I sighed and stared up at the ceiling. Bianca had been right. The truth of it had slapped me in the face so hard it made my ears ring. I couldn't help feeling that being with her was betraying the memory of Maggie. There were times when Bianca would touch me, and my brain would scream out, "No! What would Maggie think? How can you do this to her?" It didn't matter that she was gone, or how many times someone told me that she'd want me to be happy. My heart had always belonged to Maggie, and it still did.

"You think he's alright?" Gavin asked, his voice slipping through my open door.

Something exploded on the TV. "Can't remember the last time he was."

I cringed. Had I been that bad?

"Liz's wedding. He almost seemed like himself." Plastic clicked together as b.u.t.tons were mashed. "Oh wait, but you wouldn't know that because you were too busy hiding at home."

"f.u.c.k you."

"Yeah, like you can do that anymore."

There was some type of scuffle, and I heard a fist meeting flesh.

Bouncing back up off the mattress, I sauntered into the living room. Felix sprawled across the couch, one arm pitched over his head, chest heaving to catch his breath. Gavin sat on the floor, a hand ma.s.saging his other arm.

Seeing that everything was more than fine, I plucked my hat off the coat rack and slipped it on backward. I might have lost Bianca, but I was ready to take back everything else. "You guys done? Cause I was thinking of heading to the studio."

"The studio?" Felix asked.

"You want to go to the studio?" Gavin chimed in.

I shrugged. "Seems like it's about time, right?"

Gavin's sneakers slapped against the floor as he walked up to me and threw an arm around my shoulders. "Past time, man."

Chapter 39: Bianca.

I should've gone to the library. I knew enough by now to realize that trying to accomplish anything while Harper was home, especially when Harper and Brand were home, was next to impossible. Rereading the same paragraph for the third time with no greater success, I gave my textbook a little shove and leaned back in my chair.

The first hint of spring was drifting its way through the apartment window in the form of a warm breeze tinted with the smell of freshly blooming flowers. Au revoir, winter-I'd had enough snow to last me a lifetime.

A giggle erupted from Harper's bedroom, piercing through the thin walls like she was sitting right next to me.

The library. I'd have to go if I wanted to get any studying done.

Shoving a textbook into my messenger bag, I frowned at the door when someone on the other side of it banged out three harsh knocks. Must be Mrs. Zimmer. She lived three apartments over, but could apparently still hear Harper's racket and was always complaining about it.

"Don't worry," I yelled at Harper's closed door. "I'll get it!"

Grumbling to myself, I pulled open the door and readied myself for yet another fight with our lovely neighbor. Except it wasn't her.

"Hi, Bianca. I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time?" Rachel peered a little to the left to glance into the apartment.

"Rachel, I . . . was not expecting you." Especially since I made it a point not to tell anyone I was coming back to the city, I finished in my head. I cleared my throat and found my manners. "Please, come in."

"Thank you." Her fingers fidgeted with her purse strap. As soon as I closed the door behind her, she turned to me and blurted, "Ian doesn't know I'm here."

"Oh?" Walking back over to the kitchen table, I plopped back down in the chair I'd recently vacated. Just the thought of Ian had my palms sweating. I'd been trying so hard not to think of him. Avoided places I knew I might see him. I was doing everything I could, and somehow Rachel still ended up on my doorstep.

She sat down across from me, dropping her purse on the floor. "I didn't tell him you're in New York."

"How did you find me?"

"I, uh . . ." she coughed into her hand and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, hacked into your e-mail.

"I'm sorry, did you just say that you-"

"How I found out you were here isn't really important." Her grin trembled on her lips like it wasn't sure how I'd react to it. "Please, just hear me out and then I'll go."

I wasn't going to like this. I didn't even have to hear one word out of her mouth and I already knew it. But what choice did I really have? It's not like I was going to throw her out. I waved my hand at her, signaling for her to go on.

"He misses you. And I think you miss him too. I don't know you all that well, but I saw the way you looked at him on Thanksgiving, and I've seen the video of you two at the Blackbird. There was something there, and I just can't understand why, if you're back in the city and not in Texas like you said you were going to be, you're not working this out with him." Her speech was a sprint, the words flying out so fast the end of one word melted into the beginning of the next.

