This is the sequel to Say Yes, so if you haven't read that, you might want to start there. It starts off a bit over a year from the end of Say Yes and I'll be filling in the blanks about that year as we go. Comments and feedback and angst filled reviews always welcome.
For the first time in over a year, Amy walks off a plane without a pain in her heart.
There's no nerves rattling round in her stomach, no anxious worry that this is the wrong place or she's making a horrible mistake (or that she already made one and any chance of coming back from it dove from the plane like D. B. fucking Cooper) or that the end of the concourse will be the end of her.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Mostly.
For the first time in over a year, Amy doesn't have the urge to turn around and run back to the safety of the plane, to her tray table in the upright position and her seat belt securely fastened. She doesn't feel the need to beg the flight attendants to let her stay, to offer to join the crew free of charge, just as long as she doesn't have to disembark, as long as no one looks for her till they're at thirty five thousand and climbing and she's somewhere, anywhere.
Anywhere but here.
More than a year ago she walked off a plane and didn't know what to expect. She didn't know who (if anyone) would be waiting for her or where (if anywhere) she could go or call home.
She steps onto the moving walkway, content to let it roll her along and it isn't like it was that other time, not like it was more than a year ago, when she let it take her, when she watched the people all in a rush, racing past her, and she prayed (actually prayed) that she'd never have to get off, that it would just keep rolling and rolling and rolling and somehow roll her back, back to before she fucked everything up, before she made one wrong call after another, back back back.
Now, when she gets to the end, when she has to use her own feet to move herself along, Amy does so with ease, without hesitation, without worry. She steps off onto solid ground and, for the first time in over a year, she knows that she's home.
There was a while, a long one (longer than she likes to think about) when she didn't know if she'd ever call California home again, when she didn't know if any place could ever hold that title because the only home, the only real one she'd ever known…
Well… it was gone.
She was gone.
Except gone wasn't really the right word. It (she) wasn't gone, it (she) had left. It (she, for fuck's sake) had stolen away in the middle of the night (like Amy'd always thought she might) leaving nothing but a diamond and a note (like Amy had never thought she might), but it wasn't just a note, it wasn't just words scrawled on paper to try and explain the inexplicable. It was an order, a command, a fucking two word (two!) summation of more than fifteen years.
Say yes
There was a while, a long one, when Amy had carried that note with her everywhere, tucked in her wallet or a pocket or clutched in her fist, just on the off chance she'd run into Karma, on the slightest chance that her once best friend would show up, all teary eyed and remorseful and begging forgiveness.
She never did.
At least not that Amy knew.
Amy carried that note for months, she took it with her everywhere. Back to Cali and then back to Austin and then back to Cali again and then, finally, to Brazil. To Maisie and then her mother and then Maisie again and then to her father and a summer and a chance to clear her mind and make, once and for all, a fucking choice. That note had been her constant companion and she'd taken enough psych courses to know that it was probably some deep seeded separation-based bullshit, a way of keeping her close even when she was nowhere fucking near.
It was, after all, the only thing she had left of Karma. There was nothing else. No pictures (burned), no mementos (trashed), no social media (cut the fuck off). For a long while no one even dared say her name (except Maisie) (and Lauren) (they dared) (they dared a fucking lot) and so yeah, maybe she clung to it, maybe she held onto it even when she knew she shouldn't.
It was OK. No one knew. No one but her.
And what they didn't know couldn't hurt her.
Right?
Right.
It was there, that note, always there, but Amy's pockets are empty now and she can only imagine the confusion on the face of that cute Brazilian waitress (Ana or Paula or Ana Paula or something, Amy was fuck all with names) who'd probably found it, tucked in with the the credit card slip in that cantina on the coast.
Say yes to what, Amy imagines her wondering.
Say yes to what?
Excellent fucking question.
She crosses through to baggage claim, her eyes drifting to the sun rippling through the giant windows at the end of the airport. She'd had sun in Brazil, sun sun and a little more sun (and enough rain to drown her sorrows and shame her tears) but there's something about the Cali sunlight. It's brighter somehow, clearer, and today, without that pain in her heart (or note in her pocket) Amy feels a little like it's shining down just for her.
