Strings of the Heart

Playing with the twins was a welcome relief to get my mind off Rhys. I truly felt like I was at a breaking point with his emotional whiplash. With the way things were at the moment, I couldn’t imagine making it through the rest of the tour. Although I would hate to let Jake and Abby down, I didn’t see how I could stay on as their nanny. I just wanted to go home. I didn’t give a shit about the internship. I just cared about my crumbling sanity that had been wrecked by Rhys. The man that I had loved for seven years and the man I’d spent time with in Savannah was not the man I saw now. He didn’t want to change, and I had to accept that.

At one¸ Jake and Abby reluctantly pulled themselves from their bed, so we could all head to the arena for rehearsal. We took the tour bus since the twins were in tow. Abby never liked for them to be far from her, so we didn’t stay back at the hotel until show time.

After we arrived at the arena, Abby and I worked to get the twins to sleep in one of the empty dressing rooms. But unfortunately, they were fussy and didn’t want to lie down. They were enjoying their time with Abby too much to sleep.

Finally, they started to calm a little when Abby took them both in her arms and began rocking them in the antique rocking chair they carried with them on tour. With their eyes beginning to droop, Abby glanced at the clock. “Shit, it’s almost time for me to be out there. Can you go tell Jake it’s just going to be a little while longer?”

“I can put them down for you,” I said.

She shook her head. “No, they want me, so I want to do it.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll go tell him.”

When I got out to the stage, Runaway Train was just finishing up, and it was time for Jake and Abby to run through their duets with Jacob’s Ladder playing the musical accompaniment.

At the sight of me, Jake’s brow lined with worry. “Where’s Abby?”

“The twins are taking a little longer to go down for their nap today, so she said to give her just a few minutes more.”

Groaning, Gabe stopped twirling one of his drumsticks between his fingers. “Can’t she let you put them down? You’re the nanny after all.”

Jake whirled around and pinned Gabe with a hard stare. “The most important thing in Abby’s life is being a mother. She worked hard to get those babies, so if she wants to delay rehearsal by thirty minutes so she can be a mom, then she’ll f**king do it.”

“Okay, okay,” Gabe mumbled.

Motioning me with his hand, Jake said, “Help us out a minute, Allie-Bean.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, the f**king suits at the label want me and Abby to do an emo duet. Apparently, we sing too many happy love songs. Abby picked one out, and I’ve got to learn it. I have no clue about the song because I don’t listen to emo love songs.”

I giggled. “No, I don’t imagine you do.”

“While we’re waiting on Abby, could you play the piano and sing her part?”

“Sure, I guess so. What’s the song?”

“Say Something.”

My heart clenched so tight I found it hard to breathe. Out of all the songs in the world, why would Jake have to pick that one? The very one I had listened to on repeat last night as I cried myself to sleep. For me, that song represented everything that was mine and Rhys’s screwed-up relationship. Anytime it came on the radio, it was agony hearing it. I couldn’t even imagine singing it. I didn’t know if I could.

As Jake thrust the sheet of music in front of me, my shaking hands could barely grasp it. “Jake, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“You sing and play the piano, don’t you?” When I nodded, he added, “Then I don’t know why it would be a bad idea.”

Staring at the sheet music, I could barely make out the chords. “I should go back and check on Abby and the twins. I’m sure Eli could do it with you.”

Eli snorted. “Oh yeah, it’d be a dream come true to duet with Jake.”

Jake shook his head. “That’s so not happening.” Taking me by the shoulders, Jake led me over to the piano and urged me down onto the bench. “Come on, Allie-Bean. Help your big brother out.”

A resigned and painful sigh rushed from my lips. Even though I wanted to run away, I was stuck in this nightmare. At the sound of a voice behind me, my eyes snapped shut in pain.

“Uh, how much longer until our rehearsal?” Rhys asked.

“It’s gonna be awhile. Abby’s putting the twins down for a nap. But I’m going to make the most of the time by working on that f**king duet the label wants us to do.”

“With Allison?” Rhys asked.

Jake chuckled. “Yeah, why not?”

Glancing at him over my shoulder, I watched him shrug while giving me a shy smile. “Just surprised, that’s all.”

Focusing my eyes on the sheet music, I then reached out my shaky fingers to the piano keys. I began playing the melancholy chords. They echoed loudly through the practically silent auditorium. Jake came in with his part, “Say something, I'm giving up on you. I'll be the one, if you want me to…” The deep bravado of his voice echoed through my mind, momentarily making me forget about Rhys. I never tired of hearing Jake sing. As a child, it was a source of comfort to me when I was sick or hurt. But there was no comfort now—this wasn’t a wound or an ailment he could fix by singing.

Just as it came time for me to sing, I felt Rhys’s presence looming over me. He began to walk slowly around to the front of the piano. With my voice harmonizing with Jake’s, I refused to look up at Rhys even though I could feel his heated gaze singeing my cheeks. Instead, I focused on the black and white keys, noting the irony that there was nothing black and white about what had happened between us. It was the gray area that kept causing us so much grief and pain.

After singing a few more lines, I glanced up from the piano to meet Rhys’s intense gaze. I knew what line was coming, and since it meant something for me, I wanted it to mean something for him, too. As I held his stare, I sang the line directly to him because in so many ways it was the ugly truth. “You're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye.” And I was saying goodbye. There was no way around it—no other way to claw myself out of the suffocating pain that overwhelmed me than to say goodbye.

An expression of pure agony stretched across his face. It caused an ache in my chest so harsh that I had to look away from him. With my tears blurring the music to where I could no longer read it, I shot up off the piano bench. It clattered noisily to the floor. When I turned around, Jake stared at me in surprise. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” I whispered, before running past him into the wings.