I pinched my lips together. "I'm not sure that's any of your business."

"Ian is my best friend." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "I get that I'm probably crossing some line here, and if I'm being completely honest, this conversation is way outside my comfort zone, but I have to know. I have to do this for him."

At that moment, a loud, rhythmic banging started up from Harper's room. I knew from experience that it was just the headboard thumping against the wall, but it drew a curious glance from Rachel.

I cleared my throat to draw her attention back to me. "I didn't tell Ian I was back in the city because it wouldn't have mattered. Things between us didn't work out, and I don't see that changing anytime soon."

"You mean because he didn't tell you about the band? Or was it the thing with Brie, because that was kind of-"

"It's Maggie," I said, cutting her off before she could take off on another tangent.

"I . . . don't understand."

I had to respect her coming here, fighting for Ian. Even if it was a conversation I didn't want to revisit. "Listen, I didn't know him then. I never saw the two of them together, but I have a feeling that he really loved her. It was the real thing, right?"

Rachel nodded, tilting her head to the side, waiting, listening.

"I can't compete with a ghost," I said, wrinkling up my nose to try and ward off the tears that were quickly making their presence known. "I tried, I really did. But it didn't matter what I did, or said, somehow I was always doing the wrong thing, or accidentally doing the thing that reminded him of her. There were times that I could see him fighting it, really struggling to stay in the present with me instead of back in the past with her. But you know what? I think she always won. And I get it, but I don't have to live with it."

Rachel laced her fingers together and looked down at them. "You have to understand, Bianca. She was his wife. He loved-"

"He's still in love with her."

She shook her head. "He's moving on. You should see the look he gets in his eyes when he talks about you. It's like he's him again. You do that to him."

"You're wrong." I laughed. Then again, did it really count as a laugh if it was devoid of any sense of humor? "He won't let himself move on. She's got this hold on him, and he can't get past it. Everything Ian ever was and anything he'll ever be, it will always belong to Maggie."

"She was his wife!" she yelled, pinching her eyebrows together.

"She's dead!" I yelled back even louder, punctuating it with a slam of my hand on the table that rattled the flower centerpiece.

Harper's door flew open, a pillow clutched in front of her, which barely managed to cover up her b.o.o.bs and lower bits. Her gaze bounced from me to Rachel, and then back again. Behind her, I caught a glance of a bare b.u.t.t cheek, the sinuous curl of a dragon wrapping around it. Narrowing her eyes, she seemed to decide everything was okay, took a step back, and slammed the door shut again.

I pushed back my chair, the legs sc.r.a.ping against the floor. This time I said it in a much quieter voice, barely loud enough to be heard. "She's dead, and I'm alive. I was right there in front of him, and I wasn't enough. It was like I was the ghost, not her. I love him . . ." I squeezed my eyes shut. "But I'm not willing to settle for the pieces of Ian that Maggie didn't take to her grave. I've spent too much time selling myself short. I deserve more than that." I stood. "I think you should leave."

It seemed that in the face of all that, Rachel didn't have that much to say. Tucking her purse under her arm, she took a step toward me, apparently changed her mind on whatever she was planning to do, turned back around, and left.

The tears were falling before the door even clicked closed, climbing over my fingers and sinking into the cracks where my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle the sobs. Another door clicked open behind me.

"Do I need to kick the s.h.i.t out of her for you, B?" Harper asked.

I shook my head, hunching my shoulders to try and contain the fresh surge of heartache. I'd fought for him, and I'd lost. I knew I was doing the right thing, but it felt like I was tearing my own heart out with only my fingers and a Popsicle stick to aid me.

Footsteps padded across the floor, then slender arms wrapped around my waist, and a cheek pressed itself against the middle of my back. "Don't worry. I've got you." A beat pa.s.sed. "Just . . . don't turn around. I was in the middle of getting dressed when she left, and I don't have any pants on."

I nearly choked on a laugh.

It was moments like those, when I hit rock bottom and still managed to eke out a smile, that I knew-I'd loved Ian, I'd lost him, but I was still surviving.

Chapter 40: Ian.

