The river is a monstrous thing, black and seething. You’ve never seen water move this way before. As though the waves were gliding off an undulating sea creature. As though the waves were made of oil. You are at the Riverfront on the night of your bachelorette party, wearing a plastic pink cowgirl hat. A cheap taffeta veil hangs off the back, marking you as bride-to-be.
You are Daniel Everton’s bride-to-be. But Dan is back in Southern California, five hours away by plane, and you’re here in Nashville with your girls. They’re somewhere on Broadway drunk out of their minds, ruddy-faced and falling off mechanical bulls. You should be grateful to them for paying for your flight to Nashville. For your matching cowgirl hats. For this last weekend of freedom. But you are standing a few feet away from the Cumberland River, alone.
A nearby club is blaring Usher from the second story, all its windows cracked open to let out the smoke. The neon lights and snare drums of Broadway stretch out in a purgatorial haze behind you. Blocks of honky-tonk bars and Hard Rock Cafes and kitschy souvenir stores peddling cowboy hats and Americana—they all lead to the riverside, where you shiver in your bralette and denim cut-offs. The heat of bad whiskey cools from your face.
“Are you lost?”
A young woman is sitting on the terraced area behind you. You whip around. She’s reedy and pale, with short dark hair and narrow eyes rimmed in black. East Asian like you, though you barely look it, with your father’s brown hair and freckles.
She looks you in the face and asks, in a kindly drawl: “Are you drunk?”
“I’m fine,” you hear yourself say. “Just getting some air.”
“Your friends know where you are?”
“No.” You surprise yourself by how readily you disclose this detail. “But I’ll be fine.”
The girl folds her arms. You wish you had her oversized, beat-up pleather jacket. “I always want to ask you people how you’re doing,” she says. “If you’re really enjoying yourselves out here.”
You feel judged, but laugh anyway. “You a local?”
“My dad teaches at Vandy.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I was supposed to meet a date from out-of-town. Wanted to see a honky-tonk bar, but he stood me up. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. No locals ever go to Broadway.”
You don’t imagine anyone ever wanting to be on that street, with its dizzying lights and broken glass and cigarette smoke and drunk yowling. Your brain, fogged from two shots, struggles for what to do next. It’s past midnight. Your phone is dying. Your skin is pimpled with goosebumps. The girl gives you a once-over.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm,” she says, standing up. “You hungry?”
Something about her makes you trust her. It’s the unassuming twang of her voice, maybe, or the thinness of her frame. The casual unkemptness of her clothes. How she has your mom’s shoulder-length, shaggy haircut. You follow her to a parallel street, much quieter and darker. This is where all the real bars are, the ones that can’t compete with the garish, rowdy places on Broadway.
Next thing you know, she’s pulled you into a half-full diner with fluorescent lights and crooning country music. The booth seats are brown and sticky. An elderly woman sets two yellowed menus on the table. Your stomach twists, sour from all the alcohol.
“Sam, by the way,” the girl—woman—offers from behind her menu. “Your name?”
“Allie,” you say. You feel like a teenager again under her gaze, sharp and curious. “Sorry, do you have a phone charger?”
She purses her lips, shakes her head. You become aware of how absurd the situation is. You should leave right away, find your friends. At least send them your location with the last of your battery. But you check your phone and it’s dead. You lean back against the tattered fabric and realize you’re still wearing that stupid cowgirl hat, now tilting off your head, veil askew.
“When’s the big day?” Sam asks, flipping through the menu carelessly.
“Two weeks,” you say, then slide the hat onto your lap. Two weeks. And the fact of it takes you aback—yes, in two weeks you’ll be Mrs. Everton, all dark brown ringlets and white roses, ‘til death do us part. You imagine Dan walking you down the aisle at the Mission Inn in his dress blues. The idea used to give you butterflies, but now it feels childish.
“Congrats.” Sam sucks her teeth. “Do you know what you want?”