She pauses in the middle of the airport and laughs at herself. A little too much rum, she thinks. Too much rum and too much sun and too much time wandering beaches and coves and Islands upon islands upon islands.
For a while, not a very long one, but still a while, Amy thought she'd be happy to never leave Brazil (and yes, she suspected that had as much to do with not knowing for sure she had somewhere to leave for as it did with actually wanting to stay.) She imagined wasting away the rest of her days on one of the beaches (or maybe several of them or all of them, though that would take years, but time… she had a lot of that), sipping drinks and taking photos for the tourists. They'd have all thought she was one of them, just another soul lingering there just long enough to forget why she'd boarded that flight in the first place.
But then she'd thought of Cali. Of school. Of her friends, of Jodi and Becks and Jess. Of Lauren and how they'd left it and of Maisie and how they… hadn't. She thought of her balcony and those palms and that sun.
She thought of the note.
And she said yes. Yes to her life and yes to her home and yes to moving on and letting go.
Her phone goes off in her pocket, Everclear's Father of Mine ringing out in the terminal. Hank tried (so very hard) for weeks to get her to change it but when she finally did and he found himself rewarded with Madonna's Papa Don't Preach he conceded defeat.
Amy doesn't bother answering. She just spent three months with the man and yeah, she loves him, and yeah, it was the best time they ever had, but she's just a little sick of his voice so she just taps a quick reply. Made it home. All safe. Thanks again. Love you dad.
The phone rings again before she can put it away and her eyes light up and a smile as bright as that sun (just for her) crosses her face as she reads the text.
You here?
She stops next to the baggage carousel, not even looking as her suitcase rolls on by and runs her finger along the screen, texting out her answer.
Yeah. Just landed. Should be on the road in a few.
She pauses, considering her words carefully cause, honestly, she's not sure they're there yet cause it was kinda new (and fragile) when she left and it's been three months...
But fuck it.
Can't wait to be home. Missed you.
The reply comes almost before she hits send.
Missed you too. A lot.
A blink. A moment. A second. And then…
See you in a few. Love you.
This time around she spots her bag and grabs it up, tugging it toward the cab stand as she types out her last reply before stuff in the phone away.
Love you too.
For the first time in over a year, Amy walks out of an airport with a smile on her face and hope in her heart.
And she's got just enough faith left to think that it all might just last. For the first time in forever, Amy believes.
Karma watches the clock from the wings, counting down the time until it's her turn on stage, until she gets her three minutes and eleven seconds worth of relief for the week. She fumbles with her guitar, turning it over in her lap, her fingers running lightly over the strings and stares at the clock on the Twain's wall.
And does the math.
It's been over a year and she still does it, every fucking time. She thought she'd be over it by now...and that's a total lie, she knew she wouldn't be over it, she'd never be over it… and by 'it', she absolutely means her and by 'never' she means… well…
Never.
It's been over a year and Karma has dropped out of school, moved back to Austin, gone to work for her parents (Good Karma has gone legit, no more pot and no more truck, they've got an actual store, more of a diner really, and - thanks to Karma - it might actually stay open long enough to turn a profit) and not spoken a single word to (though she has spoken at least a thousand words about) Amy Raudenfeld.
And she still does the math. Every fucking time she sees a clock or a watch or even the lock screen on her fucking phone, she still turns it over in her mind, figuring what time it is for Amy (wherever she is) and yes, it makes her heart hurt more but then she thinks maybe (not maybe) she deserves it.
It's her penance.
Karma sits in the wings, watching the clock and doing the math and listening to the guy on stage as he sings his way through… something. She doesn't really listen, she never does, but she can hear enough to know he's not bad, but he's not good either and most of the crowd (always bigger on Wednesday nights) has turned a deaf ear, knowing from the first three notes that it's nothing special. They're nodding along, giving good listen, but really they're just waiting him out.
"You know, right?" Ivy said to her just before she left Karma there, waiting in the wings. "You know they're here just to see you."
