Founded on Goodbye by Kat Singleton

After one of the best evenings of my life, I lie in bed with Nash, the two of us completely naked. I’m sprawled across his chest, his fingers absentmindedly playing with my hair. The moonlight lights up our room, the wall of windows allowing some light into the otherwise dark room. We sit high up in the mountains, the view from our room spectacular. No matter what direction you look in from the windows, you’re met with beautiful trees and snow-topped mountains.

“Thank you for all of this,” I say, leaning up to peek at him. Looking at him makes my heart constrict inside my chest. These moments with him are more than perfect. As I take in his features, I’m still taken aback by how incredibly sexy he is. The same lips that have kissed every inch of my body pull up in a side smile.

“What?” I ask playfully.

“If you look at me like that again, Rose, I just might fucking fall in love with you,” he hints, as if he didn’t just throw out words that could change everything.

My mouth opens and closes awkwardly, trying to think of what to say back. I desperately want to tell him the truth—that I’ve already fallen in love with him. Somehow in the midst of scheming to get him to fall in love with me, I fell too. I’ve handed my heart right over to him, knowing deep down I could never keep his.

The truth of what brought me here begins to weigh heavy on my chest. It’s pushing so hard against me that I can’t think of anything but coming clean to him. I suddenly can’t keep up the charade for a moment longer. I know there will be consequences, but I desperately need him to know I love him.

And…that I’ve also betrayed him.

How do you tell someone that you love them and betrayed them in the same moment?

“Nash, I need to tell you something,” I whisper. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I look at him cautiously, hoping he sees the sincerity in my eyes. The hum of the heater is the only sound in the room for a few moments.

Reaching up, he runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Not tonight,” he says. “Tonight, let’s just pretend that the world I live in won’t try to tear us apart.”

I look away regretfully. If only you knew.

“Whatever is weighing on you, can it wait until tomorrow? Tonight, I just want to pretend. I just want to be Nash and Nora.”

The vulnerability in his eyes shatters me, but no matter how bad I want to confess every dirty secret I’ve kept, I want to give him what he wants. He deserves at least one more night of being happy. Tomorrow, once I tell him, he’ll realize his world was bound to tear us apart from the start, and I knew it. And, not only did I know it…I took part in planning the demise.

Swallowing my emotion, I nod, fearful my voice would break if I spoke. Leaning down, I kiss each one of his cheeks, his forehead, his jaw, trying to mark each part of that beautiful face. “Just Nash and Nora,” I repeat, hovering over his lips.

He pulls me against him, lazily slipping his tongue between my lips as if we have all the time in the world.

“You’ve made me a liar, Nora. I said I’d never fall in love again, but…I know with every part of me that I love you. And I know that I’m fucked up and have a shit ton of baggage, but I want to work through it because of you, Rose. I want to work through it with you. I desperately want us to work, to keep you forever. In loving you, I think I’ve finally found how to love myself as well.”

A lone tear betrays me, slipping down my cheek. Nash wipes it away with the pad of his thumb, keeping his hand on my face.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he rushes. “I know it’s soon and I’m probably fucking crazy. I’m impulsive and never think before I act, going full speed ahead always being my MO. But through songwriting, I’ve had to get very in touch with my feelings and because of that, I know I fucking love you. You’re changing me, and I don’t want it to ever stop.”

My foot finds his under the covers, and I tangle my legs with his to get even closer to him. I don’t tell him I love him even though I desperately want to. It isn’t fair for him to know how I really feel until he knows the truth behind how we met.

Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow after the show. He deserves to know the truth, even if means the end of us. Monica will probably have my head for coming clean, but it’s the right thing to do. I don’t see any other option here. I need him to know what I’ve done. It’s going to blindside him, but he needs to hear it from me—that all along, the plan has been for me to break his heart.

I knew all along it was a bad idea, that it went against all my principles, and I did it anyway.

And now, I’ll have to face the consequences.

I’m going to lose the man I love.

“You’re changing me too, Nash,” I say, desperate for him to know how true that is.

After high school, I thought my heart was tattered and bruised, unable to trust a man again. With Nash, it was different from early on. I trust him with everything that I am. He worships every inch of my body, embedding himself deep into my soul in the process.

