The Only Song (Only You)

39. Sadie

Chapter 39

Sadie

A phone buzzes, lost somewhere in my tangle of bedsheets at the foot of the bed. Or the head. I can’t tell right now except that my dress is on the floor, I’m in some baggy t-shirt that reads TREBLE MAKER , and the pain in my head is awful .

My toes slide off the silk of a pillow case—I’m definitely facing the wrong way on this bed—but my heel hits the edge of my phone and I lurch up, dizzily, to answer the call.

“Hello?” I croak, my throat dry from dehydration. God, how much did we drink last night?

“Hi! Is this Sadie Love?” A peppy voice too bright for my mood cuts into my ear.

“Y-Yes. This is her?” I didn’t mean for it to sound like a question. But it’s also the first call I’ve answered in months. I wish it was a different voice on the other end. A much lower, more soothing one that would ripple through me like cool water and take away the ache in my forehead just by the sound of it.

Somewhere deep in my mind, I feel like I heard that voice recently. Maybe even last night.

“Wonderful! I’m calling from the LA Symphony Orchestra. Following up on if you’d still like to audition with us?” she asks so cheerily I question if this is for some gag reel.

LA Symphony Orchestra? I didn’t sign up to audition with them. I didn’t sign up, period. Did I sign up drunk?

Her question lingers in the air, and I feel the words curl around my lips. To say no. To tell her I didn’t sign up to audition, and I don’t want to. But just as the word is on the tip of my tongue, I’m hit with a flash of memories. Glittery pink alcohol. Red solo cups. A faded orange ping-pong ball. Dark chocolate eyes behind thick black frames.

And the words coming from that soothing voice I’ve missed so much for the past two months.

Say yes, he said.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. I don’t remember what I’m supposed to be saying yes to and I sure as hell don’t know why I feel so deeply in my soul that I’m supposed to listen to him.

But I do.

“Yes,” I respond.

“ Fantastic! ” Whatever energy I don’t have she pours into that word. “I’ll email you the audition details. Thank you so much. We’ll see you soon!”

I hang up.

What just happened? What happened last night ?

I press my hand behind me like a kickstand as I tip my head back to see if the pain might quell. It doesn’t. It dizzies my thoughts instead, the jumbled memories spinning like music out of rhythm. Whatever I was trying to recall disappears. Except for that voice.

My door bursts open. I groan as light from the hallway shines directly into my eyes, practically burning them. When I can finally see again, I take in the form standing in my doorway: a bright, bubbly Sloane with her black hair thrown in a top-knot on her head and a red apron, holding a glass of what’s probably meant to be green juice, but looks more brown than anything.

“I’m making pancakes!” she sings and traipses in, pulling my blinds open so the sun hits me. She laughs as my face scrunches up from the harsh light. “And I made hangover juice. Somebody went hard last night.”

“Will the juice bring back my memory ‘cause I’m struggling to recall,” I groan, my arm stuck out behind me collapsing so I’m star-fished in my bed upside-down.

Sloane’s face fills my vision as she looks over me. “Time to get up, sunshine.” She places the disgusting looking hangover drink on my bedside table before yelling on her way out, “And no more break-up PJs! ”

I sit up and bottom the drink. It makes me gag a little, which instantly floods my memory with pieces and flashes of the night.

A cup. A question. Tentative glances and a dimpled smile.

“Sloane!” I yell, scrambling after her. The memories are too much for me to bear. I need to know more. I need to remember, even if it hurts. I make it to the kitchen, slap a hand on each side of the doorframe and lean in. “Was he there last night?”

I know I don’t have to explain who he is as Sloane raises a thin black brow and places a hand on her hip. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember… something?” I swallow nervously. My hands fall from the frame but they ache to fidget, so I walk to the fridge to get butter for our pancakes instead. “I… I don’t know if I trust my judgment right now. Can you just tell me?”