The question confuses you. Then you realize she’s talking about your food order. “What’s good here?” you say dumbly.
“It’s diner food, right? Basically the same everywhere.”
You stumble through your order when the waitress comes. You realize you’re drunker than you think. You’ve never been one to drink much; alcohol makes your throat swell and your face heat up. Sam orders fries for the table and slouches back against her seat.
“I’ve always wanted to ask,” she says. “Do people regret getting engaged?”
You should feel offended by how forward she is. How there’s something vaguely superior about her, coming here all disheveled and devil-may-care. But instead you feel something inside you give way. “I don’t regret it,” you finally say. “But this whole thing—the trip, the bachelorette party—it feels like too much.”
“Nashville’s too much,” she says.
“That’s not even it. It’s just, getting married is this big thing you’re supposed to want, but it’s just overpriced and tacky. It’s like Disneyland.”
She cracks a smile. The pride that swells up in you is unreal. “So you do regret getting engaged.”
The right answer is No, because I love my fiancé. Instead, you say “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
“Okay,” Sam says. You can tell she wants to say something more, but she bites it back.
◆
Over your Reuben sandwich and a giant basket of fries, you tell Sam about your trip. You and your girls left LAX wearing your matching cowgirl hats. Strangers whooped and clapped when you arrived in Nashville. Old ladies shot you a thumbs-up. Your girls took bathroom selfies with duck-billed lips. You snuck away to take calls from Dan, who kept asking if you were okay. If you were getting too drunk. If you drank anything on the plane. If any guys were making passes at you.
He’d wanted to come too, but only the combined powers of Bethany, Kaley, and Trish had kept him at bay. You were relieved not to have him tailing you, though you also missed his firm, gruff presence. Your fiancé: Former Air Force, now IT specialist. Your husband-to-be.
Sam nods along. She’s a messy eater, the sauce from her burger dripping down her chin. She swipes it away with the back of her hand. Her bad habits endear her to you, make her feel like an old friend.
“What about you?” you ask. “What was it like growing up here?”
“Better than you’d think,” she says between bites. “You find your people. It was worse going to college. The Northeast sucks.”
You don’t dare ask how old she is. Her small frame makes her look like a teenager, but she could be in her twenties like you. “What do you do now?”
“Work from home—my parents’ home. I write articles for a tech company. It could be worse,” she says, swiping at her face again. “You?”
You’re a real estate agent studying to be a broker. The fact feels too boring to disclose. “I guess I’ll be a housewife soon,” you say. Sam’s lips quirk up, but it’s a far cry from a smile.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get married,” she says. “It’d drive me insane.”
“Would you ever leave Nashville?”
“Once I have money.” Her eyes flit up to yours. “I hear California’s nice.”
You know the idea she has of California: beach blondes and palm trees and sun-dappled waves. No, you grew up in a suburb thronged with dairy cows and dehydrated trees. You live fifteen minutes away from Horsetown U.S.A., which has dirt paths for horseback riders instead of bike lanes. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s expensive, too.”
“But you like it there.”
“I haven’t been to many other places.”
“You been anywhere outside of Broadway? Centennial Park? Opryland?”
You shake your head. “What’s the last one?”
“Opryland. You know, Country Music Capital. There’s also this crazy hotel with a garden inside. I went when I was a kid.”
A garden inside a hotel: you imagine yourself touching the leaves, drifting between rows of night-blooming flowers. “How far away is it?”
“Maybe half an hour.” She sounds amused. “You really wanna go? I’ll drive you.”
“If it’s open right now.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s a hotel. It doesn’t close.”
You consider your friends. They might be worried sick about you. They might have even contacted Dan, two hours behind in California and waiting on a good night call. But you know better. Bethany probably has her arms around some out-of-town stud. Last time you saw her, Trish was knocking back her fourth drink. And Kaley—God knows where Kaley might be. Dan is the only one who probably cares what you’re doing right now.
