Two years of blonde hair dye and brown contact lenses.
Two years of being Joy, but feeling none.
I count the time like a prisoner on death row — all remaining appeals expired, all hopes of a lesser sentence extinguished. There will be no early release for good behavior, no glimpse of sunshine at the end of this tunnel. I am serving a life sentence. One I chose, perhaps, but that does little to lessen the blow.
Leaving Los Angeles was hard enough; staying gone has been far more difficult than I ever could’ve imagined. My new life, the one I built for myself as far from the lights of Hollywood as I could possibly get without crossing international borders or vast oceans, isn’t glamorous or star-studded. No one asks for my autograph or screams my name on the street. There are no paparazzi hiding in my bushes when I go for my sunrise walk on the beach every morning, my feet submerged in the cool waters of the Atlantic during the few warm months New England experiences.
No music in my heart. No lyrics in my head. No love to stir my soul.
I wake. I breathe. I sleep.
A ghost of a girl.
Not so much a life — merely an existence. And yet, being there, beingno one, is still less terrifying than being back in Nashville. I’ve been hiding in the shadows so long, the world feels glaringly bright against my eyes. My pace quickens as I approach the line of towering oak trees where I left the car. I’m eager to get back to my little seaside cottage on Cape Cod where the memories don’t tug at me quite so viciously. I can’t be here, can’t be in this city, without thinking of…
Him.
I don’t let myself say his name, don’t let myself remember the rasp in his voice or the angles of his face or the feel of his hands on my skin. Regardless… he’s everywhere. Around every bend in the road, saturating the air that fills my aching lungs. Two years, and the pain in my chest has never lessened. Two years of cursing his name, shutting him out, locking my heart away along with my memories… and he’s still there, poised on my lips like the lyric of a song I can’t get out of my head.
He didn’t come to the funeral.
Not that I expected him to — he only met Gran once, and that was years ago. Long before everything fell apart. Long beforewefell apart. Still, I found my eyes scanning the crowd rather too intently earlier, as I watched the parade of mourners making their way across the cemetery behind the dark-tinted windows of my rental car.
Stupid.
Why would he come? I don’t have any clue where he spends his days anymore. What his life looks like, now that I’m no longer a part of it. I closed off that part of myself the minute I crossed the border of Los Angeles County, heading east… driving till I literally ran out of land halfway up the hook of Cape Cod in a town so quiet, the seagrass blowing on the sand dunes is the loudest sound for miles.
It still wasn’t far enough to outrun my memories.
Earlier, all of Nashville came out to say their goodbyes to the great Bethany Hayes — all the ones who can carry a tune, anyway. Old friends, lifelong fans. Musicians and bar owners and industry icons. My heart clenched when I spotted Issac, my one-time boss and owner of The Nightingale, looking totally uncomfortable in a suit as he lingered on the sidelines, waiting for the priest to start the ceremony. Carly, my friend and former co-worker, looked grave and pale in her sleeveless charcoal dress as she took a place beside him.
Watching as the small section of folding chairs slowly filled with distant family members I met years ago, before Gran got sick and my parents burned all our bridges, I found myself holding my breath, waiting for two familiar, middle-aged figures to appear amongst the gathered mourners.
There’s my Aunt Kim and her new husband… there’s my cousin Devyn with her girlfriend… a few family friends whose names I can’t recall… Gran’s old housekeeper… her longtime attorney Jerry…
But not them.
Not the two people who raised me.
Mayberaisedis too strong a word. They didn’t raise me. They forged me like fire does a steel blade, a hellish blaze that made me stronger in spite of their best efforts to burn me into ash and bone.
I was more surprised than I should’ve been that they didn’t show up. My parents have never thought much of family ties — evidenced by the way they sheared every one of theirs clean-through on a blind quest to control Gran’s assets when she was first diagnosed with dementia.
It’s for the best that they didn’t come. I haven’t seen them since I left Hawkins, two days after I turned eighteen, when I hopped on a bus bound for Nashville, bones still rattling from the wrath in that house. With the exception of a single phone call my father once made to The Nightingale — a goading threat that he’ll always track me down, no matter how far I run — we’ve had no contact at all.
That’s exactly how I’d like it to remain.
Finally at the car, my hand reaches for the door handle as my mind calculates the driving time back to the airport. Jerry Perry, Gran’s long-standing attorney, asked me to swing by his office on my way out of town. I’m hoping whatever he wants to discuss won’t take too long — my flight back to Boston is scheduled to depart in six hours. If I miss it, I’ll be stuck here until morning.
My fingers go still on the door handle when I hear the unmistakable sound of shoes crunching against the gravel path as someone steps out from behind the tree line and comes around the trunk of my car. A shadow falls across my back. Every hair on my body stands on end as my mind tumbles with all the possibilities of who might be standing there…
“Felicity?”
Heart in my throat, I whirl around. My fingers are already curled around my keys, preparing for a swift strike to the eyes or a metal-laced punch to the gut. I freeze when I see it’s not a paparazzo with a camera shoved in my face or an equally unpleasant alternative. There’s a stranger standing there in a navy blue suit — early thirties, slim build, wire-rimmed glasses. His eyes are laser-sharp as they scan my face, my hair, my eyes hidden behind the huge dark sunglasses.
“Felicity Wilde?”
I don’t respond — I’m frozen, feeling totally exposed. He takes my silence for some sort of unspoken confirmation because the next thing I know, a large white legal envelope is being whipped from his briefcase and shoved into my hands.