The guitars saved me. Being around October all day was tougher than I thought it was going to be. I felt like I’d spent my life perfecting the art of pretending—pretending to care, pretending not to care, pretending I didn’t feel things, pretending I did—but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to pretend I didn’t want to be with that woman.

I had a little over a week to finish the birdcage, and that kept me busy in my corner of the studio without having to interact with October too much. Plus, Rae was around a lot then. She usually worked out of the house, doing whatever it was she did—taking care of October’s personal business and eating trail mix—but following Cal’s departure, Rae seemed to find myriad reasons to stop by the studio throughout the day. I figured she was there to make sure I was keeping my distance, and I was.

In the meantime, October had begun working on the series of vintage ship paintings that had been lying dormant against the wall since my first day on the job. The series was part of a nautical-themed exhibit she would be debuting at a Thomas Frasier popup gallery in Chicago the following summer. When she wasn’t working on selfies and Ribble scribbles, she focused on those.

But sharing the space with her was hard. Sometimes I would glance up and watch her from across the room, the way she puckered her lips and shifted them to the side when she stepped back to survey a canvas; the way she tilted her head, squinted and bit at her left thumbnail when she was focusing on the details of a piece; the way she had to lift her head up to see when her hair fell across her eye.

She was extra quiet that week. Kept to herself and seemed pretty down. And the minute she left at the end of the day, I felt lonely. If it hadn’t been for Cal’s guitars, I’m not sure what I would have done.

Actually, I do know.

I would have left.

And in hindsight, maybe running off sooner rather than later would have made it easier for all of us. Maybe if I’d left that week, I wouldn’t have ended up working as a guitar instructor in a sleepy mountain town in northwestern Montana, living in Sid’s guest cabin without Wi-Fi, wishing I’d done everything differently.