Maybe once maybe twice, p.30
Maybe Once, Maybe Twice, page 30
I finished telling her everything. From Cole Wyan, to how I pushed Garrett away, to how I hadn’t been hungry for much of anything in over a year—food, sex, music, happiness. How like a light switch, my soul went gray, and I didn’t know how to find the sunshine anymore, nor did I think I was deserving of it.
Summer sat with it for a while, wiping away my tears and inhaling the wind.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do,” Summer finally said, her hands on my arms.
“First, you’ve got a fancy job, and it has fancy health insurance, so we’re going to find you a fancy therapist. And if I have to walk you to an appointment every week, I will. But you’re going to get some help.”
I nodded, tears streaming down, realizing that my insides weren’t on fire. Somehow, the freedom—the ability to exist with a brutal truth living outside my lungs—was as terrifying as I could have imagined, but I could inhale without smoke. I was no longer suffocating.
“Second, and this is going to take a while, but Maggie Vine, we’re going to get your career back to where it’s supposed to be.”
I shook my head, feeling the weight of the impossible. She gripped my chin in her hand and lifted it to her piercing eyes.
“Don’t you shake your head at me. It won’t happen overnight, but it will fucking happen. Maggie, you are not allowed to close the door on something you were born to do. That man isn’t always going to stand in front of your door. You will be bigger than him, stronger than him, and you will eclipse that monster in every sense of the word, and you will stomp over him on your way to success. And I will be there right by your side the entire way.”
She stared at me, waiting for me to nod, the breeze not even making her big eyes flinch.
“Okay,” I said, real small, as silent tears kept flowing, my hands now gripped in hers.
“Third: you will, when you’re ready, and this might take a while, too—but you will tell Garrett how you feel about him.”
My eyes floated to see the way Garrett’s large hands were running down Cecily’s arms. The way his eyes studied the freckles on her back like they were a map. Like she was his North Star.
“What if it’s too late?” I said quietly, wiping tears from my nose.
Summer laughed softly.
“Babe, I’m going to tell you something you already know. Despite what happened to you, you are madly in love with Garrett Scholl. And despite what’s happened in the last year, Garrett remains madly, madly, madly in love with you.”
“I don’t know that. You don’t know that.” She glared at me like she knew. “How do you know?”
“A little while ago, I saw you walking along the fence, yards and yards away, approaching us. And I said, ‘Maggie’s here,’ and then Garrett looked over at you. And you know what he did? He swallowed really hard, and he turned away real fast.”
“So he can’t even look at me?” I felt different kind of tears welling.
Summer steadied her hands on my arms.
“Maggie, he’s so in love with you that he can’t even meet your eyes because it hurts too much.”
“I’m the type to look at something harder when it burns.”
“He’s a man. Men look away. It’s how they go through life—compartmentalizing and putting what hurts them in boxes. You’re in a box right now. But let me tell you, when you’re ready to open yourself up again, when you stand in front of him and pour your heart out, he won’t be able to look away.”
I liked the idea of that. I hated the idea of what I would have to put myself through to get there. But I wanted to get there so badly, and I wanted to start now. I nodded, a soft sad smile on my chapped lips.
“Will you help me get home?”
“Fourth thing: you’re going to come live with me for a little while.”
I tilted my head up to the sun, lashes wet and closed, face red, and I inhaled something new. Summer held me closer as I exhaled tears on her shoulder—pain and relief leaving my body. No one can hold you quite like a best friend.
I was grateful for much more than the sun. And that was a start.
48
THIRTY-FIVE
I FELT LIKE I COULDN’T breathe, and I flew from the cab into my studio apartment like it was a goddamn oxygen tank—in a way, it was. I pressed my shoulder blades against the back of the front door, and with one exhale, I felt my chest cave in. It was the first time I had been really, truly alone since I saw Cole Wyan a week prior. And finally, I could scream.
I let out a bloodcurdling yell, not realizing I had been hiding so much anguish and trauma inside my tiny frame for seven whole days. And all at once, I was throw something angry. My white-knuckled fists snatched a porcelain plate holding a stack of bills, and I threw the plate against my wall, watching it break into scattered pieces. I held myself amid broken glass and shattered dreams, frustration and pain pouring out loudly as my body slid down the side of the door. I had been clenching the trauma of seeing Cole again inside me—playacting fine so that I wouldn’t hit rewind on the nightmare that I was desperate to keep on the left side of the tape. Sidestepping away from my feelings—a practice I rarely embraced—had taken more of a toll on my body than leaning into them.
I made it atop my unmade floral quilt, my body sending records and open journals to the floor. I stared at the dark wooden beams above me, eyes wet and red, chest quieting under the catharsis of coming clean with myself.
