For a while I just drive.
I tear away from the studio, down Main, then left, right, left. I zig back and forth through quiet neighborhood streets like I’m in a hurry, but I’m not headed anywhere. I’ve got nowhere to go. Can’t hang out at Jezz’s; things are still too weird with us. Can’t waste time at the studio. Not ever again, now that Flynn has cut me off. And I can’t be at home, alone, boiling with all of this.
But I’ve only got a quarter tank of gas left, and no money to refill it.
Finally I pick a spot a few blocks past the high school, beyond the empty, soggy soccer field, where almost nobody comes. I park.
And then I sit.
I sit until the sky above the Nissan has soaked through with indigo, and the few cars I can see in the distance are switching their headlights on.
We’re done here.
Flynn’s words might as well have been a kick in the ribs. My chest actually aches.
It’s an empty, rejected, broken feeling. Like if one of your parents could dump you.
Nine years. Nine years of lessons, hours and hours of talking, laughing, confessing. Now it’s like all of that has been erased.
And I’m totally alone.
Frankie. Last Things. The songs. The way that I could play. My teacher. I’ve lost them all.
All the things you love. One by one . . .
The memory of the black-eyed woman’s words makes me sick.
I’m barely even myself anymore. What else can they take?
I slump back against the headrest. Beside me, Yvonne’s case leans against the passenger seat. Its surface catches a purple gleam of sky.
At least I can give one gift back.
I start the car.
I’m not going to look at Yvonne again. I’m not going to take her out of the case and play one last time. I’m not. I’m not even going to look down at the case, or I might back out. I veer back into the street and head north.
The sky darkens as I drive. Sunset glows through the trees. By the time I reach the Crow’s Nest, it’s nearly black.
The parking lot is sparse. I can see Ike Lawrence’s truck parked near the kitchen door and a few other cars scattered here and there. I don’t want to run into Ike. I don’t know if Jezz or Patrick have told him about the breakup, or if the word has gotten out some other way, but I don’t want to be the one to tell him about Last Things. He’s been good to us. Really good. And now that we’ve become his big draw, we’re ditching him without any warning.
I park way down at the opposite end of the lot. I try to find the very same spot where I parked on the night I got Yvonne. I kill the engine. Yvonne’s case gleams in the thin light. I’d kind of like to give her back in the same way that I got her, but I can’t just leave her here, at the edge of a parking lot. And I have no way to contact that journalist. I never even got his name. Just like the woman from the management company.
I should have known. I should have known sooner. But I didn’t want to know.
I get out of the car. My boots crunch on the black pavement.
I pull Yvonne gently through the door. I scan the lot. There’s no one on the patio, or smoking on the cracked pavement. For once, no one is watching me.
I head into the woods.
There’s no path. I’m not sure if I’m taking exactly the course that journalist and I took all those months ago, but it feels right. It feels familiar. The trees, the thick shadows, the cold breeze all feel the same. The only thing that’s different is Yvonne’s deadweight in my hand. It feels like I’m carrying someone’s body into the woods to bury it. The body of someone I loved.
I walk until I can’t see the Crow’s Nest anymore. It’s dark. Roots and rocks slide under my boots, and I stagger. Damn it, I should have brought a flashlight. I pull out my cell phone. The screen gives me a little blob of gray light. Not great, but it will help. There’s no signal out here, I notice. Not a huge surprise. It’s patchy enough all around town.
Following the splotch of light, I head forward. The ground is soggy and soft with all the recent rain. My heels keep sinking in, like the ground is trying to hold me here. I tell myself to stay calm, stay logical, act like an adult, but half of me is ready to crumble. Every sound I catch—chirps and buzzes and creaks and snapping noises in the branches—seems to have some terrible possibility hiding in it. It takes all my energy just to keep walking, not to turn around and bolt back to the car like a kid running out of a scary movie.
I need to finish this. But I can’t dump Yvonne just anywhere. I need to find a place for her that feels right. Finally I stumble into a little clearing where someone must have built a bonfire a long time ago. There’s still a little divot in the ground, with a few logs pulled around it like bench seats. The surrounding trees are pines, tall and sturdy. Their needles whisper.
I stop there.
My fingers clench and unclench on the case’s handle.
I’ve never understood the rock stars who smash their guitars at the end of a set. All those beautiful, expensive, state-of-the-art instruments, smacked into chunks of plastic. It’s such a giant middle finger to every broke music nerd who can’t afford a decent guitar of his own. I’d never hurt Yvonne. I can’t even stand to set her on the ground out here, in the mud and the dew and the rotting leaves.
But I have to.
I have to stop thinking of her as mine. I have to stop thinking of her as Yvonne. I have to stop thinking of her as her. I have to give this back before they can take any more.
God. I don’t think I can do it.
I pick out a spot that seems a little drier, a patch of moss and leaves in the shelter of one huge trunk. I put the case down gently.
And then, even though I’m still telling myself not to do it, I open the clasps and lift the lid.
She’s so gorgeous. Faint light from my phone glimmers over her dark finish. Her strings glint. I will never have another guitar like this. It will take me years to save up for anything close.
But it’s done. We’re done.
I pry my hands off the lid. My whole body is fighting me. What it really wants is to grab Yvonne, wrap her tight in my arms, and run off to some dark, safe place where we can sit and play for the next ten hours. Or ten years.
The lid thunks shut. I flick the clasps.
Okay. Okay. Damn it. There’s a lump in my throat.
I creep backward far enough that even if I reached out again, I couldn’t touch her.
Okay. It’s done.
I’m just about to turn around when I hear the twig snap.