I come to stand by the stove and stare at her, waiting for her answer. She must remember. She has to. Her eyes sparkle playfully as she looks at me.

“He was there,” she confirms with a knowing grin.

I groan. “Please don’t tell me I did something stupid.”

“Honey, you’re fine.” She puts another charred pancake on a plate by the stove. “I think you guys played beer pong or something, and clearly, you came home with me.”

Oh my god, the game.

The red solo cups and the ping-pong ball. It was from that game. But I don’t remember the taste of beer. No… it was sweeter, like a fruit punch with… oh my god . We drank that stupid rainbow-glittered alcohol that I knew would knock me on my ass. So, I guess it was more like glitter pong than beer pong.

I round on Sloane. “What else do you remember?” I demand. “What else happened?”

She laughs, as if this is funny and not a matter of life and death.

“Well…” She tilts her head, that same smile on her lips. “I can’t remember exactly. I think you were playing some other kind of game, like… twenty questions or something? But I’m not sure.”

The memories come back in little drips but still no full picture. One fragmented memory alludes that I was the one to suggest something to do with questions, but it’s still not making much sense.

“Sadie.” Sloane taps my shoulder. When I look at her, she gestures for me to get out of her way, a fresh pancake on her spatula waiting to be set down on a plate. I step aside and move to the island counter to sit down. She turns to face me and sigh. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I drop heavily into a seat and rest my head in my hands. “About what?”

I know what she’s going to say and like earlier, the answer I want to say is no, I do not want to talk about it. It’s been two months—sixty-two days to be exact— since I last saw him and the wound is still as raw and fresh as it was the day it happened. The day I left him in New York. It feels longer than it is, like fourteen years rather than sixty-two days, but in reality, it’s no time at all. Not when it comes to getting over someone.

“About Jaxon,” she says, pouring more batter into the pan.

Hearing his name still makes my breath leave my lungs. I see another flash of the party in my mind.

My ping-pong ball sank into his cup. As Jaxon chugged, I asked, “Why are you here?”

His answer was short and frustrating. “The reunion.”

I didn’t get to ask a follow-up question.

I can’t believe it. He was here. He is here.

“Eat. You’ll feel better.” Sloane slides a plate of burnt pancakes towards me and I stare at them dejectedly. An ache and longing for him settles in my chest. Then another memory.

His ball sank into my cup this time. I reached to chug.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

No follow-up questions, even as desperate as I was to ask him the same.

I grab a fork and stab into the pancake, but I don’t take a bite. My mind flits to when I first saw him in the room. The way all the noise deadened and it felt like it was just us, like we were on opposite ends of a stage staring across the vast empty space between us.

I created that space. And I’m not sure how to bridge it.

But seeing him there, talking to him, it actually made me feel surprisingly happy. Even though I didn’t show it. I didn’t want to. Another memory surfaces.

I missed two cups and he missed three. Finally, I landed one.

“I’m finally feeling like I might be better than you at something, Jaxon,” I said.

“Don’t ever stop saying my name,” he murmured. His eyes smoldered from across the ping-pong table and a curl of heat raced up my spine.

The hiss of butter on the pan brings me back to Sloane’s kitchen.

“Your mom called you again. Or tried to call me to tell you to call her ,” Sloane says, oblivious to my mental time traveling.

“What?” I ask, slathering my toasted pancake with maple syrup.

“They wanna know when you’ll be coming home,” she says softly, knowing while my heart aches about Jaxon, it also aches about my difficult relationship with my parents.

Seeing them in New York on my solo night was no better than when they surprised me the first night in Chicago—it ended terribly. With me blowing up in their faces this time rather than taking their verbal blows on the chin. I gave them a lot of grace in the past, but that night I had no more patience. I was exhausted from trying to keep it together after walking out on Jaxon, and having to perform a solo without him by my side. I just couldn’t stand hearing them say any more mean things about me.