Dammit, you think, snatching up a fry. This is my bachelorette party. And you like how petulant that inner monologue sounds. If you had it your way, you and your girls would’ve done something just like this. Go to some nowhere diner, gossip about each other’s boyfriends, then drive somewhere completely ridiculous. If Dan were here, he’d disapprove. Then again, the whole point of the trip is that he isn’t here.
Sam polishes off the last of her burger, sucks the grease off her thumb. Then she checks her phone. “Well? I can take you to your hotel too. Or wherever your friends are.”
“What time is it?”
“1 AM.” She puts a few bills on the table. “Still early for me, though.”
◆
Sam leads you to her car, meter-parked a few blocks away. It’s quiet here. Some partiers are shuffling back to their hotels, heads lolled against each other. You almost wish you had Dan here to lean on—his towering frame and hulking chest and gentlemanly way. He would know to take his jacket off and wrap it around your shivering frame. He would know that your ankles are killing you after hours of wobbling around in two-inch platforms.
Sam doesn’t wait for you. She’s a brisk walker in beat-up sneakers, her hands in her pockets. You follow as best as you can, cowgirl hat in your hands. The wind is beginning to pick up. Around you are the darkened office buildings and empty storefronts of downtown Nashville. “The public’s library’s pretty nice,” Sam calls to you, nodding towards one of the structures. “But you’re not here to read, are you?”
Her car’s a beat-up gray Toyota with a bunch of shit in the back—giant cardboard boxes, empty water bottles, crumpled-up receipts. She tells you to wait on the sidewalk while she moves a pile of clothes from the passenger seat to the trunk. You imagine how Dan would react to this. You’ve always made fun of him for keeping his Jeep so clean.
“All aboard.” Sam opens the passenger door wide, and you step inside with a sigh of relief. You let the cowgirl hat rest on the dashboard. Kick off your platforms and wait for Sam to sit down. When she turns the ignition on, the clock reads 1:13.
“Can I use your phone?” you ask. “I need to make a call.”
“Sure.” Sam tosses her iPhone in your lap, then guides the car out of the parking space. You have Dan’s number memorized—the only number you know other than your mom’s. You wonder if he’ll answer. He never picks up for unknown numbers.
“Everton,” he says after the third ring.
“Hey babe,” you say, bringing your voice down. “It’s Allie. My phone’s dead; I just wanted to reach you.”
“Allie? Where the hell are you? Trish says you went out to smoke.”
The aggression in his voice takes you aback. “I don’t smoke, babe. I don’t know why she told you that. I’m just walking back to the hotel.”
“Jesus.” You hear him gulp, set a glass down. “Are you safe?”
“I’m fine. I’m telling you, you don’t have to worry.”
“This whole thing—I don’t get it,” he says, like he’s said so many times before. “Why couldn’t you have just done this in LA?”
“I don’t know.” You’re tired of his judgment. He should know that you hadn’t planned on going to Nashville either, that all along it’d been Kaley’s idea to fly you to Bachelorette Party Central. “Ask my friends.”
“They’d better be taking care of you. Are you drunk right now? Your voice sounds funny.”
You realize that you’ve turned your whole body away from Sam, afraid that she’ll overhear. You glance over and see her focused on the road. “I’m fine, babe. I just wanted to call good night.”
“And whose phone is this?” he interjects. “I don’t have the number.”
“It’s Bethany’s. She got a new phone last week; I’m walking back with her.”
Your voice is nothing more than a low mutter. You’re embarrassed that you have to lie to Dan. You wonder what Sam thinks of you, giving these stupid excuses. You turn your gaze to the dark highway, the city lights blinking away, the concrete buildings falling from view.
“Come home soon,” he finally says. “I miss you.”
“I’ll be home before you know it,” you assure him, and at least this much is true.
He kisses you good night over the phone. He’s a sucker for these kinds of rituals. Something in your body loosens when you hang up. You pass the phone over to Sam.
