Kat
On the plane from Conway to New York, I wrote three songs. Three. That was one more song than I’d written in the previous year. One weekend at home and I had three songs worth of things to say. Sure, they were full of angst and sadness, but I could hear the music again. I got off the plane and went straight to the studio. It was the same the last time Billy broke my heart. I threw myself into the music and eventually, instead of drowning, I felt like there was enough oxygen to tread water. I never really recovered, but maybe that wasn’t my story. Maybe I did choose my career. Maybe you didn’t get to have it all.
Billy tried to call. I ignored his calls. He left messages. I couldn’t give him a chance to do more damage. Obviously, he had ten years of pent-up anger that he couldn’t move past. I could break down in tears every time I thought about how we’d broken each other.
When the phone rang for the fifth time, I handed it to June. “Put it in your purse. Silence it. Anyone who really needs me will call you or Marcus.”
She nodded and took the phone. There is a certain freedom to being disconnected. Sometimes that constant connection to the outside world can be really counterproductive for an artist. In turn, being phone-free can be invigorating. I asked Marcus to bring in my favorite producer, Josh Devrow, and I spent three days locked in, making really good music. I didn’t come up for air until Thursday morning.
My entire team clapped as I left the studio.
“You found it,” Marcus said. “The voice I heard on the stage in Bozeman all those years ago, she’s back.”
I felt that. I knew the music was right again, and the energy of that was supposed to be magical, but I’d give it all back. If I could rewind, I would never have gotten on the plane ten years ago. The music mattered. It did. But I made music in Conway. People loved to hear me perform there. Did I really need all this? The fame? The celebrity status? The fans? The entourage? Wasn’t I happier being just a normal girl with my guitar and my blue-eyed beau?
June put her arm around me as we walked towards the elevator. “You okay, Kat?”
I didn’t lie. “Not really.”
“The music is good when the heart is a mess,” she sighed.
“Pretty much.”
“You could talk to him,” she suggested.
A tear slipped out. I’d been doing my best not to cry about Billy, but I was worn out. I wiped it quickly. “I don’t want to. Ten years ago, when I came to New York, I called. And he didn’t care. Now, I let him in again and got burned. Fool me once and all that.”
“So, you just want it to be over?” she asked, her voice seemed tense like she was worried.
We stepped into the elevator as I said, “I mean, I don’t know. I’m just exhausted. I want him to fight for me, ya know? Like all these years, my sin was leaving, right? I left him, but honestly, what eighteen-year-old musician wouldn’t grab her lottery ticket? That’s what Marcus offered me all those years ago, a winning lottery ticket.”
Pressing the button for the lobby, June agreed, “No one would have turned that down. You were a star in the making.”
“I thought I could have everything. I mean, I thought he’d come around. I thought I’d come home one day and he’d just be standing at my door with roses,” I laughed. “I mean, I pictured him, a brawny man in his ten-gallon hat, fighting with my doorman. For years. Literally for years, I kept thinking he’d just white knight it and show up. But it’s ten years later, and he still can’t imagine a way to make it work. I have all the money in the world… we could have found a solution, but he couldn’t handle it.”
“Well, what if he could?” June asked.
“Maybe...”
The elevator doors opened. And there he was. Roses. Ten-gallon hat. The whole shebang. Billy Morgan, consummate rancher, standing in the lobby of LSA Records in Manhattan, NY.
I didn’t believe it at first. He looked tired and rumpled, like he’d been through the ringer. There were dark circles under his eyes, and I just knew. He was as miserable as I was. His apology was written all over his face. My heart leaped in my chest, racing like it knew it belonged closer to him, but my brain kept me in place.
“Billy?” I asked, voice shaking and shattered.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here in this lobby and waiting outside your apartment trying to find the words to explain my stupidity for the last two days, and I will explain. I need to. But the thing is, none of it matters. There are no excuses. I’m just so sorry, Kit-Kat. And the long and short of it is, I love you. I love you so fucking much that when you’re not near me, I’m dying.”
I still couldn’t quite believe this was happening, “What about your family and the ranch?”
He took another step closer, “They’ll figure it out, Kat. They want me with you.”
My lips started to tremble, and I couldn’t stop the tears running down my face. “You want to be here with me?”
“Always with you.”
I stood there, crying sappy, happy tears.
He took a final step so that we were standing toe to toe and said, “I’m gonna kiss you now, Kat.”
And he did.
Finally, my blue-eyed beau was mine again.