She did know (not that she'd ever say it out loud), she knows that Singer Showcase Night has, basically, become Karma Ashcroft Night even if she doesn't really understand how or why cause there's at least three or four singers just as good (or better) than her. There's Katie and Ellie and that Bailey girl from last week wasn't bad but it doesn't seem to matter, not to the crowds, not to the ones who sit through act after act, all polite and proper but they're all really just sitting on their hands, waiting. Waiting for her.
It's a weird sort of thrill, being the big fish in the tiny pond and it's the sort of feeling Karma didn't ever imagine she'd have, much less like. But every Wednesday night, she takes center stage and settles herself on that tiny stool with her guitar and that spotlight and for three minutes and eleven seconds (this week's tune) or four minutes and five seconds (last week) or nine minutes and thirteen seconds (three weeks ago when she got to do an encore cause the guy slotted after her bolted and they needed to fill the time) Karma gets to stare into the dark and pretend.
It's what she does best. Pretend. She pretends that every song she sings isn't about her, even if none of them could ever be about anyone else. She pretends that she likes working in the diner that now sports her name, she pretends she doesn't miss NYC (though, really, it's only Ash and Davis that she really misses, the rest is… ruined… now), she pretends that she thinks one day she'll wake up and not feel like there's a part of her missing, roaming around out there in the world somewhere, never to be seen or heard or touched again. Karma sings every song like it isn't the last one she thinks she'll ever sing and she pretends that every time the lights come back up she's not praying Amy will somehow just be there, pretends that every time she's not (which is every time) it doesn't break her heart just a little more.
She's been pretending for more than a fucking year and if she's ever gonna hit that 'pretend so much she starts to believe it' point… well… she really wishes that would hurry the fuck up and get here. More than a year ago, huddled beneath the old comforter on Davis's bed with nothing but tears and pain to keep her company, Karma imagined that by now, by this far off point in the future that she might not be over it (cause never) but she thought at least there wouldn't be some new fresh pain every day, she wouldn't still be finding new and different and fucking awful ways to break her heart even more, to crush the shattered shards of it into so much fine powder.
She remembers that day every day and every day it hurts like it's today. She remembers hiding in his bed and watching the clock and trying (so hard) not to do the math anymore (and trying even harder not to throw up again.) He'd left her, headed off to the gym a few hours earlier, telling her to stay as long as she wanted and (mercifully) not asking any (more) questions. He'd been nothing but good to her, probably better than she deserved cause, really, who opens the door to their sobbing ex (if that's even what she was to him) in the middle of night and then holds her while she wails and pukes and wails some more.
Davis, Karma remembers, was the kind of friend anyone would be lucky to have and she misses him terribly. Just not as much as he'd like and so maybe, she thinks, it's good that they haven't spoken since she moved back, maybe it's good that she only gets updates (fewer and farther between all the time) on him from Ashlyn. She's hurt him enough, she knows that.
Besides guitar (and apparently running a new age diner) (and pretending, can't forget that one) that's her one great skill. Breaking the hearts of the good ones.
She did that math that day too, watching the clock on the bedside table and running the numbers in her head. Karma remembers seeing the time change, watching it go from five-fifty-nine to six, remembers thinking Amy should have landed by then and even though for her it was six, evening headed to night, it was still afternoon for Amy, still plenty of time in the day. More than enough time to… well… to…
To what, exactly? Karma remembers thinking… wondering… what the fuck did she think Amy was going to do with all that time?
Call her? Send a coast to coast text?
'Hey, Karma, I know you fucked me like twelve hours ago and then walked out on me like nine hours ago, and if I'd bothered to check Facebook between now and then (like I would ever do that), then I'd know you unfriended me like five hours ago and if you could go back to your place, you'd have probably burned your sheets and your clothes and your fucking mattress like two hours ago, but I just wanted you to know.'
'I made it OK. I made it home.'
Karma watched that clock for hours. It was old school with numbers that flipped over as the time changed. She remembers hearing the slight flutter of the little plastic numbers and falling asleep in that bed (on the few occasions she'd spent the night.) She remembered counting between the flips, one and two and three, always wondering if she'd get to sixty just as there'd be another, just in time.
She almost never did. She was almost always a count or two ahead or behind and never on time and really, wasn't that just the story of everything?