* * *
HOURS LATER, I WOKE UP with the covers tucked around me, my tired eyes frozen on the ceiling fan. Breathing felt like inhaling smoke, and my dad’s guitar in the corner of the room wouldn’t stop making eye contact with me. My studio was suddenly claustrophobic and inescapable. I forced my body off the bed, legs both heavy and numb, and I lumbered outside of my apartment, inhaling the musty dark old Victorian wood surrounding me inside this hot, shitty place I could now more than afford. I plopped down on the top of the stairs, clamming my eyes shut as I inhaled and exhaled deep breaths.
“Hey,” a voice said.
I brought my head up from between my legs, my heart jolting to find Garrett standing right below my face. There was too much chaos inside me to house space for regret. I should have felt like a monster for calling a man to come watch me cry—a man who I had told myself I had stopped loving, a man who was notably getting married in a few weeks. But sometimes, when you can’t see the forest through the trees, instead of looking for a way out you roll around in the mud.
“Thanks for coming,” I barely managed, as the sobs took over.
Garrett’s eyes widened, and he sat down next to me, pulling a strong arm over my shoulder.
“Come here,” he said, holding me close to his body.
He was wearing a suit and tie, and I realized that he had been in the middle of his workday when I called him. One voicemail, telling him that Cole Wyan had released my song, and he had dropped everything for me. His magnetic blue eyes tilted to the side, narrowed on my pain.
His jaw tightened and a vein pulsed at the side of his neck.
“Cole can do this—just release your song? Legally?”
“Yeah.”
I stared down at my phone, seeing a text from Asher come across my screen. There, in the harsh light of day, was a link to my Spotify song, “Let’s Lie.”
Proud of you, and also…sort of confused. Call me when you have time to chat.
My stomach dropped, guilt and shame swirling like a tornado inside. Guilt that I was sitting here with another man. Pain that I was keeping this from Asher. Shame that this had happened to me. Claws felt like they were inside my throat, and shaking, I turned my phone upside down on my lap, with my hand pressed on the nausea growing in my stomach.
“Maggie, you’re going to figure this out,” Garrett said, leaning forward to meet my eyes.
“How? The song. The recording. It’s just—it’s out there for the world to hear. And it could destroy all that comes next.”
“Have you listened to it yet?”
I shook my head. My insides were burning with an unknown terror. Terror that I knew wouldn’t leave my body until I pressed play. I couldn’t escape my own past, even if I tried.
“Do you want me to listen to it with you?” he asked.
I nodded wordlessly but didn’t move my fingers.
He took out his phone from his pocket, and I put my hand on his wrist, stopping him. I needed to figure out a way to take back this song, and it didn’t start with another person playing it for me. If I could press play on my own hard work, in spite of the monster who stood behind it, then it would be the first step in walking out of the woods. That much I knew.
I brought the heat of my phone up to my face with a sharp inhale, seeing my song right there in front of me, plain as day, on Spotify. And then, my finger shaking, I pressed play, and “Let’s Lie” swelled in the air for the first time in five years, and for the very first time in front of the man I wrote it for.
Brush stroke, blank slate
Our time is due
Right there, right now, burning red and deep blue
I couldn’t look at Garrett, not at all. Instead, I had my head down on my phone, clenching my entire body.
Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
I exhaled a relief, my eyes brimming with tears as the tambourine sounded. There was no gunshot. Tears swelled in my throat with the reality that Cole had kept my song the way I wanted it. The monster recognized that my creative version was worthy, and it was complicated and hellish to feel thankful in this moment for the very man who was trying to steal my moment.
Silk shirt, sweat-soaked
Dancing with you
Right there, right now, our bodies unglued
Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
Your lips, my throat
Don’t think it through
Right there, right now holding me like a muse
Paint me anew, inside this room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
I quite like this hue
Let’s lie, me and you, like new lovers do
Is loving you more worth the fight
Don’t answer tonight
You’re a big-picture guy scared of a varnished lifetime
Are we worth the fight
Don’t answer tonight
Are we worth the fight
Tell me a lie painted white
Just for tonight
Just for tonight
I swallowed hard, daring my eyes to find Garrett, a quick glance to see if he knew who this song was about. His eyes widened around the lyrics as he stared straight ahead. His lips slightly parted, and my heart beat faster. He knew.
Paint me anew, inside my room
Don’t wipe our slates clean
Our bodies in bloom
Let’s lie to ourselves like new lovers do
The airy reverb faded into silence. Garrett sat frozen, staring at the bottom of the spiral staircase, refusing to move. He looked up, slowly letting his eyes narrow onto mine.
“It’s beautiful, Maggie. Is that song…?” He trailed off.
The possibility of the answer was so stifling, that he couldn’t even finish asking the question. He stared at me, waiting as I studied his piercing eyes, his shifting jaw.
“You know it’s about you,” I said.
His gaze softened as he studied me for a long, quiet moment. The air seemed to pound and thicken with the rapid beating of our chests, neither of our bodies moving.
“You were wrong,” he said, his blue eyes looking into mine. “You didn’t love me more.”
Air left my lungs. It took me a moment to find words.
“How do you know that?” I cracked.