“Sounds like a real charmer,” she says.
Heat rises to your face. “It’s nice to have someone looking after you.”
“Hm.” Sam swerves into another lane. You realize that she’s not a very good driver, all jerking movements and last-minute turn signals. “Was he mad at you?”
“Dan doesn’t get mad,” you say. “He just doesn’t like that I’m drunk.”
Sam’s lips twitch up. “Well, he’s right to be worried,” she says. “The way you were staring at the river? I was afraid you’d fall in.”
The Cumberland, in all its venomous dark. How it seemed to beckon you. You can picture it: a group of red-faced, rowdy girls daring each other to skinny-dip after a night out. Or someone leaning too far over the metal railing to vomit before losing his footing.
“I would’ve been fine,” you finally mutter. Humiliation swells in you. Sam knows nothing about Dan, nothing about your engagement, nothing about you. There’s no reason why her words should cut through you the way they do.
Sam turns on the stereo to break the silence. Johnny Cash serenades you on the drive to Opryland. She turns into the giant parking lot of a closed mall, then turns the engine off. “Well?” she says, swinging her keys off her fingers.
◆
The lobby of the Gaylord Opryland Resort is just short of tacky, with a marbled checkerboard floor and gilded trim. It’s empty except for a few uniformed workers, who nod at you when you enter. Folksy music beams in from mounted speakers. You feel self-conscious in your plastic hat and wish you’d left it in the car.
You follow Sam past the check-in desks and elevators, past shuttered conference rooms and hallways. Then out of nowhere, the building quadruples in size. Before you, an atrium opens skyward to a glass ceiling. Palm trees stretch more than thirty feet high, their fronds lush and manicured. Fake stone walkways dip and curve around flowering bushes, dark green ferns, manmade lakes with giant fountains. Their rippling surfaces reflect the café lights, the streetlamps thronging the empty indoor plaza.
“You said this was a garden,” you say.
“It’s usually brighter in here,” Sam muses, sidling up to a streetlamp. “Especially before Christmas. I remember they put decorations up when I was a kid.”
The lighting now is dim and dreamy. Faint red lights outline the palm leaves drooping around the atrium. You glance up and see the furnished balconies lining the walls, three stories high. It occurs to you that guests live here, that they have a perfect view of this surreal jungle, that some voyeur could be staring at you from his room.
Sam follows your gaze. “Should’ve had your party here.”
“Right.” You can imagine Kaley and Bethany sitting on one of those balconies in plush robes, giggling over glasses of champagne. Trish taking you by the wrist and pulling you through the dense maze of tropical foliage. All of you eating dinner at the expensive-looking Italian restaurant, set up to look like a lakefront café. But it’s Sam who’s here with you, Sam who leads you onto one of the walkways and down a flight of stairs, and then you’re following her behind a waterfall carved into a painted stone wall.
The crashing water smells like chlorine. An underwater fixture beams blue light onto the column. Sam sinks into a picnic bench nailed into the floor, pats the seat next to her.
“Sit with me,” she says.
You sink into the bench. Slip your feet out of the damn platforms, their straps leaving pink welts around your ankles. She plucks the hat off your head, puts it on hers, and you’re suddenly aware that she’s beautiful. “I wonder why people don’t just stay here all night.”
“They have security cameras,” you say faintly. But you like the idea of lingering. These walkways are a labyrinth out of a fever dream. Jungle greenery chokes the paths, illuminated by hallucinogenic shades of orange, pink, blue.
A rustle, and then Sam’s head is on your shoulder. You freeze. You aren’t one for casual contact, even though your friends hug you all the time. And then there’s Dan, who pulls you into his arms like a bear, all musk and Old Spice. But that’s different. This feeling, Sam’s head against your arm, is like a seal of approval.
“You said your fiancé was Air Force, right?” she says, voice muted against the crashing water. “How’d you meet?”
