Page 21 of The Air I Breathe

I sigh, blowing a breath so that my bangs go up in the air. "I haven't been hiding it—I've just been enjoying it. He's not like Mercer." I mention my ex-boyfriend, the one I'd been with for years, and then once I had the miscarriage, we couldn't make it work. "He doesn't want to keep the whole thing secret."

"Which is good, because you shine, Willa. There's something about you—it's nothing that anyone can put their finger on. It's this magic air you have about you. It's like glitter that shimmers. No matter what's going on around you, you're there, and all eyes are on you. When you were with Mercer it wasn't hard for you to hide because we were in a pandemic. I don't think any of us came out of that unscathed."

"You're right." I take a drink of my beer. So much happened during those long months that turned into a year. I lost my innocence, and my belief that things would work out with the man who I’d thought was the love of my life. "I sure as hell didn't. If there's one thing it taught me, it's what I don't want."

"I'm sorry. I know you had dreams for that relationship. Hopes and plans that you'd built it on."

I did. When Mercer told me he wasn't ready for kids, on my thirtieth birthday, I'd had some of my eggs frozen in preparation for our eventual future. But then the pandemic had hit, and we were both stuck overseas. The US had closed, and while we were okay where we were, it was still hard FaceTiming our families, and trying to conduct business while navigating so many of the unknowns. Luckily, he got where I was coming from as a music producer—not of my music though.

The first night we might, he'd laughed and told me he didn't do that pop shit. He did what he considered to be real music. I'd overlooked it because I was so intrigued by him—by his dark eyes, blond hair, and the expression he always had that looked like he was pissed off. He was so different from anyone else I'd ever met. Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to him, and I couldn't let it go. I wanted to be the one he was with.

After being in a relationship for a couple of years, I’d assumed we were headed toward the same goals in life—marriage, children, buying a home together. But then we were legitimately stuck together, and things changed.

"I'm still so sorry you had to deal with that on your own. You've never fully spoken with me about it. Do you want to?" Avery asks.

I haven't before tonight. She doesn't even know the full story, but maybe I do need to get it off my chest. Maybe I need to let it go, because the more I think about it, the more it kills me inside. I've never even told my parents the complete truth. It's like a cancer, eating me from the inside out, because I've kept it bottled up.

It's a split-second decision—one I'm not conscious of in the moment, but it's one I know I must have made. "Yeah, I do think I'd like to talk to you about it, if you want to listen. I may not be able to make it through without crying, but if you'd be willing to be my ear, I'd like to get it off my chest. You knew in the immediate aftermath, but you never knew all the details."

She gets up. "Do we need more alcohol for this?"

"Yeah, enough so that I can drown out the feelings of failure if they start to come back," I croak out.

She reaches over, grabbing my hand in hers. "You're not a failure. I hope you haven't been carrying that thought around with you, Willa. But I'll go get the wine, and you get ready to let me in. Okay?"

I nod, looking out over the Nashville skyline. When I was a kid, singing, knowing that was my dream, was all so easy. But as I've gotten older and my dreams have evolved, become living and breathing things, they've been more difficult. Avery's right though—I need to let this out and let it go. There will always be a piece of me that can't be completely honest with Blake until I do, and if there's one thing I want? It's to be honest with him, to be my full authentic self with him, and pray like hell he's willing to accept me for who I am. So many others haven't, and for the hundredth time this year, my therapists words ring out. That's more about them, Willa, than you.

So here I go, ready to let someone in, and hope that she is ready to listen.

Chapter Seventeen

Willa

I clear my throat, taking a fortifying breath as I keep my gaze locked on the sky. If I don't look at Avery, I can do this. If I can't see her being sympathetic and giving me the gaze heavy with pity, even on a surface level, I can do this.

"We were in London. He was recording and I was filming stuff for the tour that was scheduled for mid-2020. We kept hearing about what was possibly coming, and of course we were like everyone else. We didn't necessarily believe it was going to happen, but we were being cautious. I don't know if you remember." My mind goes back to those first days. "But it all happened so fast. It was as if one day we were allowed to go about our business, and the next all travel was grounded. I'd never seen anything like it since 9/11, which is still kind of hard for me to remember. Anyway, we were stuck in London, where he was recording music and I had gone to spend the week with him. Good thing the person we were renting the house from was okay with us staying because we had nowhere else to go."

"I remember that text." Avery laughs.

I take a drink, needing it to wet my dry throat. "I was absolutely terrified for everyone, but for you especially."

"Yeah, being a nurse has always been hard, but it got a lot harder during that time period."

"And then you volunteered for the COVID floor? I couldn't believe it." I shake my head, thinking back to how surprised I’d been.

"I had to do something." She smiles sadly. "If not in that time of need, then when?"

Tears pool in my eyes for the devastation I know she saw but also for what I know I'm going to tell her—these broken pieces of my life from that six-month period and then the subsequent breakdown of what I’d thought was a forever relationship. "So the first month was okay. We were all doing what we had to do, and I was happy to be doing it. Into the second month of lockdown is when things started to change for Mercer and I. It'd started out being fun, cooking every meal together and figuring out how to make our own bread when there wasn't any in the stores. Then those little everyday things that start getting on your nerves about your partner hit us tenfold. We couldn't leave and go shopping or for a walk when that happened. My security was scared to let me go outside because so many people were walking and taking in nature. The house was all we had."

Avery shifts in her seat. "I've talked about how this time affected me, but I never thought about how it affected you." She pulls her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. "I'm sorry you were so isolated."

I wave a hand in her direction. "A lot of my life is isolated just because it's how I have to live. This felt different than anything else though, because of the circumstances and the consequences of what might have happened should I or Mercer have gotten COVID.” I gaze out over the lights of Nashvillle as they twinkle in the twilight below us. “After that second month, we started arguing quite a bit because there was too much togetherness. We would fight and then we'd angrily have sex to make up, to feel something with all of the dying going on everywhere. I was in the studio every night making music, and he was down there all day, but it wasn't enough to separate us. At month two, my birth control ran out. Because we weren't touring, I was using oral, and not on an IUD."

Avery's eyes widen. "I didn't even think about that."

"Yeah, obviously I didn't either." I clear my throat, a nervous chuckle working its way up my throat. "We were careful for a while, because who wanted an accidental pregnancy in what was the scariest of times we'd faced so far in our lives? But as the days went on, we got less careful and more careless. By June, I was pregnant. Kevin got me a pregnancy test, and stood outside the bathroom door as I took it."

Avery laughs hard, throwing her head back. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me about Kevin."