I watched the way the setting sun fell on Garrett’s face—how his eyes scanned mine. After a moment, his large hand reached over, linking our fingers together. His skin on my skin, even just fingers, felt like life and death wrapped in one. Garrett leaned toward me, almost nose to nose, setting his other hand on my cheek.
“Because I loved you more than anything,” he said.
49
THIRTY-FOUR
I DIDN’T WANT TO RELIVE the last four years—not for anything. But I needed to. I had been in intensive therapy for over two years, and I owed it to myself to be honest with the guy I was still in love with—the guy who I had pushed away at the very time he was ready to go all in.
The day after I broke down to Summer in Sheep Meadow, she gave me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me, the number to a recommended therapist. Little by little, the only person I started letting down after that was my mom, when I quit my job and picked my guitar back up.
It had been over a year since I had started mending my soul, singing in clubs and venues without having heart palpitations, writing music again, having sex and being able to enjoy it. But the lingering pang of Garrett, of that moment nearly five years ago, it loomed so large—even now. Looming large was also the fact that he was still seeing Cecily, but the regret of not saying what I needed to say felt bigger than respecting what they had. I know that made me selfish. But in therapy I worked to understand that unleashing a very selfish truth might also be life-affirming. Life-affirming was too big a win not to play my hand.
I sat in the little café in Greenwich Village, making blue-inked doodles in my open songwriter notebook around words that had just flowed out of me like lava. I felt a tap on my shoulder.
There he was.
Dressed in a suit with a long wool coat tugged over his broad shoulders. His blond hair damp and wavy from the drizzling rain outside. I hugged Garrett, and he felt stiffer than usual, but slowly he hugged me back, inhaling deeply.
We let each other go, and as we sat down, his eyes looked everywhere but at mine. His usual warm, bright behavior was somewhat on edge. Nervous, even.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, closing my notebook and leaning into the table so I could get a better look at him.
“Of course. I’ve actually—I’ve been meaning to call you. I wanted to…to chat. It’s been a while,” he said with a tiny smile, eyes now on me.
It had been a while. Four months, exactly. One of our longest stretches, but I surmised that Garrett didn’t know what to do with me anymore. I had chaotically disappeared from his life after he got back from San Francisco, then I popped up at birthday parties—his, mine, Summer’s, Valeria’s. And then, the last two years, I had tried to text more and call, but Garrett returned the distance I had shown him. Rightly so. This friendship was broken because of circumstance. I couldn’t blame myself, only what I had been through.
“Can I go first?” I asked, twisting a napkin in my hands.
“Sure.”
“I want to talk to you about my thirtieth birthday.”
Garrett seemed to go white, and I watched him swallow hard, his hand pinching around his tie. Clearly, this was the last thing Garrett had been expecting me to bring up. And clearly, it still stung.
After a pause, he nodded. “Okay.”
“First, I want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said to you right before I turned you away. And I’m sorry for how I acted when you tried to kiss me. That must have been so confusing for you,” I said, voice level.
I took a deep breath in, closed my eyes briefly, and then opened them on Garrett. His expression softened, taking in how hard this was for me.
“Two weeks prior, Cole Wyan—you remember I started working with him?”
Garrett nodded, eyes searching mine.
“Well, two weeks before my thirtieth birthday, we were recording a song, and it was supposed to be my first single, and—he put his hands—” I stopped talking, emotions bubbling in my throat. My heart was racing with the heaviness I was unpacking. The rest came out fast. “He touched me where I asked him not to. He tried to rape me. I punched the shit out of him. He threatened my career.”
Garrett looked like I had struck him with a shovel.
“He what?” Garrett growled.
His vein was pulsing on his neck, his fists clenched.
“He…yeah,” was all I could say.
“I wish—God I wish you had told me about him.”
I looked at his white-knuckled fists, then his reddening face.
“I feel like I’d be visiting you in prison if I’d told you then,” I said.
He looked directly into my eyes. “You would be.”
Tears clouded my vision, and I looked up to the ceiling, trying to keep my emotions somewhat neutral while I got the rest out. I brought my face back to his. There was a dark storm where blue eyes had been.
“When you touched me, in the bar that night—I—it triggered that moment in the studio for me. I was mortified after that. I didn’t want to be around you—I didn’t know how to be around you. And I just want you to know that I—” My voice cracked upon his softened face, eyes blue and inches from mine. “I was in love with you. Deeply. I said what I said that night because I did wish for us to end up together. And I lost myself for a little while, but I’ve gotten the help I need, and I…”
He was frozen. Unmoving. I had to finish. I had to say it all. I was so tired of housing so much regret.
“That time, at the club, on the dance floor, sleeping with you that night—it was one of the most—it was one of the best nights of my life. I felt something there that I don’t think many people get to feel. And I hate that we went from that…to this.”
He blinked me back. I shifted in my seat and looked down at my hands.
“I know you’re happy, and I want that for you,” I said, my voice smaller. “I just—I can’t keep living like this. Pretending that what happened to me didn’t happen, and that it didn’t take something from us, too. And I wasn’t sure it was fair for just me to know that.”
