Page 116 of The Girl with No Name

I yawn myself awake and open the blinds on my window that looks out at the bricks of the building next to me.Nashville. That’s a crazy idea. The security of my job is something I’ve been clinging to, but maybe the magic lies in letting go. If I could just play guitar and sing all day, that would be heaven to me.

So why not go for it?

I throw on some shorts and a T-shirt, and walk out to the kitchen to put on coffee and start breakfast.

When Luna walks into the kitchen, and her normally olive complexion is pale white.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I just noticed something, and it’s freaking me out. Where did you get that painting in the hallway?”

“Of the blue horse?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“My, ah, roommate got it a while back. I’m not sure where it came from.”

Her eyes widen, and she clutches her chest. “No. It’s not possible.”

“What’s the matter?”

At that moment I hear Mason coming down the hallway to the kitchen. “Yo yo,” he says as he comes around the corner. “Well, good morning, lovebirds?—”

He and Luna make eye contact, and he stops his spiel abruptly.

“It’s you,” he says.

Luna takes a step closer to me. I look between the two of them. “You two know each other?” I ask, confused.

Mason laughs. “Dude, this is my ex. How the hell did she get here?”

“Your ex? What are you talking about?”

It hits me that I’ve never seen the girl he always talked about—the ex that broke his heart, from the story he told me. The one he lived with last summer, when I was just back from the Peace Corps. I was traveling to California to stay with Sam, then helping her move back to Chicago for her internship. I was figuring out how to reacclimate to America after being abroad for two years. So I never actually met his ex.

“That painting of the blue horse…” I say, looking over at Luna.

“I made it,” she says.

The coffee beeps, and awkwardness fills the air as I put all of this together.

“Oh my God,” she says. “This is beyond weird.”

I stare at Mason. All of a sudden, everything adds up. Mason is the one who broke Luna’s trust. He’s the one who traumatized her and left her reeling.

I’m staring right at the reason Luna is on a mission for rebirth.

Luna leaves the kitchen and heads back to my room.

“Holy shit,” I mutter. “It’syou.”

“Holy shit is right. Why are you talking to her? Why are you…with her? Bro, this is unacceptable. A huge violation of bro code.”

I ignore Mason—not about to get into some silly one-sided, bullying argument—and follow Luna to my room.

“I can’t do this,” she says. “I’m sorry. It’s too much.”

“What’s too much? Our whole existence has been a bunch of coincidences.”