Chapter Text
The barkeeper, not particularly stunned by the emotive way Abby had slightly started slurring her words towards the end, was closing up shop for the night. Abby offered to let Lev and his sister, who finally introduced herself as Yara, stay with her for a while, an offer they kindly refused so as not to intrude. Before them lay the promise of the open road, and the fear of having to go back home and face the fury of their mother, so they opted to visit as many relatives along the way as they could, hoping someone might take them in. Ellie watched Abby mod and hug the duo goodbye. Dina pinched her shoulder.
“How’s the diabolical plan going?”
“I’m a bit fucked here, to be honest.”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
“I mean, c’mon, look at this.”
Nevertheless, there was still a little part left in Ellie’s mind ready to take Abby down. It didn’t feel as substantial anymore, but she knew that, until she got rid of it completely, she would not be able to leave Seattle.
It was a night lit by streetlamps and streetlamps reflected off clouds, the glass windows of shops around them doubling as twice the amount of streets and small dots of white, purple, yellow and gold. Abby looked back at Ellie and Dina.
“So”, Ellie said, “wanna take a walk?”
“I’m tired, to be honest”, Abby said.
“Not that kind of walk.”
“I mean, can’t we put this off until tomorrow or something?”
“I don’t know – can we?”
“Guess not.”
“Exactly.”
With a hint of jealousy, Dina noticed how quickly they had learned to respond to one another. Guess that’s what happens when you start a blood feud.
In a move she would never come to regret, she let the two of them walk ahead while staying back just far enough to hear their conversation.
Abby had draped her bass around her shoulder, leaving the other instruments to pick up later, if at all. She had put a light jacket on her shirt, and the sleeves barely managed to hide the fact her arms were broad as the distance between two coasts. However, Ellie still clearly felt like she had the upper hand. If they were to reach the piers, where water met earth, and decided to fight in the shallow water, things might turn out a bit differently. But she had video material. And it was time she told Abby about it.
“So, you know, that whole thing that went down with your bandmates.”
“Former bandmates. Might as well get used to the new normal.”
“Former bandmates, then. I got it on tape.”
“On tape? Do people still say that?”
It took a moment to register.
“You have it on video?”
Ellie nodded. Now would be an awesome moment for a dramatic cigarette, she thought, though she had never smoked or even intended to start. Though you never intend to really start smoking, she thought, you just smoke.
“Are you – are you going to do anything with it?”
“I don’t know.”
She felt Abby weaken next to her. It was physical in the most visceral way – she got smaller. Ellie had noticed it happening more or less any time she mentioned the article, or Joel, or anything at all that might remind Abby of the reason Ellie and Dina had come in the first place.
“Huh”, Abby said then, looking towards the empty quasi-empty streets ahead, “that’s just perfect. Go ahead, ruin my life. Not that there’s much left, anyways.”
“What happened with that Owen guy?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Do you think there’s anything more you got to lose here?”
Abby sighed. The sound of their footsteps was amplified by their boots, but as soon as a car drove by, there was nothing but its soft roar around. It was oddly quiet for such a busy night, but then again, there was a new something making the rounds, and people were starting to feel hesitant about moving around. It felt like the end of the world sometimes.
“I’m not sure”, Abby said, “I guess you never know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes, you need to really fuck something up to know how much it was worth in the first place. Or at least that’s what self-destructive people tell themselves, not that I would now.”
She chuckled. Ellie did, too.
“You know”, she said, “I think you might be onto something there. Write a song about that.”
“Just might.”
“And put my name in it.”
“What?”
“Write a song with you apologising to some Ellie and I’ll be fine. And won’t release the video.”
Abby stopped walking. She quietly brushed some hair out of her face while Dina moved up to them, standing ever-so-slightly outside of the heat they generated when together.
“So I write it.”
“Ya bet, pardner.”
“And then – I send it to you?”
“Oh no.”
“So I just write it? And you check – how? You got some special powers or something?”
“You release it.”
“Huh.”
“On Spotify or something. And Twitter.”
“Oh dear.”
“And you @ me.”
“Did you just say @?”
“I did say @. You do the thing. With my handle and stuff. So I can link it. To Joel. And he can pass it around. Yo, Dina, how many followers does Joel have?”
“Couple hundred thousand.”
“Ya hear that?”, Ellie said.
Abby turned blue. “That’s a lot.”
“Uh-huh. So you better get crackin’. You got a month. Wait, here’s my – can you grab your phone or something?”
Abby, mind slightly on the verge to catatonic, pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it to Ellie. The latter unlocked the former’s camera, and took a picture of her twitter, opened at some retweeted picture of Dina in a swimming suit she had finally had the guts to release. Hot. They would probably do the thing later, and Ellie felt slightly giddy at the thought already.
“Here”, she said, returning Abby’s phone back to her, “and – uh – don’t ever, like, do that shit again, yeah?”
“It’s not like I’ll get the opportunity.”
“Don’t shortchange your career opportunities”, Dina said, “you might get the chance.”
“Don’t encourage her!”, Ellie answered, laughing.
“Well, somebody has to”, Dina said. She looked at Abby. “If you’re ever in Texas, call. I love this awkward energy we got going.”
Abby, by contrast, was dying. “Uh”, she said then, her remaining social brain cells straining, “thanks.”
Ellie extended a hand. Abby looked at it as if it were the first warm thing she'd seen in a long time.
"Come on", Ellie said, "take it. Let's shake on it."
Abby smiled. It looked a bit awkward, if still somewhat endearing. "Want me to put my back into it?", she asked Ellie.
Ellie shook her head. "That might put my back out of it, whatever that it might be."
They shook hands. Locked eyes. Said goodbye, take care.
And that was that.
*** *** ***
Epilogue:
A couple of days later, in the Joel Miller household.
“See, Ellie, I told you it’d turn out fine.”
“Yeah, I could just see your smug guitar-strummin’, bucket-kickin’, Kentucky Straight Bourbon-sippin’ face all over when I was in Seattle.”
“It’s because I’m famous, you know.”
“Shut. Now, what did you think of the song, anyway?”
“She ain’t half bad, now, I gotta admit that. Might’ve even asked her to collab on something if she didn’t wanna kick my ass that bad.”
“I don’t think she would’ve wanted that.”
“Why’s that, baby girl?”
“Cuz country music ain’t that popular no more, Dad.”
“You sound all southern.”
“Do not!”
“And you called me Dad.”
“Oh yeah, I did.”
There was tea there, and the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen, and a guitar in the living room and any other room, and there was a home, and a woman’s voice in the distance, quietly asking for forgiveness that had already been granted, without her knowing it yet, a long time ago.