"It's unlocked," Scott calls from inside. He's hurrying down the stairs when I enter and turning directly toward his studio. "Follow me!" He's so eager for me to hear his album that he doesn't notice what I'm carrying. I unzip it while he opens his laptop and enters the long, complicated password protecting the raw files from his album. Once free, Wyatt pokes his nose out for a second, then leaps out and starts rubbing his head against every corner, purring loudly. He recognizes his old home, I think, but he can tell these rooms aren't quite right, and he needs to mark them as his own with his fuzzy little forehead.

Scott gasps, drops to his knees immediately, and holds out two fingers for Wyatt's inspection. Wyatt rams his head against Scott's knuckles and rubs vigorously to reclaim him. Scott is beaming. "Mmmmmm, I missed you, fuzzy one. That's right, come to daddy." He scoops Wyatt up and holds him over his shoulder. "Did you miss the scruff? I know. I know. Oh, you're so cute. You're so old and wrinkly now, aren't you! I remember when you were a little kitten, too tiny for your old man wrinkles." He scratches under Wyatt's chin, and Wyatt leans his head back indulgently. "Mitchie was so happy, oh so happy. He talked about you for years. He always follows through. He talked about a sphynx cat, tattoos, getting a singing career, a Grammy, being an actress, shaving his head that one time. Remember when he was bald like you? So soft. Have you been treating him right? Watching out for him? Good boy."

Wyatt hops off Scott to move on to the mixing board, and Scott strokes him a few more times before starting the music. Monotone bass guitar. Kick drum. It evokes a heartbeat. An acoustic guitar enters with the persistent rhythm of driving rain, soothing and steady. It cuts off and hangs in silence for a moment. It feels like when the car stops after a long trip and I have to wake up and climb out of the passenger seat at three in the morning. Scott enters solo, and the instruments pick up a beat later.

Good things always end.

Off to a great start. He said this album was different, but so far it's exactly the same profoundly melancholy lament as before, with different notes and different words.

Everything is over.

Over. All the good things have ended, and it was inevitable. We lived on top of the world for so long. Maybe I should just be grateful to have had all that.

Nothing lasts forever.

I'm not going to be able to hold it together for the whole album. It's barely started, and I can already feel it clawing at my chest, tugging blood-soaked emotions from my torn up heart and pulling every rip a little wider at the corners. "Pause it," I ask. "I'll be right back." He laughs when I return with a box of tissues and wastebasket. He still doesn't believe me. I settle into the beanbag in the corner, and he starts from the beginning again.

Too good to be true,
Too perfect to last,
Over at all is still over too fast

Anyone could have written this about anything. I don't have to be upset. I can't pretend it's not Scott's voice I hear, though, and I can't truly convince myself it isn't about us. I swallow and try to focus on anything but the words. He's too good a musician, though. He doesn't need lyrics to express an emotion any more than I need dialog to act.

What's the point? I'm going to be weeping my heart out soon enough anyway, so why hold back? It's Scott. He's seen me cry over heartbreak, over loss, over math assignments. He knows me. There's an assurance in that. I can speak freely with my family because I know it won't change how they think of me too much. They already understand me. Scott should be the same, but I'm not sure he knows himself or his own worth, and that changes the way he sees me. It doesn't make a difference. The harmony—my harmony, written for my voice—has started, and I can't hold my tears back any longer. He sits beside me and wraps an arm over my shoulder to hold me tight. I'm as silent as I can make myself, still listening.

On the album, he's singing about beautiful times distilling into bitter memories. He's wishing he had never known anything better so he would have nothing to miss, about how he thought it was permanent, but he should have known that nothing lasts forever.

The instruments fall away and the singers are silent. Scott belts, practically shouts, "Nothing, nothing lasts forever," and suddenly it means something entirely different. It becomes a promise, even a battle cry. The good times are over, but the bad times are ending because nothing, not even the darkness, can last forever.

I slip an arm around his back. He's grown so strong and come so far. I wish I'd had the strength just to be there for him. I had the option to get out, and I took it, but he had no choice but to push though. It's easy to think, "I want to be there for him no matter what," but in reality, what I'm asking for is to endure being misjudged, to watch him suffer without being able to reach him or to help, to put limits on how much I can help before I burn out, to see him struggle, to see him fail, to wonder how long it will last, to see hope and lose it again, and never to know when or if he'll be free. By leaving, I made him believe I wasn't willing to take it, but that's not why I had to go. I couldn't bear him hating me.

We listen to the rest of the album together, and I'm an absolute wreck. His songs refine into words and music the despair of our separation. I'm as close to him as I can get without sitting on his lap, but it doesn't take away what happened. It doesn't resolve my uncertainty about our future, or our futures.

He was telling the truth about this album being different. There's sadness, and even anger, but there's hope, and it's the hopeful parts that make me cry the most, that make him hold me the closest.