Four weeks. Twenty-eight days of living and breathing music until it felt like notes were pouring out of my fingers, and my voice was hoa.r.s.e from overuse. I could only imagine how Gavin felt. I was surprised his vocal cords were working at all. Weekends, weekdays, it didn't matter. Every day, we lived music.

This alb.u.m was something powerful, something raw. Emotion burst out of every riff, each lyric both an accusation and forgiveness for everything that'd happened. I'd never put as much of myself into the music as I did this time. And now that it was done, I felt lighter than I had in years. Like all the emotions that'd been weighing me down had been drained, drawn out of my heart, straight through my pen, bled into the paper with my ink.

Leaning back into the cushions of my typical booth at Brady's, I lifted my beer bottle up to my lips and took a swig. Rachel sat across from me, her fingernail worrying the edge of her bottle's label.

"What's up, Rach?" I asked.

She shook her head, eyes never leaving their downcast position. Her side of the booth shook as Ben slid in next to her, followed by Gavin. As Ben inched closer, Rachel scooted over until her entire left side was plastered against the wall.

"Where's Felix?" she asked.

"Oh, you know, hiding from the public, holing up in his apartment. The usual," Gavin responded, turning to me. "That was some brilliant work the last few weeks, man. Insane s.h.i.t really." Gavin snapped his fingers. "Everything was just clicking, flowing. Like the old days."

"Felt good didn't it?" Ben asked, his voice offhand. But his eyes pinned me to my seat saying, Don't forget it this time.

"Yeah," I said. "It felt . . . right." And it did. I was slowly resurrecting myself; the sh.e.l.l of the Ian who'd been walking around for the past few years was almost completely bursting with my old self.

"It's too bad Mags couldn't be here for this." Gavin lifted his bottle up, tilting it toward the sky. Ben gave a somber nod, and I was about to agree when I caught sight of Rachel's face. She was still staring at her bottle, the label half-peeled off now, but she was scowling.

"Rach?"

Ben glanced in her direction, and Gavin leaned forward to see around him, his cheek nearly pressed flat against the table.

"What's with the face?" Gavin asked, waving a hand over his own just in case she didn't understand what face meant.

"Nothing." She shrugged. "Just thinking about Maggie."

Something twinged inside me at the mention of Maggie's name. It was like I accidentally banged my elbow against the table, and a brief, tingling surge of pain flooded through me. It was . . . less. Not even close to the emotional blow I was used to feeling. I didn't know what it meant, but it scared me. I tried to call an image of her to my mind, and the best I got was something that was blurry and indistinct.

Ben pushed on. "She would have been proud of you, you know." He lifted his eyebrows at me.

I nodded. Never doubting it for a second. "To Maggie." Ben clinked his gla.s.s of water against Gavin's bottle and then against mine.

"Oh, G.o.d." Rachel laughed, dropping her head into her hands. "She was right."

"Who was right?" Ben asked.

Rachel ignored him and looked up at me. "It's always going to be Maggie, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, at the same time Gavin said, "I'm lost."

"I saw Bianca." Rachel crossed her arms.

That name was like a bombsh.e.l.l, opening up a crater in my chest. Bianca. I'd done everything in my power to not even think her name. And yet, just hearing it come through Rachel's lips, the image of her shimmered to life in front of me. No, no, no. I tried to erase the picture of her, tried to call up Maggie's in her place.

I couldn't.

As panic coursed through me, my mind finally registered what Rachel said. "You saw her?"

Ben flicked his gaze between Rachel and me, then tried exiting the booth straight through Gavin. He jolted with the impact, but held firm, shooting Ben a dirty look. If anything, Gavin leaned in farther, obviously not wanting to miss this exchange.

Rachel looked down her nose at me. "Yes." She folded her arms across her chest. "And I defended you, I fought for you. I called her a liar."

I shook my head, trying to clear out the cobwebs. "Where? You weren't . . . when did you go to Texas?"

"She's not in Texas."

"Her family is in Texas."

"Correct. Her family is in Texas, but Bianca is not."

I drew back, my hands slipping to my lap. All this time she'd been here. Here, and she never told me. Never called. If that wasn't a message, I didn't know what was.

"What happened in Texas?" Ben asked, a line creasing his forehead as he looked at me.