Jaxon was right. I shouldn’t have to take what they say and act like it doesn’t hurt. I shouldn’t have to hear those things at all. The shocked looks on their faces were all the confirmation I needed to know I had made my point.

I know what I’m capable of. I believe in myself. I can achieve what I set out to do.

And I’m allowed to celebrate it.

My eyes flit to Sloane, who’s counting the pancakes in her stack.

“I am home,” I reply, even as the words feel empty. It’s more like I’m in her home. Home was in the arms of a person I’m not sure still wants to be around me.

“San Francisco home,” Sloane says as she tosses the pancake over, but the mention of my parents reminds me of another round of questions.

There were only five cups left. Two on my side, three on his.

The ball fell into mine.

“Why aren’t you in San Francisco?” he asked.

I chugged the second to last cup. “I didn’t want to be around my parents. ”

“Did they hurt you?” His voice dropped to a lower decibel, brows knit and eyes stormy.

“As much as you hurt me?” I fired back, hoping my eyes reflected the pain.

Hurt flashed over his face. It did.

“I’m starting to think you don’t like my cooking,” Sloane says, her head cocked to the side. I glance at her, ready to apologize and lie, but she still has that small smirk, like she knows exactly why I’m not eating. Like she’s just trying to pull me out of my head, out of the memories. I force a smile, trying to show her that I’m okay, even though we both know I’m not.

The party plays in my head again.

Three cups left. Two for him, one for me.

“How’s New York?” I asked.

“Not the same,” he answered, his gaze heavy on me. My cheeks flushed, wondering if there was a double meaning behind it.

Not the same since I left? I wanted to ask.

I didn’t. I couldn’t. It wasn’t my turn.

“Do you think if I pick a flavored pancake next time, it’ll taste better?” Sloane asks, pulling me back into the room. I laugh as I swallow the charred piece in my mouth. It was more like swallowing down a piece of brick.

“I don’t think I can dignify that with an answer.” I smirk and she throws a kitchen towel in my direction. In my effort to catch it, I knock over my coffee.

Sloane yells, “Ha! Karma! The universe thinks my pancakes are delightful.” But as I clean up the mess, the coffee soaked towel beneath my fingers reminds me of the sticky residue of alcohol on cups.

And then of Jaxon’s voice.

“Have you done any auditions?” he asked as I chugged my final cup.

“None,” I answered. He frowned, seemingly more at me than my cup his ball had landed in.

Sloane slides into the seat next to mine with a fresh cup of coffee for me. She sighs contentedly as she takes a sip of hers.

“How’s the hangover feeling now?” she asks.

“Not so bad,” I murmur. The hangover doesn’t hurt the same way the memories do.

“Let’s make a deal,” Jaxon said, breaking the rules of our made up glitter-pong-question game.

“Are you challenging me, Tanner?”

“When am I not, Sass?” My body ignited at the nickname.

I pondered it, eyes on him, and gave in.

“What is it?” I asked. Even in the dim light, I could see his eyes sparkle.

“Next time you get called to audition, you say yes.”

A flare sparked in me. It felt familiar, like home. My cheeks flushed, but I never backed down from a challenge. Especially with him.

“Deal.”

He held my gaze, his smile faint. “And you’ll tell me if you get one? ”

The word slipped from my mouth before I could stop it. “Always.”

Sloane’s elbow nudges me as she points toward the syrup. I pass it to her and she seems to finally give up on any sense of us skirting around the whole Jaxon issue.

“He probably won’t even be here for long,” she says, lathering her charred tower of pancakes with liquid sugar. I asked him the same question. The last cup of the game before we made a deal.

“Undetermined,” he answered. It made my chest ache not knowing.

I try to let the memory fade, but it doesn’t fade everything else. The way my heart fluttered every time he spoke. The way I craved for every time he might smile and I could see the dimples on his face. The way I ached to bridge the gap between us—to touch him, hold him, kiss him.

We stood on opposite ends of the empty table, and in a beat, I ran.