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Seventeen

I know how to text.

I text Juliette and my lawyers. I text my sister and Scarlett and Coleman. But not Ray. Never Ray. I want to hear her voice when I call her. I need to let myself get lost in the pauses when she is contemplating on how to answer whatever mundane question I ask.

So I tell Rayna, I don't know how.

Eighteen

When I'm nervous, I fidget with my hands.

Deacon knows I'm freaking out. He tells me so. He can see it all over my face and sees me messing with my hands.

After Bucky leaves us in the Sound Check break room, it is just the two of us. He starts telling me his idea for the set list for our tour. He can see it in my eyes that I am terrified of this tour, of it being the two of us….just the two of us.

I keep hearing Buck's words about how nice the tour bus is, how many weeks we'll be on the road, how it will just be me and Deacon up on stage. His face is calm, he is calm. His calmness is even more unnerving.

He hints at what happened at the Bluebird last night. His hints are subtle at first, but then he gets more obvious. He knows I haven't gotten any sleep. He knows I haven't thought about anything else since I ran out of his SVU.

I twist my fingers together. He stares at me and I break eye contact. He excuses himself from the room, knowing I need space right now.

Nineteen

I hate talking at meetings.

Hate it. I've never been great at sharing my thoughts or opinions with strangers. That is what music is for. To share who I am with others without talking.

But AA requires it. So I do it. And today it feels like a sharing day.

I wipe my hands on my jeans and stand up. My chair makes a squeaky sound as the metal chair scratches the tile floor. I introduce myself, tell everyone how long I've been sober and then start into my testimony. Rehab five times. Mostly liquor but I have done my share coke,

Favorite drink was Jim Bean. I bring up the dead best friend. I mention how I lost the love of my life. Then I pause for just a second, looking into the face of some young girl with bleach blonde hair.

I tell them that after thirteen years, she is finally coming around to the idea of us being together again. I leave out that she's married with kids. I leave out that I just left the Country Club with her in tears, telling me she needs to be letting me go.

Cause while I have to talk at AA meetings, I don't have to fucking tell them everything.

Twenty

She said Deacon's name last night in her sleep.

I haven't heard her do that in years. It was such a shock that I almost deluded myself into thinking I'd misheard it. Then she said his name again. Correction: she groaned his name again.

And now I'm sitting here watching her sleep as her fingertips play over the top of the comforter. Then I notice a smile pass over her lips.

I say "hey' three times before she jerks awake and I drink another sip of coffee like I have no idea what she was dreaming of.

Twenty One

I don't hate the Country Club.

Sure, I'm not a big fan of the place. Too many fake people in their seersucker bowties. But I've had some good times there. Before Rayna's Aunt Eleanor died, we'd go eat brunch there every once in a while. She was a tough old broad, but she liked me. And she liked me and Rayna together. That always got Lamar's goat.

And there were several times when Rayna and I snuck off…for some personal time there.

Coleman makes a comment that the Wyatt family is hard to say no to. I don't correct him. He's talking about his own demons with Lamar and the girls. I've never had a problem saying no to Lamar….or even Tandy for that matter. But for Rayna, I'm not sure 'no' is in my vocabulary.

Sure I've disagreed with her, a lot. Back in the old days when her ego got too big or her sights were set too high, I'd bring her back down to earth. Hell, there were times, I was the only one telling her she was acting like a brat or she was flat out wrong about things. But like then, I was also her biggest supporter and always had her back.

Cole asks me what else is going on and I pretend to have no clue what he is talking about. He probably knows it has to do with Ray. Most things that make me smile like I'm smiling now do have something to with her.

He asks about Juliette Barnes, knowing I'm helping her. He hints about a relationship and I scoff. He mentions intimacy and I am reminded how different he and I are. For me, sex is just that. It isn't an intimate or emotional connection for me. It is something fun to do while I wait for the next song writing session or the next show.