She remembers (too fucking well) the sound of her phone buzzing behind her on the bed. She hadn't touched it in hours, not since the first few calls from Ashlyn, not since her roomie had come home to find Amy sitting on Karma's bed.
"She's crying like someone died, K," Ash said. "I almost called 911."
Like someone died. Not an entirely inaccurate description, Karma thought. But then Ash kept calling and Karma stopped answering, always terrified that she would actually put Amy on the phone and she'd barely had the strength (fuck that, call it like it is, the fucking weakness, the fucking insecurity and terror and I'm doing the right thing for her bullshit) to get out of the apartment in the first place. If she'd actually heard Amy's voice…
It's been more than a year and there's almost nothing Karma misses more than the sound of Amy's voice.
Ash had taken the hint, eventually, and stopped calling after the sixth or seventh time, stopped texting after the first hour. And Amy…
Amy hadn't called at all.
It had been Raudenfeld radio silence since the moment she'd fallen asleep and Karma knew that wouldn't change and she wasn't really surprised and she didn't really blame Amy (she knew where the blame really lay.) If she was Amy, she doubted she'd call either. After all, when it came right down to it, Karma had done exactly what Amy had said she would.
When my tears are dried and there's hope in my soul again, you can do what you do best. You can break my heart. Again.
Karma guesses she should add that to her list of skills.
She remembers (no matter how hard she tries to forget) rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling, anything to not look at that fucking clock anymore. She wondered when that would stop, when she'd stop seeing a clock or the time on her phone and automatically doing the math, immediately jumping back three hours, like some sort of psychic time traveller, wondering where Amy was at that precise moment.
It was just what she did, it was how she thought, everything always tracing back, somehow, in some twisted connect the dots pattern, to Amy. Karma had done it for years.
Eight in the morning here, so five there, so still asleep. Maybe alone. Maybe not.
Eleven here so eight there so Amy was in her first class cause she liked to get them done early and out of the way. Somehow college had turned the blonde into something of a morning person (in that, at least, she didn't want to murder the morning sun) and that had always been the one thing Karma couldn't wrap her head around.
Until, you know, that fucking rock.
Two in the afternoon here so eleven there, so lunch time (which, with Amy, was really any time) and that was when Amy hung out with her friends, with Jess and Jodi and Becks and by 'hung out' Karma totally meant 'annoyed the shit out of them by spending most (all) of her time texting NYC.'
You'll never get dates, they used to tell her. You'll never get dates or make new friends if you're constantly on your damn phone.
Karma remembers sophomore year, remembers taking matters into her own hands and not answering lunch time texts. She said it was because she got a job (she did) and had to work the afternoon shift (she didn't) and it was too hard (not texting was harder) and it would be good for both of them (mostly for Amy cause dates and new friends and dates but only if she put her phone down and she'd never do that on her own.) Karma thought Amy believed her, at least a little, but also suspected there was a guy involved there too.
There was, of course. But he only lasted about a week, which was, ironically, only a few days less than Karma made it before she cracked and answered every single lunch time text.
There were fewer then, of course. Amy, you see, had taken advantage of her little more than a week and the phone she put down and the time and she'd met a nice girl in her writing class the week before and they'd already hung out twice in just those nine days. A nice girl with a pretty white lab coat and thing for adorkable blondes and a fucking rock in her top dresser drawer just waiting for a finger to slip its way onto.
Karma stares at the clock on the Twain's wall and doesn't really listen to the guy on stage before her and tries so hard to not do the math. Because she knows, in the end, it'll be the same as it was that day.
Six o'clock. Amy should have landed by now. A whole country away.
But then, just as now, Karma knows…
It may as well have been another fucking world.
She doesn't hear the guy finish up and she only half hears Ivy take the stage and mumble something into the mike about the pride of Hester High (what a fucking joke) but she does see the spotlight, she does see it land just in front of her feet, does see the way it follows her to that stool as she settles in and rests her guitar on her lap.
And for three minutes and eleven seconds, she can pretend and for three minutes and eleven seconds, she's OK again.
Karma knows better than to think it will ever be more than that. She can't believe.
She knows.