Now Blaine and Zeke were at a table talking with a couple of women, and Tobias sat at the bar nursing a beer, his attention riveted to the stage, admiring the woman who had stolen his heart, nurtured his soul, and become his best friend. As Madigan sang about drowning in bad decisions and finding her way to the surface, he realized that was exactly how he’d felt when he met her. Everything about them was unexpected. Madigan made him think about things he’d spent too long running from and feel things he hadn’t thought possible. He no longer felt as though he were drowning or fighting to reach the surface. But as happy as he was with the direction he and Madigan were going and the life they were building, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being at risk of sinking again under the weight of the guilt riding on his shoulders.

“I know that you don’t wanna lose

What you know about who you are.”

He’d learned about all of her stories and the thoughts and emotions that had driven them to fruition, and although he enjoyed them all, this one was a favorite. She hadn’t written it about anyone in particular but rather about every person who walked the earth. She claimed everyone heard something different in the story, and he believed that because she’d written it in such a way that made it easy to insert oneself into it. He’d heard her sing it in many different ways, and she was so talented, it made just as big of an impact whether she sang it low and thoughtful, as she was now, or loud and aggressive.

“This is the hard part, knock you on your ass

And onto logically challenging shit.”

When he’d come back to town to face Madigan with the truth about his past, he’d thought that would be the hardest part, but that was only the first step. Thanks to Madigan and her family, he was finally reconnecting with the focused, forward-moving guy he’d once been. Unfortunately, coming into his own again magnified the parts of himself that were missing, leaving him unsettled. He was still trying to figure out how to handle that, but he knew one thing for sure. If he was ever going to be the man Madigan deserved, he had to figure out his shit sooner rather than later.

“I wish I had the answers, but I don’t, so let go of it

Revert a little primally and learn to reconnect with your life.

And I’ll be trying to catch up on all my memories.

It’s clearer every day, but it was harder before I had a clue…”