Page 43 of So This Is Love

This car is unfamiliar to me. Every time I’ve seen Bryce’s car, it’s been the same black SUV so this is a stark difference.

“Yeah, this is my baby. I just pulled her out of storage.”

“Her?” I say. “Don’t tell me she has a name too.”

“Of course she does,” he replies, opening the passenger door for me to get in.

I slide in and Bryce closes the door behind me before he walks around the front of the car to get into the driver’s seat. He left the car running so he shifts the car from park to drive and just drives.

Five minutes pass.

And then ten.

And then twenty.

And still Bryce just drives.

He drives with seemingly no real destination in mind. Music plays quietly through the car speakers but Bryce doesn’t say anything. I watch his side profile, the set of his jaw, the curve of his nose, the fullness of his lips. Unabashedly cataloging all of him.

I’m bubbling with the need to know what’s bothering him, what’s making him so sad but I’m trying to give him the space to share it on his own, whatever it is.

At the next red light Bryce merges into the left lane and puts his turn signal on. The light turns green and he takes the turn merging onto Lake Shore Drive. I look out the window and out into the pitch dark of Lake Michigan, a stark contrast to the bright lights of the city to our left.

“Ask me.”

“What?” I reply, confused.

“Ask me whatever is on your mind,” he says.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” he murmurs. “But I will be.”

I take his free hand that had been resting on the arm rest into mine, sliding my fingers into the free spaces between his and covering it with my other hand.

“It’s been almost five years since I lost my dad,” he says, turning to look at me for a second. “The last time I saw him was right there, right where you’re sitting.”

My stomach drops hearing the pain laced through his words and even more so as he continues.

“My sister Shannon was the one who called me with the news. I didn’t know it at the time because no one told me, but his health was rapidly declining. He wasn’t that old and was seemingly healthy until he wasn’t. The doctor’s didn’t figure it out until it was too late, the cancer diagnosis coming only a short while before he passed.”

“I’m sorry Bryce.”

I say the words and I mean them but they don’t feel like enough, they aren’t enough because there aren’t any words that you can say that can mend the pain of losing a parent.

“The day my sister called me, I flew home to be with my mom and my sisters for his funeral. But I couldn’t stay home for long because two weeks later was the start of my tour and no one gave a damn that I had just lost my dad. They didn’t care that I felt like a piece of me had died with him. They only cared about me getting on the stage and performing damn near every night. So I did. And life just continued, the world kept spinning.”

Bryce rubs his hand across the steering wheel. “I bought this car when I made my first real money as a singer. It was my dream car at the time and I bought it brand new off the lot. My first brand new car.”

I stay quiet and let Bryce talk and rub my thumb over the back of his hand to let him know I’m listening.

“My mom was pissed,” he continues with a sad chuckle. “She said I was wasting money and I shouldn’t be out ‘spending it all crazy’. But my dad understood. He was so fucking proud.”

A tear slides down Bryce’s cheek, followed quickly by more and I reach over and gently brush them away with the pad of my thumb.

“I bet he still is,” I say softly.

Bryce nods.

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