I would do anything to keep him. To keep this feeling of being loved and cherished. I thought I’d known true love before, but one night was all it took to prove how wrong I was.

Nash’s hand slides up my thigh, coming to rest on the curve of my hips. “The day we met, I was so pissed off about having dancers.”

I laugh, remembering how grouchy he was. “You don’t say?” I tease.

A smile lights up his face. “Hey, I’m trying to be romantic here.” There’s a playful glint to his eyes, one that has started to appear more and more in the time I’ve gotten to know him.

I gesture for him to proceed. “Then, by all means…”

“I was pissed off about having dancers,” he repeats. “It wasn’t as much the dancers as it was feeling like I didn’t have control of anything in my life anymore. And I didn’t know how I felt about that. I didn’t want control, but I also needed to feel control over some aspect of my life. For some reason, I latched onto this idea that refusing to have dancers was one way to show I could take back some control of things.”

His fingers trace along my collarbone as he continues. “After our encounter in the room, I left even more pissed off. You may not remember this but as you were walking out the door you asked—”

“If you were okay,” I finish for him, remembering the moment clearly.

He swallows slowly, looking at me with such honesty in his eyes. “Yeah,” he rasps. “When you left, I realized that was the first time someone had asked if I was okay in a long, long time.”

“The way you stormed into the room, it was obvious something was wrong.”

“Well, people don’t always like to ask if I’m okay. They’re too afraid of me saying no and them actually having to do something about it.”

There’s a pang in my chest for him. The more I learn about him and his world, the more I want to shield him from every person that has ignored every one of his warning signs about how sad he truly feels. It’s clear there aren’t many people in his life that he trusts.

And now I’m one of them.

“I was so mad at you for asking if I was okay, for caring more about me than people I’ve known for years. And then…”

His voice trails off, leaving me wondering what he’s going to say. When he doesn’t answer, I prod him for more. “And then what?” I kiss the top of his hand, my lips feathering against one of the tattooed petals of the rose.

“And then I saw you dance. You moved so effortlessly out there; it was so damn clear how passionate you were about dancing. For a brief moment, I hated you for it. I hated that you so clearly loved dancing, because I was remembering the times I felt that same passion and love for singing.”

“There was a time I hated dancing too,” I say absentmindedly.

His eyebrows raise, my admission a shock to the both of us. When I stay silent, he goes on with his story. “When they told me we were going to dance to Preach together, I about lost my damn mind. I couldn’t fathom sharing the stage while singing that song—something so personal to me. It’s already so fucking personal to stand in front of thousands of people, singing about having your heart broken. I couldn’t wrap my head around having someone else up there with me, sharing in the moment.”

“I didn’t know…”

His shoulder moves in a slight shrug. “How could you have? All I did was throw a fit, not giving anyone a reason for not wanting to do it except that I didn’t want to share the stage. I’m glad it happened, though. Without Preach, I don’t know if we would’ve become…this.”

I smile, trying not to make it look as sad as I feel. He has no idea how right he is. His team convinced him to do Preach to throw us together.

It’s all been planned. And here he is, thinking our love story happened on its own.

“You didn’t think we’d end up cuddling in a cabin in the mountains? Damn, that’s the first thing I envisioned when we met,” I joke.

He shakes his head, pulling me against his body in one fell swoop. “You’re a smartass.”

“Just telling the truth.” I try and turn to face him, but he locks me against him.

“Yeah, I don’t fucking cuddle.” He rests his jaw on my shoulder, adjusting my body so my back presses against his chest.

“What would you call this?” I question, interlocking my fingers with his.

His lips gently press against the base of my neck. The feeling of his fingers gently pushing my hair to the side has my arms breaking out in goosebumps. “Fuck.” He laughs. “This is cuddling. Landon and Poe were right, I’m a simp. I didn’t used to cuddle—thought it was utter bullshit and unnecessary—but I could get used to this.”

“Me too.” Looking over my shoulder, I find his eyes. The reflecting moonlight makes his eyes appear darker than they are in the daylight.

“Stay with me,” he whispers, his hand stroking my hairline. “Stay with me when I piss you off. Stay with me when this gets hard. Stay with me through it all, Nora. Please.”

