“I know, and I’m so sorry. I wish I could go back and change everything. I wish that this hadn’t happened.”
“But it did happen, and here we are. Nobody bothered to ask me if I could continue or if I needed a replacement. I’m not a child. I should at least get a say about what happens to me.” Katie sighed and turned away from Blake.
“Nobody thinks you’re a child. I know you hate that so much of this feels like business as usual, but our insurance won’t allow us to keep you on the tour with the concussion. Just let someone else take care of you for a change, okay? You need help right now, and you have lots of people who care about you. Your parents are coming this afternoon and they’ll take you home.”
“What?” Katie screeched, sitting up in her bed, then wincing in pain. “My parents are coming? Why can’t I just rest on the bus? It’s not like I would try to get on stage before I’m recovered or anything. You say you don’t think I’m a child, but that’s hard to believe when you treat me like this, making yet another decision for me.”
“Another decision? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Katie frowned, afraid she was starting to pout but not sure how to stop now that she had said that. “I just feel like you’ve decided a lot of things for me. Our entire relationship has gone the way you want, depending on what you decide. You decided that if I didn’t give up everything I ever cared about, it was over between us.”
“What? If I remember correctly, you’re the one who decided that it was all or nothing. I wanted you with me. I don’t see how I could’ve made that more clear. I’m sorry you decided that wasn’t good enough.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it. You can’t ask me to choose between you and my career for nothing in return. You want me to just give up everything that I’ve worked for, but you can’t even tell me that you might possibly someday love me.”
“Katie,” he stopped her. Despite her irritation she still loved the way her name sounded on his lips. “I’m no good at this and I just don’t know what to tell you. When I asked you to stay with me, that’s as far as I had thought it through. When it comes down to it, I just can’t promise enough to justify you giving up everything. I can’t let you throw away your life on me. I’ve never done this before, so I just think that I’m not a safe bet.”
“Maybe you should let me decide that.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t be responsible for your entire future, you know? It’s just — the stakes are so high and I was put on the spot, and I screwed the whole thing up. I care about you very much, sweetheart, and I don’t want you to look back and wish that you hadn’t taken a chance on me. If things didn’t work out, I’d feel responsible for ruining your life. I wish we had more time to figure things out, but we don’t. Now you’re going home and I have to finish the tour and the whole thing just sucks.”
“Who says I have to go home? Why didn’t anyone ask me what I thought?”
Blake gave Katie an incredulous look. “Seriously? You think that you could do the shows? There’s no way I’m taking that chance, sweetheart, and our insurance won’t cover it. I called Luke and asked about concussions. He says that the best thing for you right now is rest. You won’t know if you have any lingering effects until a couple of weeks have passed. You’re lucky that you don’t have any serious injuries, but we can’t be too careful. You need to go home, get some rest, and make sure that you’re all right. Your parents are coming today, in fact they’re probably already on their way here from the airport. They were worried sick when I talked to them and they took the earliest flight out of Austin that they could get. They’ll take you home and they’ll take care of you until you’ve recovered.”
“Okay, fine, maybe I can’t get back on stage in the next couple of days, but who decided to call my parents? You? This is just more of the same. I’m not a little girl, you know. I’ll be twenty-five years old soon, and I don’t need you to make all my decisions for me.”
“Sweetheart, I get that you’re frustrated and that things obviously aren’t going your way, but really? Yes, I was the one who decided to call your parents. Of course I did. Did you want me to just leave you here in the hospital to figure it all out for yourself? I was just trying to take care of you. If you hate it that much, then maybe I won’t do it anymore.” Blake pushed himself out of the chair and paced across the hospital room. He checked his watch and swore under his breath. “I hate leaving things with you this way, but I’ve got to go. I’m almost scared to ask, but would you like for me to get someone to stay with you until your parents get here? ”
Katie looked up at Blake, sorry for her petulance, and sighed. “No. I’ll be fine. Thank you for coming out here, thank you for taking care of me, and I’m sorry. I know that you’re doing your best. I wish things had turned out differently.”
