Founded on Goodbye by Kat Singleton

Four Months Later

Darkness envelops the space around me as I flip off the lights to the dance studio I’ve worked at the last few months. Rifling through my purse, I find my car keys and head toward the parking lot. As soon as I step out the door, the dry LA heat warms my skin. The sun has begun to set, leaving the bustling city around me in an orange glow. Two little girls play on the sidewalk in front of the sandwich shop next door. It looks like they’ve set up a doll beauty shop, the two of them braiding the hair of their dolls. The owner of the shop, Maggie, watches from the doorway with a serene smile on her face.

The two little girls remind me of me and my sister when we were kids. She could always braid so much better than I could, making me so angry as a child. My sister and I have begun to talk more recently. She’s currently in Washington working at a hotel, but she said when she gets the chance, she wants to come to LA to visit. It’s a steppingstone toward a better relationship for the two of us.

After the interview with Piper, and telling Nash about what had happened in high school, I realized I needed to do a better job of reaching out to her. I’m the older sister and I should put in the work to mend our relationship, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Surprisingly, she was all for it. We’re taking baby steps, but a baby step is still a step.

Getting in my car, I find a text from Riley saying she is also on her way home. Tonight, we have big plans to watch the music awards. It’s the first time Nash has performed there in two years. He’s been teasing new music on all his socials for weeks now, and there’s a pit in my stomach at the possibility of his performance tonight involving lyrics about me.

It’s been over four months since I’ve seen him. In the beginning, I could barely leave my bed, too upset with myself and what I’ve done to be a functioning member of society. Riley eventually had to stage an intervention, forcing me to get out of bed and wash my hair. For a long time, she had his socials blocked on my phone, knowing I was too obsessed with stalking him online. I felt like I deserved to see him with girl after girl. It was a way of punishing myself for how much I hurt him. Every time I saw his arm wrapped around the waist of a beautiful girl, it felt like salt in the wound. I didn’t blame him for moving on at all, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

When I finally got to a healthy place where I didn’t cry about him daily, I caught up on every single thing he’d been up to recently. I only felt worse all over again when I learned how bad he was handling things. Night after night, he performs under the influence of something. Sometimes he begins the show slurring a bit, but for some reason, people love it. I’ve read some articles that even go as far as saying they’re some of his best shows. It’s crazy to me how, in one line, they’ll talk about how he’s unhealthily drunk and in the next, how they think it was his best show because of it. No wonder he has a hard time staying sober. Aside from being backstabbed by those closest to him, he has the media telling him he’s at his best when he’s three shots to the wind. It reminds me of a line he said at the show that went to shit. He’d said, “They only want me when I’m broken,” and he was dead on.

It’s sad. I’m sad for him. I’d reach out to him if I thought it would help, but he made it clear that he no longer wanted anything to do with me, and I have to respect that.

We haven’t spoken a word since our night together on my last night of the tour. It was a night that left my head—and my heart—spinning for weeks. I wish I could’ve convinced him of my feelings for him, but his pain was too fresh to see past my deceit. I can’t blame him for walking away; it was the plan all along. I just hadn’t expected it to hurt the way it did, that final goodbye making things worse.

It’s awkward while Riley and I eat dinner. She knows how anxious I am about this performance. I twirl the noodles around on my plate, too nervous to eat. My stomach is in knots. The two of us sit on our couch, both anxiously waiting for the announcement of when he’ll be on. Right as they make an announcement that he’ll be performing after the break, I panic.

“I can’t do this,” I tell Riley, hiding my face behind a pillow.

Her hand rubs my shoulder. “You don’t have to watch it, Nora. We could turn it off.”

Pulling the pillow down slightly, I meet her eyes. “I can’t not watch it.”

She nods, biting at one of her nails. The TV plays a trailer for a movie releasing next month, but all I can think about is what Nash will sing about. What will he say about me in his lyrics?

“I broke his heart, the least I could do is listen to the songs he created because of that.”

Before I’m ready, the logo for the award shows pop up on the screen. It’s time for him to perform, and a million little anxious butterflies take flight in my stomach.

My eyes are glued to the TV as I watch his face pop up onto the screen. There’s a ping in my heart when I see his face, remembering all the times I feathered kisses over his skin. I want to die when I take in his outfit, remembering a time when the man on the screen was mine. He looks incredibly sexy. He wears a suit as black as night. There’s a leather strap going down both arms, adding a bit of edge to it. As if he wasn’t alluring enough, he’s got nothing on underneath the suit jacket. His chiseled chest and tattoos peek out, and it’s devastatingly hot. He has so much sex appeal. I think the only times he’s looked better is when he was naked in bed with me. When the camera pans out, I notice a pair of black biker boots covering his feet, adding his own personal touch to the outfit.

Dancers I came to know so well from tour stand behind him on stage. All of them decked out in red and black. The screen behind him is as dark as his suit.

I hold my breath, waiting for the song to begin. Troy beats on the drum behind him, getting the song started, and then I feel the sting of regret for what I’ve done to Nash all over again.

Was I a pawn in your game of chess?

At this point, I’d expect nothing less

I tried to hate you, you know it's true

But the only thing I hate is how much I love you

You think you could’ve given me a better goodbye?

Now I’m left chasing that high

Oh Rose,

We were doomed from the start

You were sent to destroy me

Why couldn’t you fall?

Oh Rose,

I’ve tried hating you

But all it did is make me love you

But how can we love with no trust?

