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God, my heart felt so fucking full in that moment. So full I didn’t know if it would spill over as laughter or tears.

Danny’s words do the opposite. They make me empty. And that wants to spill over as tears too.

I sit up a little straighter. “Every life contains bad and good. It’s just the kind of music I like.”

He dismisses my explanation with an amiable shrug. Danny doesn’t like to argue, but for the first time, I resent it—the way he’s choosing to let this discussion go as if he’s right and I’m wrong and he’s being big about it. “Well, I’m home early. There are a few shows recorded. We ought to take advantage of it.”

I’d like to refuse, but I can’t, because this is his house, and I’m lucky to be here. It was implied simply in what he said, wasn’t it? If he wants to spend time with me, I should drop anything I’m doing the minute he shows up.

Will there ever come a time when I’m allowed to have my own preferences? When I’m not going to be the lucky one? When I get to pick the show, or get to choose not to pick any show at all?

“Let me just get through one more song,” I tell him. It’s rebellion on the most minor scale, yet I see a flicker of irritation in his eyes before he kisses my head and tells me he’ll be waiting inside.

I swallow hard as the door shuts behind him. I didn’t actually have one more song in mind to play, and now everything I can think of is angry, written by others. I launch into an old, pissed-off Smashing Pumpkins song, and when it’s done, I’m near tears. What the fuck am I doing? How can I possibly be mad at Danny when he’s given me everything I have?

I set the guitar on the grass and bury my head in my hands, but it jerks up again at the sound of feet approaching. Luke steps into the light, freshly showered, glowing from a day spent outside.

“What’s wrong?” he demands. His tone leaves no room for the vague denial I’d probably have offered.

“Danny told me my songs are depressing and that he doesn’t get it because I’ve got a really good life.”

It was more than that, but I can’t put the rest into words. Or maybe I could but it would be too disloyal to the Allens to do so. To say, “I’m tired of feeling like I’m in debt. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t get a say.”

Luke steps closer. “He doesn’t understand you. It’s nothing against Danny. But his mind doesn’t work the way yours does.”

I rise, picking the guitar up with me. “What do you mean?”

His eyes fall to my lips, slow as a caress. “He doesn’t want depth, Juliet, and he doesn’t need it. Not everyone does. There are people who skim the surface their entire lives. But you’re not one of them. That’s why you write a bittersweet song that’s full of fucking layers and he comes away with one word—sad, and Donna would use the same word. It doesn’t mean they’d be right, and that’s why you’ve got to stop listening to them.”

“I owe them a lot, though. I can’t just…not listen.”

“Something can be good for you once. That doesn’t mean it’s always good for you. You can’t let them hold you hostage.”

“Hostage?” I repeat, embarrassed and irritated at once. “Do I look like a hostage?”

He steps so close that I can feel the heat of his skin, smell his shampoo and the lingering hint of sunscreen beneath it. “You look like something rare and wild,” he whispers, pushing the hair back from my cheek. My breath catches at the feel of his fingers on my skin. “Something they locked up in a cage. And I think you were so relieved to find a safe place to land you didn’t even realize it happened. I thought I could save you if I came here this summer, but even if someone opens the cage, you’ve got to be willing to fly away, too, Jules.”

He swallows and steps away from me, looking down as if he’s said too much.

And I’m pretty sure he did.

21

NOW

I wake in my own bed. I didn’t stay for long last night, once it was done, and he didn’t say a word as I crept away. Surely Luke of all people knows better than to expect anything of me, but when I walk into the kitchen, there’s something in his gaze that wasn’t there before.

There’s something different inside me too. I know nothing is going to change—I can’t allow anything to change—but I feel alive again, as if I’ve been dunked into ice water then brought into the sun. The blood that moved sluggishly through my veins a few weeks ago now seems to zip along, made young and sprightly and unreasonably hopeful.

Donna smiles at me from the table, waving me over to eat pancakes with them. “You’re finally starting to look healthy again,” she says. “I like seeing those roses in your cheeks.”

My face heats, and I force myself not to look at Luke.

“I was just talking about the twins who are coming right after the opening ceremony.” She loads three pancakes on my plate and then slides a folder to me. “They’re the same age you were when you came.”

I open the file, frowning at their pictures. “They look really young. You’re sure they’re fifteen?”

Her smile is a little sad. “Honey, fifteen is really young. You looked like that when you showed up at my door, I promise.”