He crossed the room back to Katie’s bedside, took her hand in his, and leaned over to kiss her gently on her forehead. “Me too, sweetheart, and I’m sorry too. I don’t want to leave you like this, and I don’t think that we’re done with this conversation. Take care of yourself, darlin’.” With that, he left Katie alone in her hospital bed after sparing her one last, sad look, full of regret.
• • •
Blake left the hospital wishing that he could have just a few more days to sort things out with Katie. Even a few more hours would have helped. She was so small and fragile lying in the bed, but she was certainly still feisty enough to argue with him. He laughed to himself, thinking only Katie McCoy would argue with him about whether or not she could perform with a concussion. What she lacked in practicality, she certainly made up for in spirit. Drive like that was what fueled his own rise to the top of his field, though a lot of good that had done him lately. How had he managed to ruin everything so quickly? It seemed like every decision he made with Katie was the wrong one.
Chapter Twelve
John and Sharon McCoy arrived at the Memphis hospital late in the morning and found Katie asleep in her bed. Tears sprang to Sharon’s eyes as she watched her only child sleep. John drew in his breath sharply and tightened his hold on his wife’s hand. Blake Jackson had called the McCoys the night Katie was hurt, had given them all the details, but nothing could have prepared them for the sight of her lying there. Her beautiful creamy skin was pallid with exhaustion and her arms were marred with angry, purple bruises.
Katie stirred, and her eyelids fluttered open. She blinked against the hospital room’s fluorescent lights, confusion clouding her delicate features, and then relief dawned in her eyes when she recognized her parents. She didn’t realize how homesick she was until she saw them standing there, side by side.
Katie stretched and squirmed in the narrow bed, smiled weakly, and said, “Y’all made it.”
John McCoy took his daughter’s hand and looked down at her, and his eyes full of worry. “We’re here, honey. We’re going to take care of you.”
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Sharon McCoy looked at her daughter with concern. She ran her hands down the front of her neatly pressed shirtdress, an achingly familiar nervous habit.
“I’m all right. It’s just a little concussion,” Katie laughed weakly. “What would y’all do if something really serious happened to me? You look like you’re about to faint.” She kept her tone light, teasing.
“Well, we’re going to take you home as soon as you get released, and you’ll stay with us until you’re better,” said Katie’s father. He took his glasses off and began wiping them with his shirttail, although there wasn’t a smudge on them.
“I can’t believe it, y’all. I should be in Georgia right now, getting ready for a show. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.” Tears filled Katie’s eyes and her mother handed her a tissue. “Everything’s falling apart, you know? Nothing is turning out how I thought it would.”
“I know, sugar. I know. Everything’s gonna be all right,” Sharon McCoy said softly as she smoothed Katie’s hair behind an ear.
Katie’s father shifted uncomfortably, and tried to lighten the mood. “So you met Blake Jackson, huh? He seemed really concerned about you when he called us last night.”
“He’s such a nice young man. He made all the arrangements for us so we could get down here as soon as possible, you know. All we had to do was pack our bags and show up. He had his assistant handle everything for us and he paid for everything,” said Sharon.
“He really is a nice man. He’s done a lot for me, and I never appreciated it. Now he’s gone and I’m going home and I ruined the whole thing.” Katie started crying again as her parents looked at her and each other quizzically.
“It’s all right honey, nothing’s ruined. Everything’s going to be all right.” Sharon patted Katie’s hand and shushed her softly. “Just relax and try to get some rest. Daddy and I will go check on your discharge papers if you want. I’d like to get you out of here and into the hotel. It’s got to be more comfortable than this hospital room.”
“Okay. Do y’all already have somewhere to stay?”
“Mr. Jackson got us a hotel close to the hospital and a rental car. Like I said, honey, he took care of everything. All we had to do was show up.” John gave his daughter a gentle smile.
“Of course he handled everything. He’s a wonderful man.” Tears threatened to fill Katie’s eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of her parents again. She was so ashamed of herself for berating Blake earlier. Everything he had done was because he cared for her. He had come through when she needed him most, had even helped her family, and she had rewarded him with petulance. Now he was gone, she was going home, and she had refused to even talk to him about their future. How could she have been so stupid? How could she demand all or nothing? Was there really no room for compromise?
