I wandered back to the music room in a daze. I’d forgotten about the latte. I’d forgotten Julian had called the others. I was too preoccupied with Keith’s words.

I heard the sounds of guitar and drums echoing down the hallway before I saw Seth and Nathan. I walked in and saw Julian and Cerise also there.

I stopped in the doorway, watching them, waiting for Julian to notice me.

He didn’t. He was so absorbed with the music, giving the others instructions, explaining when he wanted the drums to come in, where the guitar solo was going to go.

Cerise had the music sheets with the lyrics in her hands, lips pursed in thought. She nodded her head along to the music, muttering to herself once and a while.

When there was a break in the song, Cerise spoke out loud.

“I like it,” she said. “It’s good.”

A frown line appeared between Julian’s eyes. “Just good?”

Cerise tilted her head, examining him.

“You’ve been working on this for a while,” she said. “It’s good enough for the album. That’s really all we need.”

“We don’t want good,” Julian pressed. “We want great. We want pure genius.”

“Do you think, if I gave you more time, you’d be able to do better than this?” Cerise said evenly, not accusing, simply asking the question.

Julian dropped his eyes to the ground.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We tried our best.”

“Then we run with it,” she said. “We don’t have that much more time.”

He nodded slowly, as if the motion was painful.

“Hey Ever!” Seth called out with a wave as he caught sight of me. “Didn’t know you were here.”

Julian cast his eyes up and saw me standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said. “I thought you’d taken off for the day.”

“Apparently not.” I folded my arms across my stomach, a defensive position, as if holding myself together through sheer will.

“Cerise likes the song,” he said, nodding to his lead singer.

“I heard,” I said. “Guess we’re done.”

“Yeah,” Julian said, eyeing me, as if confused at my tone. “We’re done.”

“Great.”

I knew I shouldn’t have been so short. I knew I shouldn’t have let Keith rattle me. But he’d gotten into my head. His words kept repeating in my mind over and over.

It wasn’t like he was wrong, was he? Julian had been getting impatient. He wanted to be done with this. And the minute we’d finished, he’d dismissed me.

I wanted to believe in Julian’s feelings for me. I wanted to believe he meant it when he said he cared about me. After all, he certainly acted like he did. Surely he couldn’t have been faking that.

But as much as he said he cared for me, he’d never said those three important words. He’d never told me he loved me. Not the way I loved him.

Had I been wrong about us this whole time?

As I had my own internal mental breakdown, the others started packing up, done for the day.

“We can work on this later this week when the whole band is together,” Cerise said. “Good work Julian.” She nodded to me as she and Nathan left the room. ”Good work to you, too Everly.”

Seth bounced up and threw an arm around my shoulder.

“Good job,” he said. “For a while I didn’t know if you’d be able to work with this tight-lipped jerk.” He threw Julian a wink. “I should have known you two would be great together, even after all this time.”

I shrugged off his arm, ducking out from under him.

“That reminds to be seen,” I murmured.

“If you need help wrangling this one,” he jabbed his thumb at Julian, “just let me know, all right?”

“Sure.”

Seth left, leaving me and Julian alone in the room together.

“So Cerise liked the song,” I said. “I guess all our hard work paid off.”

“I wish she’d been a little more enthusiastic about it, but…” Julian lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know what else we could do with it.”

“It’s a good song,” I said. “Nothing wrong with it.”

The twist of Julian’s lips told me he clearly did think there was something wrong with it, but I was over trying to read his damn mind.

“Guess we’re done, then,” I said.

“Not quite yet,” he said. “The song still needs to be arranged and recorded. But I don’t need you here for that.”

My heart clenched in my chest. A hard, sour lump settled in my gut.

“Ev, is something wrong?” Julian asked, his eyes concerned. “You look upset.”

I wanted to bark out that I was fine and stalk out of the room. But that was what had caused all our problems in the first place. We hadn’t communicated with each other. We’d jumped to all kinds of conclusions.

I whirled on Julian, determined to get to the bottom of this.

“Did you walk away even after Keith agreed to change the contract?” I asked.

“What?” Julian’s eyes widened. “Why are you asking?”

“You said you left because you didn’t like the contract and I wouldn’t budge on it,” I told him. “But Keith offered to change the terms, didn’t he?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Where is this coming from?” he asked.

“Just answer me,” I said. “Yes or no?”

“I don’t understand why you’re asking,” Julian said, shaking his head. “Yes, Keith told me he would change some of the wording, but I told you before, Seth and I didn’t—”

“I don’t care about you and Seth!” I said loudly.

“Why are you getting upset?” Julian asked, sounding frustrated. “Who cares what happened back then?”

A million thoughts roared through my head. I tried to make sense of them all.

Julian said he wouldn’t stay in the band if I took the contract. He didn’t like giving up creative control.

Keith agreed to change the terms. Julian had just confirmed as much.

But it hadn’t been good enough. Julian hadn’t been given the amount of control he’d wanted. So he’d still left.

And now, years later, he showed up, asking for my help and then casting me aside the moment I wasn’t needed.

I thought I was important to him. I thought what we had meant something.

But twice now I’d been cast aside because it didn’t help his career aspirations.

And here I thought I’d been the one selfishly following my dreams at the expense of all else.

“I can’t believe this,” I muttered to myself. “I can’t believe I let this happen all over again. I’m such an idiot.”

I turned away from him and went to grab my bag.

“Ev, stop,” Julian protested. “I don’t understand why you’re so mad.”

“I’m mad because I don’t like being used and then thrown away!” I shouted at him.

His eyebrows shot up his forehead, looking taken aback.

“Why would you even think that?” he whispered in shock.

“That’s what’s happened here, isn’t it?” I hastily shoved my belongings in my bag, wanting to get out and away from here as soon as possible.

“Ev…” Julian’s eyes softened as he took my arm gently in his hand. “Don’t think of it like that. I told you. You’re my muse.”

I jerked my arm away. “Don’t say that!”

“Why not?” He looked hurt. “It’s true.”

“So the only reason you’re keeping me around is because I can help you write songs?” I shot back. “Is that it?”

“What? No!” His mouth hung open in shock. “I want you around because I—” he stuttered, nearly choking on his words, then continued. “Because I care about you.”

“Say it,” I demanded. I drew myself up tall, staring him down. “Tell me you love me.”

“I—” His mouth flapped open and closed, his dark eyes growing panicked and distressed.

“You can’t even say it, can you?” I let out a derisive laugh. “It really makes me wonder, you know?” I met his gaze, mine brimming with tears. “Did you ever really love me?”

Julian’s expression was pained, his face pale.

“You still can’t say it, even after all these years?” I clutched my bag to my chest. “I’m done with this.” I fled toward the door.

“Ever!” Julian called out desperately. “Don’t go!”

But I didn’t look back.