Page 14 of To Bring You Back
“He broke it off with me. He had his reasons, plus he was seriously depressed—a lot more so than I realized at the time—and nothing I said or did …” She stopped. She wouldn’t paint herself to be a hero when she wasn’t one. She was guilty. So guilty. “When Awestruck’s first album came out, it was more than he could handle.”
Drew leaned forward, elbows on his knees, while Tegan’s eyes widened.
“He killed himself.” And the only way she’d come to terms with his death and with her role in his downward spiral had been to build a whole new life where she didn’t have to talk about the tragedy.
Drew’s sigh washed into the air like a wave. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Addie.” Tegan climbed to her feet. Her shoulder bumped Adeline’s chin as she awkwardly wrapped her arms around her.
Adeline couldn’t relax into it. Couldn’t feel comfort. She patted her friend’s back and started to lean away, but Tegan gave her another squeeze before releasing her.
Drew fidgeted. “Why is Gannon here, after all this time?”
“I don’t know.” She picked at a snagged thread in her shorts. “Maybe fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe it’s not an inoculation against regret.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” he said.
Time and moving and acts of service had also proved ineffective. She blinked at her tears and lifted her focus once more to the lake.
The sun had set, and twilight blurred the line between the water and the sky. Having the lake almost always in sight was the one comfort she’d allowed herself, the one thing she clung to while everything else rotted.
But could she afford to keep this view? Did she deserve to?
Tegan tapped Adeline’s foot with her toe. “His suicide is not your fault, Addie.”
Her friend wouldn’t say that if she knew the whole story.
The porch creaked as Drew shifted. “Maybe you should talk to Gannon. What he did to Fitz was awful, but Fitz died of a tragic choice that Gannon could never have anticipated. Neither of you should have to carry that weight. If he’s here looking for forgiveness, this might be a chance for you to give it—both to him and yourself. God doesn’t want us to spend years buried under guilt. Jesus came to set us free from condemnation.”
The sympathy in his voice fed her tears. She busied herself with gathering the dishes. Her movement roused Bruce, and when she took the plates in, she brought him along. When she returned to the porch alone, Drew and Tegan stopped whatever they’d been quietly discussing. Tegan gave her another hug.
Drew patted her arm. “I hope I didn’t say too much. I hate to see you hurting. And to think you’ve been carrying this for …”
“Fitz died eight years ago.” But she’d been carrying guilt much longer. The night that had changed everything, the one she’d skipped in her retelling, had been over a year before that. She’d been drowning in guilt ever since. For nine years.
“That’s too long.” He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment.
Avoiding his eyes seemed like the easiest way to hide her doubts.
Had Jesus forgiven her? Maybe, but He shouldn’t have.
Drew stepped back. “Thanks for letting us listen. I will be praying for you.”
She nodded again, and he showed himself down the steps and away.
Back inside, Tegan finished the dishes while Adeline stopped at the dining table. She still hadn’t decided what to do with the slip of paper with Gannon’s number, so it sat under the letter from the neighborhood association.
She flipped the card between her fingers. Gannon’s handwriting hadn’t changed much since he’d scrawled lyrics in that red notebook of his in high school. Was this the handwriting of a killer? And how much responsibility did she deserve for Fitz’s death?
Drew and Tegan had deemed her innocent because they didn’t know the parts of the story she’d cut out, but since she’d skipped over them, those terrible details burned in her throat more intensely than ever before. If she gave voice to them, the sensation might stop. Or maybe this searing pain would only spread.
5
The air seemed as bent on freezing Gannon out of Wisconsin as Adeline was. When he took his guitar to the patio on Monday morning, the nip sent him back in for a sweatshirt—the only one he’d brought, since he hadn’t realized July would be so cold. Farther south in the state, the weather wasn’t like this. Either the lake contributed or being a couple of hours farther north made that big of a difference.
He reviewed the last set of lyrics he’d been working on. Yet another song about Adeline. The first in his collection of songs about her dated back to her time with the band over a decade ago. Some of them were his best work, but he’d never shared them because he could never muster the courage to ask Adeline if she’d mind.
He’d lacked the courage to face her at all.