He makes a comment about the mayoral race and I wish him the best of luck. He's got my vote for sure and I've already put a sign up in my yard. He wishes me luck at this Teddy for Mayor thing tomorrow at the Country Club. I smirk.

She always talks to me when she wants to complain about the Country Club crowd and tomorrow night won't be an exception.

Twenty Two

I don't know how to function without Deacon.

I told Deacon last night we were done. But I don't know how to do that. I don't know how…I don't know how to even begin to comprehend that he isn't a part of my life.

For the better part of a decade we lived together. We toured together. We were together every day, all day. For months at a time we were never more than a few hundred feet away from each other.

I still remember the weekend he and Vince decided to go on a guy's fishing trip for two nights. We had not spent a night apart in well over two years at that point. And that 48 hours was hell.

I couldn't sleep without him beside of me. I felt odd to pour only one cup of coffee. It was weirder to not be able to kiss him when I wanted to or hold his hand just because. It had been entirely too pathetic for words but when he came home six hours before he was suppose to, I realized it was the same for him.

Of course things changed later.

As Deacon's drinking got worse, he and Vince would stay out drinking after I went to bed. Even after the wreck, he was always nearby. Most of the time, he was drunk in the hotel room or backstage with his whiskey but he was still in relative physical proximity to me.

Then there was the first rehab stint. That had been awful. I ached for him. I worried about him constantly. But back then, I just knew that would be the last time we were separated like that. But each trip to rehab after got longer. By the last time, things were different between us.

We would spend days at a time when we wouldn't talk or see each other. I was busy being a new mother and wife. He was trying to stay sober and put back the pieces of his life. But after about five days one of us would always cave and find an excuse to meet the other.

I don't even know how to contemplate not seeing Deacon. There has always been a time when I'll see him again: when he's released from rehab, when his 10 day jail sentence is over, when the tour starts, when our writing session is next week.

I've been without him before. But those were temporary and this feels so…permanent. It feels like I'm losing him completely.

Twenty Three

We wrote that song when she was about eight months pregnant with Daphne.

It had been the week before July 4th. She'd been hot and miserable and cranky when I called to check on her that day. She was in desperate need of a distraction, so I had gone to her house in Belle Meade and "American Beauty" practically wrote itself.

And now she wants to change the words.

For a damn commercial. For a damn commercial about lip gloss.

I tell the lawyers, I'm not agreeing to the changes. When Bucky called a few hours later, I tell him the same. I know she'll come see me soon. And she will get mad that I tell her no to the lyric change. But she is going back to Teddy, again.

She chose Teddy again. So I am choosing the music. It is all I got left at this point.

Twenty Four

I have a soft spot for stuffed elephants.

I walk into Maddie's room and walk over to her bookcase. I grab Trunkers and plop down on Maddie's bed. Trunkers' fur is now more white than grey now and most of the stuffing in his trunk is gone too. Once upon a time, this was one of Maddie's favorite animals, a gift from her Uncle Deacon on her second birthday.

There had been no note, no card. It was just there on the gift table with a pink bow around its neck. But I knew who it was from.

It looked just like the one he'd gotten me the night before he checked into rehab for the first time. The only difference was my elephant's shoes were tan and Maddie's elephant wore pink shoes.

Elephant Shoes.

I had been crying for lots of reason the night he gave the elephant to me. For one, he'd been sober for three entire days at that point and he was ready to go for the 28 day program. We had scheduled him for check in the next morning. I was relieved that he was finally going to get help and also scared about not being with him for so long.

So he gave me the stuffed animal and then led me over to the mirror at my vanity. He stood behind me, with his arms wrapped around my waist. He'd said "Elephant Shoes" several times out loud with both of us looking into the mirror in front of us. Then he whispered it a few more time, and then just mouthed the words.

It was only when he mouthed the words that I realized when he said "elephant shoes", it looked like he was saying "I love you." He'd kissed the top of her head and swore to me he loved me more than anything else in the world. He had apologized for everything and promised in a month he'd be back. But until then, I just had to look at the elephant to be reminded that he'd be back soon."