You tell her it was a high school romance that became a long-distance engagement. You went to UC Riverside for accounting, gold ring on your finger. But Dan’s parents didn’t care for college. They pushed him to join the military, same as his brothers before him.
For four years, he did air traffic control at Cannon Air Force Base, where the long hours chipped away at his sanity. You talked every night he was away, visited him every Christmas: planning your wedding, your honeymoon. Then he returned for good and you flung your arms around him in the Arrivals terminal. Tried not to mention how much weight he’d gained. Tried not to notice how he drank more, spoke louder. You didn’t mention it, any of it, because you had a wedding to plan.
Sam’s hair is rough against your bare arm. She smells like paint and laundry detergent, and something flutters in your stomach. “Why’d you say yes?”
“Because I loved him,” you say, and it’s true. You remember the letters you wrote to him during basic, how you tucked in little squares of cloth that carried your perfume. How you tried not to use your favorite floral stationery in case he’d get singled out for his mail. “I still do.”
Sam sits up, and you find yourself missing her weight against you. “I know I’ve been asking a lot of questions,” she says, straightening the cowboy hat on her head. “Thanks.”
“Thanks,” you repeat, feeling strangely brave. “You’re awfully curious about me.”
She shrugs. “I’ve lived here all my life, and seen so many people like you, and I’ve never gotten to talk to them. It’s not like I’ll see you again, so why not ask stuff?”
Something inside you sinks. Of course you’re not particularly special. Just another drunk out-of-towner celebrating a milestone. “Show me more of this place?”
She stands and helps you up. Even lets you balance on her when you slip back into your platforms. “I’ll take you to my favorite part. It’s crazy.”
What she means is a giant white birdcage tucked deep in the heart of the atrium. The structure is strangely beautiful—a futuristic, domed net built over a marble water fountain. It’s high, too, almost as tall as the palm trees. White fairy lights twinkle around the birdcage, marking it as a romantic place, a place to take prom photos, walk hand-in-hand with your lover.
“Stay there,” Sam says when you approach the structure. “I’ll take some pictures for you.”
You don’t object. You try to act casual as Sam crouches and snaps photos of you from different angles. You figure this will make a fun tourist memory. Maybe your friends will want to see what you did without them.
The thought makes you crack a sarcastic grin. Click, goes Sam’s iPhone.
You’re about to ask her to AirDrop the photos to you. Then you remember that your phone is dead. You suddenly feel naked. You can’t even call a Lyft back to your hotel.
“Take a look,” Sam says, showing her phone to you.
The photos are surprisingly lovely. Sam knows how to make the light flatter you. You take in how you look—wavy hair, contemplative features, a body that hasn’t turned thirty yet. You wonder if this is the way she’s come to see you.
“Should I send these to Dan?” she asks, and the question jolts you back to reality.
“No. No, you really shouldn’t.”
“Would he get mad? Or jealous?”
“Not on your life,” you say. You’re not sure whether to feel afraid or giddy.
◆
The two of you keep walking. The atrium stretches on and on, feeling more like a miniature village than a garden. The labyrinthine jungle gives way to a life-size canal, waters dark and smelling of metal. You see quarters glint at the bottom.
“I actually fell in there as a kid,” Sam says nonchalantly. She stops you both on the bridge you’re crossing, nodding towards the canal. “They used to have this steamboat that went around the canal. My dad took us on it one Christmas. I wanted to touch the water so badly that I fell past the railing. Almost fucking died here.”
You laugh. The image is grim, but not as grim as drowning in the Cumberland. “Who fished you out?”
“My dad. He jumped in after me. We’re both idiots.” She shakes her head. “They should’ve banned us.”
“I’m sure they’ve seen worse,” you say. You’re distracted by the way the light accentuates Sam’s cheekbones, how they make her look sharper than ever. “I’m surprised it didn’t traumatize you.”
“Nah.” She brushes some hair behind her ear. “I should come here more. Maybe if I were on a date or something, I’d take them here.”
