you’d take care of me, and as soon as things got difficult, you left.” Alex shook her head. “That’s not what people do to people they love.”

  Bridget started to reach for Alex’s hands but stopped herself. “I didn’t do it because I didn’t love you. And I would trade every drop of my success to not have made that decision,” she said firmly.

  The thing around Alex’s heart gave one last hard squeeze that sent fractures throughout. Her voice cracked along with it. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  Didn’t someone say you couldn’t go home again? You could never go back to an old love. You were a different person. They were a different person. It was impossible.

  The sooner Alex came to terms with that, the sooner Bridget’s presence would stop messing with her head.

  “I should go,” she said, getting to her feet. She wiped away the tears burning at her eyes, brushed off the seat of her pants, and, sniffling, took a moment to gather herself. “Are you okay to get home?”

  Bridget held an empty ice-cream pint in the light. “Been hitting the hard stuff.”

  Despite the tightness in her chest and throat, Alex chuckled. “Drive safe.”

  “You, too.”

  Alex bit her lip as she trudged down the stairs and up the aisle.

  “And, Alex?”

  Alex slowed her stride but didn’t pause.

  “Thank you for your honesty.”

  Bridget returned to a quiet house. Max was asleep, but her mom was still awake, reading a book on the living room couch. Cozy. Bridget joined her, tucking her legs under her and pulling a blanket onto her lap.

  Evelyn took one look at her face, patted her knee, and said, “I’ll go make you a cup of tea.” She slid a bookmark into the hardback mystery and slipped out of the room.

  Bridget toyed with the edge of the blanket. The entire walk home, her mind had been numb, but she couldn’t run from this any longer.

  Her mom returned minutes later with a steaming cup of tea that warmed Bridget’s palms. She wished that warmth would spread to the inside, too. Evelyn picked up her book again. She didn’t press because she knew she didn’t have to. For a few minutes, Bridget simply blew on her tea and watched her turn pages.

  Once the tea had cooled enough to take a few tiny sips, she said, “I went to the theater.”

  “Oh? How is it inside?”

  “Pretty much the same. Dustier, I guess.”

  “It’s a shame no one’s done anything with it. A lovely building but a little impractical.”

  Bridget frowned. That theater could be useful in a lot of ways. The high school could perform there. Community theater groups. The town could host its annual Christmas party there. Hell, she could buy it and use it to practice. The acoustics were incredible.

  “I saw Alex,” Bridget said, staring into her tea. “Just for a few minutes. We finally talked. A little bit.”

  Evelyn finally took her gaze from her book, but again, she didn’t say anything.

  “I should have listened to you. I should have given her more time,” Bridget said.

  “Sometimes,” Evelyn said gently, “what makes a relationship not work isn’t the people. It’s timing. You were ready to spread your wings and take more from life, she needed a bit more time, and there’s no easy answer there. You can’t keep blaming yourself after all this time.”

  “I can, actually, because it’s my fault.” Bridget’s voice shook, and she swallowed to steady it. “I promised her I loved her, and then just when she was hurting the most, I broke that promise.”

  “Love doesn’t always mean forever, sweetheart, and you can’t always protect the people you love. If you hadn’t left, you still might’ve broken up down the road. Alex still would’ve been hurt. You still would’ve been hurt.”

  Though the tea had cooled somewhat, it scalded Bridget’s throat. “There’s no point in talking about what-ifs, though, is there? All that matters is what happened, and what happened was because of a decision I made. I thought it wou
ld snap her out of her grief and shock her back into the land of the living. I thought she was strong enough that I could force her. But I destroyed her, Mom.” How did she make amends for that? Bridget set down her tea so she could wipe her eyes on the edge of the blanket. “She’s like a different person. And I did that, Mom. I did that to her.”

  Frowning, Evelyn put a hand over Bridget’s. “You also haven’t spoken in five years. Five years changes a person. We’re only living if we’re growing. Who knows how Alex would have turned out if you had stayed? Like you said, no point in dwelling on what-ifs.”

