Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“I… most of the time, I’m confident enough.” I gather my hair up just to have some place to put my hands. I twist it into a knot at the back of my head. I wound it so tightly that it stays that way without anything securing it. “I’m sorry about the self-doubt. I’ll stop that.”
“Is it self-doubt? Or is it me-doubt?”
I can respond to that without hesitation. “Self.” Doesn’t everyone get insecure sometimes? “It was momentary insanity.”
“I promise I’ll never use what you told me against you,” he murmurs. His eyes are so dark. Honey and caramel highlights bursting in their depths. He’s gone beyond sincere. Wilder is the kind of person who has been kicked over and over again and yet still tries to find the good in the world. He’s a fighter. And I’m the one he’s fighting for. “I’ll never use who I am against you either. I think I know who Jackson Wilder is. I think I know who he would be if he didn’t have all this. I think I know who I’d like to be in the future. At the risk of sounding like poor me, I want to make it happen. A life outside of this life. Dreams outside of living the dream.”
“It’s not poor you. You’re not wired that way. You deserve to have any kind of life you want. A complicated, loud, out there in the public one, or days that are quiet and simple.”
“You believe me.”
“Of course I believe you,” I tell him.
“But you still look like you’re disappointed with the chocolate selection.”
“The sinister sabotaging part of my brain that’s having real trouble shutting the fuck down keeps telling me that if I hadn’t played you the song or left the journal with you, none of this would have happened.”
The shine in his eyes turns into a sheen, but not a tear sheen, like mine are doing. The way he’s looking at me is the way people look at people whom they want. It’s not just desire but want with every part of their being. I’m not much for Neanderthal claiming, but I want to be Wilder’s.
“It might not have, and that would have been a tragedy. I wouldn’t have ever known you felt the way you did. I wouldn’t have known what it was like to be close to you if I’d never gotten sick like that. I wouldn’t have seen your real heart or any of the other parts of yourself that you disguised. But you’re not just the songs. You’re you. And there is no one else in the world like you.”
“That’s true, in the silly sort of way where people make everyone out to be unique and wonderful on their own terms.”
“I want to be here with you.” Yup, that shine in his eyes has spread to the rest of his face. The whole of his face is now telegraphing that he’d like to make me his. “Even if there was no music. If I could never write a song or play or sing one again, I’d still want to be here with you.”
“Don’t say things like that,” I gasp-choke-beg. “We’re still in the infatuation stage. You don’t mean it.”
“I do. You ask me to give up music, and it’s a done deal.”
“I don’t want you to give up music!” My horrified squeak echoes through the room. There are great acoustics in here. “Why would I want to tear your heart out of your chest?”
“My heart would survive. There are always other things. I could start my own label and give people like me a chance when they never would have had it otherwise. Fund music scholarships. Make a teaching app. Keep writing songs for other people to sing. Be in the game that way.”
I have nothing. He’s basically going straight to the I want to be with you, and nothing else matters, but it’s too much. It’s too soon. It’s too forever when we’ve barely taken the first few fumbling steps.
Of course, I’m here for it. My entire body is here for it, from the cramping in my gut to the pressure in my chest to the hot sting in my eyeballs.
This man.
This man has freaking magic powers beyond music. But I still want to be cautious. I want to take things slowly. I want to be rational. I recognize self-doubt is like a garden that continuously needs weeding and tending, like all other life areas. I want to make this make sense. I want to force it into a box where rules are observed, and things happen in a natural flow and a reasonable timeline.
However, in the same instant, I don’t want to be rational at all.
I don’t want to be careful.
I want to be spontaneous. I want to be wild. Adventurous. I want to say fuck it to the doubt and my need for everything to be tidy and rational and just step off the ledge with Wilder.