Your gaze catches hers. Her features soften under your scrutiny. Suddenly the you leaves your body. You see yourself as though from a great distance, standing on this gaudy painted bridge over a fake river, just a few breaths away from kissing a stranger.
Then she continues to walk. “There’s an arcade here, too. An escape room. Even an indoor water park. This place is crazy.”
Everything about you feels tight. You follow her through roped-off dining areas and empty gazebos. She’s walking towards the other end of the resort, which looks much more like a normal hotel. You see marble flooring in the distance, hallways leading to guest rooms.
“Are we leaving already?” you hear yourself say. Sam looks back at you with a raised eyebrow.
“Do you want to stay?”
You glance up at the balconies thronging the atrium. What if you lingered here with her, just for one night—not even touching her, but just lying on the other side of a king-sized mattress? What if you let Bethany and Trish and Kaley worry about you in the morning? What if you just disappeared into this dream world, sharing a room with Sam at the gaudiest resort in the world?
“I’m just thinking I might do my honeymoon here,” you say. “It could be nice.”
She shakes her head and walks on, sneakers scuffing against the floor. “You could definitely do better than this.”
You scoff. Dan had wanted to do your honeymoon on Catalina Island, just a ferry ride away from Long Beach. He’d wanted to go camping. It’s not your idea of glamor, but it’s efficient and cheap.
“I guess I’ve never seen a place like this before. I didn’t know how much I’d like it.”
Sam takes the cowboy hat off her head, spinning it in lazy circles around one hand. “If you come back, you should let me know. I guess Dan has my number.”
“He thinks you’re my friend,” you say without thinking.
“Aren’t I your friend?”
You know that you’ll never see Sam again after this. There’s no reason you need to return to Nashville in your life. All your friends live in Riverside County, born and raised. You have so little in common with them at this age, but they’re there, and so are you.
“We should go,” you tell her, nodding towards the exit. “My feet are killing me.”
“Suit yourself,” she says, and you can’t tell if she sounds disappointed.
◆
On the drive back to the Grand Sheraton, you wonder what you’re going to tell Dan. Because nothing happened between you and Sam—nothing that would warrant moral accountability. Maybe you’d have to admit that you lied to him. That instead of going back to the hotel with your friends, you went to a different hotel with a strange girl. But that would only lead to more questions, all of them pointing towards some kind of infidelity. None of that happened. Why bring it up?
But Sam’s hand is dangerously close to your thigh. She’s humming along to the radio, one hand on the wheel, the other just resting against your leg. With every errant twitch of her fingers, you feel twisted heat bloom under your ribs. You’ve fallen in love with how she smells, earthy and clean.
“What’ll you do the rest of the weekend?” she drawls. “Drink some more?”
You nod numbly. It’s bar hop after bar hop with your friends. “We’ll probably do Broadway again. Then fly out on Sunday.”
She laughs—this throaty, rich sound. “Will I see you by the river again?”
“Maybe you’ll have to jump in after me.”
Her eyes flash. She shakes her head, mouth set in a tight line. “There are easier ways to make my life interesting. And there are easier ways for you not to get married.”
You realize what you’ve just said, and shame clouds your thinking. “Like what?”
“Tell him you can’t do it. Tell your friends to back you up. Hell, even I could do it.” You think about Dan’s number burning a hole in her phone. “Want me to?”
“No, no.” The Sheraton logo comes into view, just a few blocks away. “This is okay. You can drop me off here.”
“You sure you can make it in those heels?”
“I’ll be fine.” You take out your wallet, unfold a few bills, and hold them out to her when she pulls over. “Here. For the diner and for gas.”
She scoffs and pushes your hand aside. “I guess you haven’t heard of Southern hospitality.”
“Is that what this was?”
The words leave you before she can think. She finally takes the bills, sighs.
“Good night, Allie. Congrats on the wedding.”
You hear the doors unlock. You push yourself out of the seat, ignoring your throbbing ankles. Then Sam catches your wrist.