To be fair, he was asking an awful lot of her when he wasn’t willing to commit to anything more than staying together as long as it worked out. He couldn’t very well expect the band to wait around to see if she’d return, to postpone their recording schedule, maybe miss out on important gigs. He couldn’t ask her to leave her band, her career, and promise nothing more than a good time while it lasted. No, she was right to stand her ground. Maybe she was a little harsh in the delivery, but she was right to insist that her career be taken seriously. She knew that much.
• • •
Katie was released from the hospital that afternoon with instructions to take it easy, get plenty of rest, and to check with her own physician when she got home. Armed with a list of symptoms to watch for, she spent one restful night in Memphis with her parents before they all headed back to Texas.
After spending a couple of days doing little more than sleeping and waking occasionally to eat the meals that her mother prepared for her, Katie was feeling stronger and more clear-headed. She suspected that her exhaustion was due to her demanding tour schedule, constant travel, and the emotional devastation of losing Blake. Her injuries weren’t even that serious, and she hadn’t had any new symptoms develop from the concussion. The bruises from her fall were beginning to fade, her head no longer throbbed constantly, and she was able to stay awake for more than an hour at a time.
Things were looking up, and Katie was anxious to regain some semblance of her former life. It felt like it had been months instead of days since she and Blake and broken up, since she had boarded the plane to leave the tour and her dream behind. So much had changed, and Katie’s heart pulled when she realized how much she missed Blake. Of all the things that had gone wrong in the past week, losing Blake hurt the worst. It was crazy to miss him so much when he had been in her life for such a short time, but Katie thought back to what Charles had said about time spent on tour being like a pressure cooker.
Alone in their little bubble, Blake and Katie had made a real connection, and Katie had found her perfect match. She missed his smile, his laugh, and the funny way he would hurry towards her when they saw each other. She pictured his exaggerated jogs toward her and smiled at the bittersweet memories. She missed being in his arms, and she still sometimes cuddled up with his shirt that she had kept so she could smell him. When she closed her eyes, that spicy, clean, distinctly masculine scent that was uniquely Blake brought back a flood of memories. She had given it all up, had given him up, to follow her career dreams. In the face of all that she had lost, how empty it had left her, her music career seemed insignificant.
She thought she had done the right thing, that she had worked too long and too hard to get where she was to give it up for nothing more than a few months on a tour bus. Surely she would get over him eventually, surely time would heal her broken heart, and she would be glad she had left. She would be grateful that she hadn’t let herself get swept up in a romance that would end her career. Right now, though, she was gutted. The pain of missing Blake was devastating, physical in its intensity.
• • •
Blake was on his tour bus, halfway across Virginia heading towards Kentucky, when Luke called. He forced himself to shake off the melancholy feelings that hung over him and project a cheerful mood for his brother when he answered.
Luke dispensed with pleasantries and got right to the point. “Hey, can you do me a favor? I have a friend in Lexington who couldn’t get tickets to your show. He has done a lot of work for the foundation, so I wanted to see if there’s anything you can do.”
“Yeah sure, that’s no problem. I can have a pair waiting for him at the will-call window. I just need his name.”
“Thanks, bro, it’s Noel Campos. He’s going to be so happy to hear that you got him those seats. I really appreciate it. So how are things? How’s Katie? She feeling better?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess she’s fine. I don’t exactly know.”
Luke was silent for a beat. “What do you mean, you don’t exactly know?”
Blake cleared his throat. “Her parents took her home from the hospital, back home to Texas, and I’m not sure how she’s doing now because I, uh, haven’t talked to her since she left.”
“What do you mean you haven’t talked to her? Did you guys break up?”
“I don’t know, exactly, I mean, yeah, I guess we did. I asked her to stay with me after Sterling left the tour, but she didn’t want to quit her band. Then she ended up going home early anyway, and I guess that’s it.” Blake found himself wishing that he hadn’t answered Luke’s phone call. Hearing himself say it out loud made it even worse.