His grip on me loosens, allowing me to turn and bury my face in his chest. It’s the only way I’m able to hide the tears welling in my eyes. Each one of his words felt like a punch to the gut.

* * *

It’s sometime early in the morning.

Nash is finally asleep after we spent countless hours exploring each other, and I’m standing in the large bathroom, staring back at my reflection.

It’s hard to look at myself. His earlier plea is running through my mind on rewind. I know it was hard for him to ask for me to stay, to be vulnerable like that. That knowledge makes this situation so much worse. He wants me to stay, and I want to stay, but I know after I confess all our ugly truths, he will want me as far away from him as possible. And I can’t even blame him.

I hate myself for what this is going to do to him.

I wanted to be the one to save him. The irony isn’t lost on me. Because the truth is, I was sent to ruin him.

When I was eighteen, something happened that made it hard for me to look at myself in the mirror. So I feel that pain. I’ve buried that pain, that loathing, deep down inside of me, trying to push past the experience.

My therapist told me I was also a victim for what happened that night, but I didn’t believe her for a long time. What happened to my sister…it felt like it was my fault, and it took me a long time to even look at myself in a mirror. I’d finally gotten to a spot where I could look at myself again when this opportunity was dropped in my lap. But here I am for the second time, hating what I see staring back at me.

Looking away from my reflection, I glance down and see Nash’s song journal sitting on the counter. I stare at it for a while, my eyes boring a hole into the rich leather cover. I know it’s a huge invasion of privacy to open it, to look deep into the inner workings of Nash’s mind, but I can’t help it. Taking a seat in the chair perched in front of the vanity, I open the journal.

Not wanting to wake Nash, I use the early light to help read the lyrics he’s poured onto every page. Tears spill from my eyes, and I have to be careful to make sure they don’t fall onto the pages. With every lyric, poem, note he’s jotted down, I feel more and more guilty. Reading through these pages is like experiencing our love story all over again, from Nash’s point of view, start to…near finish.

It’s the most achingly beautiful thing.

I don’t know how long I sit in the dark, committing every single stroke of his pen to memory. When our love story comes to an end, ending in guaranteed heartbreak, I want to remember these words.

Once I reach the end of the journal, I get an idea. I know when I come clean to Nash, there’s a good chance I won’t get to explain myself, to give him a good apology. He’ll probably want nothing to do with me or my excuses, and I’ll respect that.

But I need him to know how sorry I am, so I write it down, pouring my heart out just like he’s done in his own words.

Nash,

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance our story has come to its impending end. I wish I had a good explanation of why I did what I did, but in reality, I don’t. There will never be words that can justify why I agreed to hurt you. I couldn’t let us end without telling you my story.

This is the last time I’ll be selfish when it comes to you. I write these words knowing it’ll probably be easier for you to not know these things, but I can’t help it. You must know how deeply I’ve fallen in love with you. I know I told you lies, deceived you, but I also fell for you. You’re an amazing person, Nash. You didn’t deserve what we did to you.

When I first got the offer, I debated on taking it. It felt like a perfect opportunity for me to chase my dreams. When I told Monica yes, I honestly didn’t think you and I would ever speak. I mean that. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to hurt you. It was the perfect opportunity…or so I thought.

Every moment we spent together I wanted to come clean to you, but I couldn’t do it. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to hurt you, but it was mostly because I didn’t want to lose you. It probably makes me the worst person, because I’d like to say I’d go back and tell Monica no. That’s what I keep telling myself, but now, as I confess my truth, I’m not sure that is the truth.

It’s incredibly selfish, because I know you’re hurt and I don’t want you to be hurt, but I also don’t know if I would change knowing what it is to be loved by you. To be loved by you, Nash Pierce, is like performing in a rain show. It’s beautiful, exhilarating, epic.

You once said if all shows were rain shows, they wouldn’t feel so special, and I now understand what you meant. If all love was like your love, the world would be a lot better of a place.

I’m not asking you to forgive me. I know what I’ve done is wrong, and that it’s something we can’t come back from.

The only thing I ask of you is to know it was real for me. It was the rain show of my life. My epic love.

Everything you felt, I also felt.

I love you, Nash. I love you so much.

I’m so fucking sorry.

Always yours,

Rose