“You forgot your hat,” she says, fingers warm around your pulse.
“Keep it.”
She lets go of your wrist, tips the plastic brim of the hat at you. “If you’re sure.”
There’s a moment where you could invite her into the hotel. Take her by the hand and march her to the front desk and check out another room just for the two of you. “Thanks again,” you say, and pull away to close the door. You don’t look back as you stride to the hotel, wind whipping the heat off your cheeks.
The Grand Sheraton is all gloss and gold-spangled walls. You stride to the glass elevators, exposed tubes that shoot up futuristically. You feel empty but somehow relieved. As though you’ve gone through some trial and made it out unscathed.
You make your way to Room 407, the suite you share with your friends. You’re expecting them to be collapsed on the beds or helter-skelter on the floor. But when you swing the door open, nobody’s there. Just four flung-open, disheveled suitcases and half-swigged bottles of gin and a slice of pizza gone cold in a takeout box.
You kick off your shoes for the last time tonight. Strip off the bralette and the cut-offs, plug your phone in, then make your way into the cleanest bed. Your friends will find you here at the end of the night, peacefully asleep. Nobody will ever know you were gone.
◆
One week before your wedding, Dan calls you out of the kitchen and into the living room. “Got some crazy photos from Bethany,” he says. “Where is this?”
Your heart thumps in your ears as you approach him, still drying your hands. From behind his shoulder, you watch as he scrolls through picture after picture. You tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You laughing at something you don’t remember. You lit up by that giant white birdcage. You on the night of your bachelorette party, traipsing around Nashville with Sam.
You hadn’t told anyone about her. In the morning, when your friends barreled into your room and plied you with questions, you came up with a convincing excuse. You said you’d had too much to drink, stumbled back to the hotel, and knocked out hours ago. You apologized for worrying everyone.
“Allie?” Dan says. “You’re zoning out.”
“Oh.” You muster a smile. “We went to Opryland. There’s a nice hotel there.”
“You and I should go one day.”
“I’d like that,” you say, absently thumbing through the rest of the photos.
When you’d landed in LA, Dan had been there to pick you up. Everything came crashing down on you when you saw him. The nights you’d fallen asleep talking to each other on the phone. The love letters you’d written to make the distance smaller. You felt a wave of relief obliterate the shame coiled inside you. You did love him. Of course you did. One weekend in Nashville wasn’t enough to make you doubt that.
That night, you held him in bed and listened to his light snoring. You could do this for the rest of your life. It was second nature to you, being his girl. The possibility of some other, stranger life—that was already too far away.
“Where’s that one?” Dan asks, nudging the screen with his knuckle. You scroll to the very end. The picture is almost too dark to see at first. You bring up the larger version and recognize the figure standing in front of the Cumberland River.
Her body is hunched over the railing, bralette straps sliding down her arms. A plastic cowboy hat tips off her head. Sam must have taken this before she spoke to you. You realize that this was how she saw you all along: a woman slouching towards something incomprehensible and dark.
It occurs to you that she might have wanted to save you from some worst case scenario. But here you are, thousands of miles away from the Cumberland. There is nothing she needs to protect you from here. You’re almost tempted to call her and tell her you’re fine, you’re in love, you’re getting married and maybe you should come.
But instead you give Dan his phone back. “That was part of my walk. That river, babe—one of the scariest things I’ve seen in my life.”
He chuckles, takes you into his arms. “I should’ve been there to protect you.”
“Didn’t need you. I got back home, didn’t I?”
“Right where you belong.”
He takes you into his lap and wraps his arms around you, and for a moment nothing else exists. Then a memory surfaces in you—Sam’s voice on the drive back from Opryland, her hand brushing soft against your thigh. The memory feels so heavy, like it would sink if you threw it in water. So you swallow it and it and disappears, covered by the black waves that roil in you, the uncertain pitch dark of your heart.