  The only problem was, Bridget’s mind wouldn’t let them go. Well, it wouldn’t let one go. What if she had stayed? What if she had been patient and loving and compassionate enough to stay and work through Alex’s pain?

  Evelyn reached over to wipe the tears from Bridget’s cheeks. “Alex is sometimes angry now, yes. And sometimes she’s happy. All the things inside her heart now are the things that were there when you fell in love with her. Imagine if you take a bottle and fill it with layers of different colored sand. When you shake it up, it doesn’t look the same, but all the same sand is still there. If you hadn’t shaken the bottle, someone or something else would have, and you have to accept that. And if you want to have Alex in your life, you have to accept her for who she is now, not who she was when you were eighteen.”

  Bridget sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “What if Alex doesn’t want me in her life?”

  “Then you have to accept her decision, sweetheart.” Evelyn pressed a kiss to Bridget’s temple. “Maybe right now, it doesn’t seem like she wants you in her life, but, like before, maybe Alex just needs a little more time than you did to come to the realization that she does.”

  Chapter Seven

  Then

  The apartment was quiet when Alex walked through the front door. She was grateful it was Friday night; the mind-numbing office work was taking its toll on her, sapping her creativity. All she wanted to do was order pizza and watch crappy movies on the couch with Bridget. But the silence was so complete she wondered if Bridget was even here. Benny didn’t run out to greet her either.

  “Hello?” she called.

  The first place she checked was the bedroom, which was dark save for the pinky-orange glow of the late-evening sun. It was enough to illuminate Bridget, asleep on the bed, Benny beside her.

  Alex, careful not to wake them, quietly shuffled out of her shoes and changed into plaid sleep pants and a loose T-shirt. She padded into the kitchen to pour a glass of water and came back to set it beside the bed.

  Gingerly, she sat on the edge of the mattress. “Babe,” she said softly, kissing Bridget on the forehead. “I brought you some water.”

  Bridget stirred awake. Immediately, she curled into Alex.

  “What’s the matter?” Alex asked, still in that soothing voice. “Are you feeling okay?”

  Bridget shook her head. “Mm-mm.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Headache.”

  Alex frowned. Bridget often got headaches, which slowed her down, and when she slowed down, she tended to get low. Not quite depressed, but Alex worried she could get there someday. “Can you sit up for me? I brought you some water. It’ll help.”

  Bridget let Alex help her shift into a sitting position, then drank the whole glass.

  Alex tucked Bridget’s hair behind her ear. “Let me run you a bath.”

  At Bridget’s nod, Alex headed into the bathroom to fill the tub. When it was over half full and the water was decently hot without being scalding, she turned off the tap and called Bridget, setting out a fresh towel while Bridget undressed and slipped into the water.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Alex asked, kneeling beside the tub. “I was thinking about ordering out tonight. Do you want something in particular?” Takeout was a splurge, but she was too tired to cook a proper meal.

  Bridget reached out. “Stay with me? We can order dinner later.”

  “Okay.” Alex took off her clothes and folded them into a pile.

  Bridget leaned forward so Alex could climb in behind her. Once Alex was settled, she wrapped one arm around Bridget’s waist as Bridget leaned back into her. With the other, she stroked Bridget’s hair.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  Alex hummed. If Bridget wanted to talk, she’d do so in her own time. Alex busied herself instead with kneading her knuckles into Bridget’s tense shoulders, working slowly and steadily, drawing out low, satisfied moans.

  She grabbed a bar of soap and lathered up Bridget’s shoulders, torso, and arms, then cupped warm water in her hands to rinse it off. She squeezed out a dollop of shampoo and soaped up Bridget’s golden hair. When she was done rinsing it, careful not to get any suds in Bridget’s eyes, Bridget leaned back once more.

  The water was cooling, but Alex would stay here as long as Bridget wanted. She kept her arms wrapped around Bridget’s waist, thumb moving up and down against Bridget’s belly.

  “Waitressing exhausts me,” Bridget said eventually.