I want love for the both of us

You want nothing from me at all

I told you I didn’t want to fall

You’re beautiful, Rose

Your thorns sure do stab

Blood running down my hand

I find myself still wishing I was your man

Oh Rose,

We were doomed from the starting gate

You were sent to destroy me

Why couldn’t you fall?

Oh Rose,

I’ve tried hating you

But all it did is make me love you

But how can we love with no trust?

Can I love you enough for the two of us?

You want nothing from me at all

I told you I didn’t want to fall

I didn’t know my heart was flammable, baby

Thought you were sent to save me

Turns out you came holding kerosene

Lighting up the fragile part of what was left of me

We burn, burn, burn, baby

We’re done, done, done, baby

Tears stream down my face as the red rose on the screen behind Nash wilts, all the petals falling to the ground. The screen goes black, only one stage light still illuminating Nash. He runs a hand through the curls at the top of his head, staring straight at the camera. My stomach lurches, feeling like he’s looking straight into my soul. There’s no doubt that song was about me. I’m not shocked. He told me to my face he had written songs about me, I just wasn’t fully prepared to hear them for the first time. I wasn’t ready to hear the pain etched in every one of his lyrics.

“Okay, well, that was…” Riley says next to me. I feel her watching me carefully, but I can’t do anything but continue to stare at Nash on the screen. He gives the crowd an apprehensive smile as numerous famous people give him a standing ovation.

I thought my stomach had dropped as low as it could get, but when a gorgeous woman, an actress I think, comes up next to Nash, I feel sick all over again. The way she smiles at him, it makes it seem like they’re familiar with each other. She easily leans her body toward his, fanning herself with her hand as she interacts with the crowd.

I don’t hear a thing she says, my head still rushing with the lyrics he just sang. I’m busy analyzing each and every word when the words from the woman on the screen catch my attention.

“Catch Nash’s new album, Founded on Goodbye, this fall!” Throwing her blonde hair over her shoulder, she looks toward Nash. “And if that song Rose is any indication of what that album will sound like, I’m sold.”

Nash nods, murmuring a “thank you” into his microphone. All too soon, he’s gone from our screen, the show moving onto the next award.

Riley scoots on the couch until she’s pressed up against me. Her arm comes to wrap around me, pulling me into her chest as the tears really begin to fall. “Aww, Nora,” she coos, rubbing my hair for comfort.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I say into her hair. “I knew what I was getting into, I wasn’t the one who was blindsided.”

She continues to play with the strands of my hair. I used to pay her and my sister to brush my hair when we were kids, loving the feeling of someone playing with my hair. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you too. You did something shitty, but you also fell in love. It’s okay to be sad about it. It’s okay to miss him.”

Her words send me over the edge, a waterfall of tears breaking through my chest. It’s been a while since I cried about Nash, my sobs now making up for lost time. I’ve known for months I hurt Nash but hearing it in a song makes it more real. Knowing that people love the song only makes it worse, which is something I feel bad about. I just hate that it took all of us betraying him for him to write something people appreciate again.

“I miss him so much, Riley.” It’s true. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t wish I could call him and tell him about my day or ask him a random fact about himself. I miss watching him joke around with Sebastian and his bandmates, some of the only moments where he’s at ease enough to really laugh. I miss tracing each one of his tattoos, pestering him with questions about what they mean. I miss late nights with him, getting lost in each other.

I miss so many things about him that it overwhelms me. And it’s hard to know that if I didn’t hurt him, if I just told him the truth the second we became friends, that maybe I wouldn’t have to be missing him at all.

It all fucking hurts. And I feel guilty that I knew it was bound to happen all along.

“We need tacos,” Riley declares, getting up from the couch. She stands in front of me, motioning for me to get up.

I groan, settling myself deeper into the couch. “I can’t! I’m too busy crying.”

Moving her head from left to right, she thinks through my response. She reaches down and grabs me by the wrist, pulling me off the couch. “Yeah, well, if we’re going to cry, we’re going to do it into a pitcher of margaritas.”

I try and escape her grasp, but she’s too strong and I don’t have it in me to fight with her. I let her drag me to our favorite place, quite literally crying into my margarita while there.

* * *

When I climb into bed hours later, I finally get brave enough to check my phone. I’ve been avoiding it all night, knowing once I open it, I won’t be able to stop myself from listening to his new song over and over until I’ve cried myself to sleep.

I have to blink a few times, making sure it isn’t the alcohol in my brain playing tricks on me when I see a missed text from Nash.

Nash:People love the new song. Tell me, was it worth it?

My heart pounds against my chest as I wonder if I should respond to him. He told me he wanted nothing to do with me, but clearly, he’s wanting something. I just don’t know what he wants from me. Does he want me to say it was? Because it wasn’t, and I’m over telling lies.

Nora:Never.

Nash:I wish I could forget you. I wish I could hate you. But all I seem to be doing is loving you.

I don’t respond at first, racking my brain with what I could say to him to ease his pain. My brain is fuzzy from the tequila, making it harder to think of something to say. I don’t get the chance however, because a text comes in as I try to come up with some sort of answer.

Nash:You take the memories; I’ll keep the heartbreak. I just don’t want to remember you. To remember us. Goodbye, Rose.

Putting my phone down, I fall into my pillows, wishing things were different, wishing I hadn’t hurt him, and wishing I could just be there for him again, showing him how amazing of a person he is.

But I can’t change anything, no matter how much I want to. All I can do is hope that he gets better, that he forgives me one day.

I hope our goodbye isn’t what ruins him when it was supposed to be the thing that rebuilt him.