I want it all.

“But you still won’t say yes?” I press.

Say.

Yes.

Baby, say YES.

She won’t answer, so I drop my voice to its lowest tone—the one I use when singing ballads.

“Come because I ask you to, not because they pay you to. Come if you ever loved me. If you can ever love me. Come see me, Pink. Come hear me sing at Madison Square Garden.”

Her eyes soften with emotion, an emotion I can feel pooling in my gut.

“I thought you didn’t like knowing I was out there watching you sing.”

“That might be because I’d never had something I wanted you to hear me sing before,” I admit then brush a kiss, first to her forehead and then to the top of her ear. “If you do decide to come, let Lionel know. He’ll seat you.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” she hedges, but she’s got her fist closed tight around my ring. “You think I’ll show up, you’ll sing to me, and we’ll live happily ever after?”

“That’s what I’m going for.” I smile at her softly, torn between shaking her, begging her, and flat out ordering her to do as I say. “Fuck, Pink, just say you’ll come.”

“Say you’ll let me go home on my own. Your band needs you.”

I hesitate. She seems desperate to get rid of me right now. I’m not sure if she’ll come. But if she doesn’t . . .

Just go after her, dude.

“If I agree, you’ll come?” I say, trying to get something of an agreement out of her.

“Yes,” she says, looking at me and opening her palm as if she thinks I want the ring back. I close her fingers around it again.

“Keep this. It belonged to the first woman I loved, so it makes sense it should stay with the last.”

“Kenna!” she cries, but before she can make a thousand and one excuses as to why she can’t make it to my concert—excuses about why she still can’t open up—I head out of there, hoping that ring never finds its way back to me.

Like it did once before.

TWENTY

PANDORA’S BOX

Pandora

Usually at this stage of a journey—sitting on a hard plastic chair at the gate, waiting for the call to board the flight—my palms are sweaty, my heart is racing, and my stomach churns like I’m about to puke. But this time my attention is elsewhere, my eyes focused entirely on the little diamond. . . .

I can’t stop staring at the little diamond, in those sleek little legs, high up in the air and begging for attention. It’s priceless to Mackenna, and I know that no diamond in the world means more to him than this one. No diamond in the world means more to me than this one—because it was his mother’s. And he loved her with everything in him.

Like I love my mother too.

My mother . . .

I think of her as I grip the armrest and hold on tight as the plane takes off.

Even with my clonazepam, the adrenaline rushes around my body so fast that I can’t sleep. The pill allows me to relax briefly, but this time around, that’s about it. I’m still too hyper, my brain too wired, my heart too busy feeling . . . stuff.

My mother had the perfect setup for a pain-free marriage until we realized . . . she didn’t. She’s wanted what’s best for me. She was there on January 22.

There when the pain started.

There when my water broke.

There when I had the baby.

And there . . . when they took the baby away from where I lay on the birthing bed, never more alone.

No matter how much my mom hurt at the thought of me getting pregnant, she couldn’t bear to see me go through an abortion. She’s . . . human. But if she kept me away from Mackenna . . .

“Oh, is that an engagement ring?” the woman in the seat next to me asks. She looks about my mother’s age, except she’s far warmer and chattier.

I smile at her, and before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m extending my hand like some idiot ready for the altar. “It’s a . . . promise ring.”

Oh god, why did I take it? He doesn’t know what he’s doing, giving it to me again. He doesn’t know who I am anymore, who I became after him. That we had a girl. Could have been a family. And yet I’m so fixated on him that I slipped on the ring again, and I’ve been turning it around on my finger ever since. Looking at it, lifting it to my lips, closing my eyes and kissing it, because I missed it like I missed him. His eyes, his smiles . . . the way we were happy.

“Ahh, a promise ring,” the woman says, sighing when I return my hand to my lap. “Love is a wonderful thing,” she tells me, gripping my arm with a little squeeze and a secret smile.

I smile at her and say no more. God, I’m just so fucking dazed. Dazed, excited, hopeful, and as frightened as Magnolia is of the monsters in her closet. I’m frightened of the monsters in mine! I’m having real trouble coming to terms with this new, wonderfully scary situation where Mackenna and I may have a shot. We have a chance. God, even the word “we” is weird! He walked away, made me ache, but now he wants me back. And though I act like I won’t be back—and question whether I can ever really be back with him—did he ever really lose me?

How can you stop belonging to someone who has ravaged you like he did me?

How can your first and only love sweep through you like a tornado and not leave his mark?

And now my body’s acting ridiculous. My heart, my lungs—even my brain. I feel like I did when I was seventeen and ready to run away with him, the critters wiggling in my insides when I remember the heated kiss he gave me a mere few hours ago before I boarded the plane. I’ll see you in New York? he asked, kissing me again as if he couldn’t help himself.