  Alex pressed a light kiss to her neck. “I know, babe.”

  “I’m twenty-two. I shouldn’t feel this tired.”

  No, she shouldn’t. “They never should’ve asked you to come in to open when you closed last night.” But that wasn’t the root of the problem. It was just a symptom of a much bigger one, one where they were saddled with insurmountable student loan debt in a lousy economy that refused to pay a living wage.

  Bridget made a small sound that Alex couldn’t decipher. Then she said, “I want to be more than this. For myself. For you.”

  Alex hummed. Softly, she said, “Your job doesn’t define you. No one’s does. And we’re just a few months out of school. Things will get better.”

  “How do you know? You know, what if this is it? What if we’re stuck working multiple jobs and not having enough time for each other or the things we actually want to do with our lives?”

  Alex pressed her lips to Bridget’s shoulder. She knew Bridget was talking about music, her biggest love. Since they’d graduated and Bridget had taken on two different jobs, she barely had time to write or practice.

  “Hey,” Alex said, “just give it time. We’ll figure it out, and if I have to work twelve jobs so you can quit yours and follow your dreams, I’ll do it.”

  Bridget chuckled. “Shut up. This isn’t about my dreams versus yours. It’s about us, too.”

  “I know, babe. I know.” Alex held Bridget firmly around the waist, trying to make her feel safe and secure. “One day soon, one of us will get a break, and things will fall into place. In the meantime, we’ve got each other, and there’s no one I’d rather be struggling to build a life beside than you.”

  Now

  Bridget woke up with a headache. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but the sunlight streaming through the window had already pierced her closed lids. She’d have to get up eventually, have to face another Alex-less day. Might as well get it over with, so she dragged herself to the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth and gulped down an entire glass of water.

  She didn’t even bother to put on real clothes or brush her hair or make herself presentable at all before trudging down the steps and making her way into the kitchen, where Max was banging around pots and pans.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

  Max paused where he was bending into a lower cabinet to give her a sheepish look. “Your mom left, and I’m having a heck of a time finding a pan.”

  Bridget groaned, but retrieved one of those special no-stick pans from the drawer of the island and handed it to him before collapsing into a chair.

  He poured her a coffee and slid it toward her. “Drink up.”

  She downed half of the deliciously stro
ng brew and leaned her cheek on the table with a sigh.

  “You got back late last night,” he said, his tone curious, cautious.

  Closing her eyes didn’t keep the memories from tormenting her—kissing Alex in her office and being interrupted, fleeing the scene and then Alex not bothering to come after her, buying a pint of chocolate chip and taking it to the theater.

  She knew she hadn’t done the right thing all those years ago. She knew that. But she’d thought, just maybe, that Alex was softening toward her, that Alex was realizing all the mistakes they both had made, that Alex was looking past the hurt to see that Bridget still loved her.

  Bridget still loved her so fucking much. She’d known it for years, but the realization coupled with the hurt from last night and the crushing headache today brought tears to her eyes.

  “Where’d you go?” Max asked gently.

  “The theater. I was just…thinking about things.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  She smiled at his earnestness. “Not exactly, but thanks.”

  “Well, you’ll feel better if you get some food in you. And after that, music. It’ll heal your soul.”

  He plopped a plate in front of her. On it was a stack of three overdone pancakes.

  Again, Bridget fought the urge to cry. Alex had always made the best pancakes.

  Alex paused for breath. The autumn air was pleasantly cool, especially in the forest, on the mountain; it was just what she needed. She glanced behind her at Lu, still down the path a ways.

  When Lu caught up, she put her hands on her hips and said, “You’re not supposed to be hiking alone.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’m a grown-ass woman. I can hike alone if I want to. Besides, you’re here.”

  “Right now, but I have a job to get back to.”

  “Your lunch break’s not over.”

  “It’ll be over long before we make it to the top. Look, I promised I’d meet you on my break because I knew if I didn’t, you’d go anyway.”

  “You think I need looking after?”