Pandora. Seattle is wholly different when you change the lens through which you see it

Seattle is wholly different when you change the lens through which you see it. One day, it’s a place where you got your heart broken. A place that feels lonely even with thousands of people driving, walking past you. One day it is the rainiest, most depressing city in the world. And another day, it’s the place where you want to live the rest of your life. Because it’s the place where you have your little cousin, your friends, your job, and your boyfriend.

Your boyfriend.

Did I just sigh?

Me. Sighing.

Grinning.

Happy, hopeful, forgiving.

How can all this happen in a few months?

I know now, from life, that it takes only a second to break you. But with time, with effort, it takes a little longer, but you can make it. There’s something about someone knowing your deepest, darkest secret and still loving you despite what you did that gives you hope. That makes you want to be better. Never disappoint yourself, and them, ever again.

There’s also something about learning to forgive . . .

Both others, and yourself.

I feel different now. I feel it every morning when I wake. The sense of looking forward to your day. Life doesn’t suck anymore. People don’t suck—well, not everyone.

During our first week back in Seattle, Kenna and I found an apartment close to where we’re opening a rock bar.

The idiot wants to call it Pink, and all my friends—Mel, Brooke, and Kyle—wholeheartedly approve. I’m decorating in my trademark silver and black, and, now that we’re owners of a future establishment, I decorate by day while Mackenna heads to the studio he bought just three floors above.

He’s recruited a couple of bands to play at Pink during the week. And, even better, as a special favor, Jax and Lex and Crack Bikini will be performing opening night.

They call all the time, those two goofballs. Trying to coax Kenna back to the band. He laughs and banters with them, says, “Hell no” and “Fuck off.” He’s currently working on a new album called Bones. I’m crazy about the songs. They’re so bare, different from what he created during his time with Crack Bikini. Edgier. More raw.

At night, he takes me out, whether I protest that I’m tired or not. He’s a prowler—another wolfish trait.

On the weekends, we invite Magnolia over. She loves it with us. Even my mother is trying to make amends, so even if she doesn’t like having to let me take Mag some weekends, she lets us have our way. Her way of trying to make peace with Mackenna.

I still remember the first time they met—Mag and Kenna.

Mom dropped her off. We’d prearranged the visit, so we were expecting Magnolia. I rang her up from the lobby, and suddenly the door of the apartment swung open and there was Magnolia, her eyes bright with curiosity as she asked, “Pan, Pan, who is he?”

She curled around my legs like a cat, and I clutched her to me as Kenna set aside the guitar he was fiddling with and headed over with a smile I remember finding heart-meltingly adorable.

I noticed her study him.

And I noticed him study her.

“Aren’t you going to let our guest inside, Pandora?” he asked me, intrigued.

“Who are you?” she asked in return, frowning.

“Who are you?” he shot back, lifting one eyebrow and reaching around me to shut the door behind us.

“I’m Magdalene,” she said.

“Magnolia,” I corrected, laughing.

He smiled down at her while she surveyed him.

“Magic Mike, say hello to my boyfriend, Mackenna,” I said, giving her a little nudge forward.

“What does this mean?” she went on to ask of the tattoo on Kenna’s forearm. “Why are you wearing bracelets? You like boys, don’t you?”

“Mag!” I laughed, ushering her into the kitchen. “Come on, we’re making homemade pizza.”

Over the mozzarella sprinkling, Mackenna looked at me, as intent as ever. “She’s—?”

“A little older than our . . . um, yes.”

We shared a moment of sadness, then he came up behind me, took my hand, and set it over the five Chinese symbols on his forearm as he whispered in my ear, “It means ‘I Live For You.’ ”

“What?”

He laughed and moved to help Magnolia add the pepperoni slices. “I’m not repeating it. I was drunk and had one thing on my mind and one thing only.”

“Me?”

“Yup. That wasn’t the best tattoo to help me forget you, was it?” he murmured.

“But you wore it proudly?”

“Only because it was the truth.”

A month before the movie premiere, we hear that the movie trailer is becoming famous for showing me charging across the stage to kiss Mackenna, whispering with ferocity, “You’re mine. I claim you. I love you. You’re mine.”

Surprisingly, this has gotten me an online fan club. So unexpected! I even interact with the fans sometimes. As long as Kenna’s fans don’t lynch me at the premiere, I’m good with anything. He’s promised me, they won’t touch me.

And I believe him, because, sadly, they’ll probably be too busy trying to reach out over the red cords to touch him.

Anyway, just a week before the premiere, I find myself calling Melanie with my most excited voice yet. I’m so happy, my voice has a new tone even for me.

“We’re getting married.”

“Squee! OMG! How? When? When did he ask, and how did he ask you?”

“Well, we’d already said we would, but he asked in an un-cheesy way, or I’d have flung the ring back at him,” I say, looking down at my ring, then up at my man, who’s lying with his arms crossed behind his head, the bedsheets barely reaching his waist.

“If you’re telling me Grey’s proposal was cheesy when he told me flat out we were getting married, you are deranged—it was the best, most un-cheesy proposal I’ve heard.”

“Kenna proposed in bed, while . . . you know . . . insert your most volcanic fantasies here . . .”

“Wow, that is un-cheesy. Not something to tell the kids, huh?”

“Just get over here!”

“Be there in a bit.”

Then I call Brooke and Remy.

“You’re getting married! Remington! Guess who’s getting married?”

He briefly grabs the phone. “Congratulations, you two.”

Soon Melanie appears, her intimidating boyfriend by her side. “Maleficent, getting married?!” She hugs me with her usual mix of glee and tenderness, and we rock in each other’s arms while our men have no other choice but to introduce themselves.

“Greyson,” I hear Melanie’s fiancé say. “Congratulations, man.”

“Mackenna,” Kenna offers, slapping and shaking hands.

“God! Look at this ring, it’s obscene! One seriously obscene ring, Kenna, you did good!” Melanie says in complete delight. “Greyson, have you seen anything so pretty?”

“Never,” Greyson murmurs, but I notice he’s looking at Melanie, not my ring.

Mackenna quickly pulls me over to one of the living room couches. Greyson and Melanie settle on the opposite one, and we have a great time swapping meeting stories and celebrating. Even Kyle stops by with his girlfriend to toast with us.

Later, the men start talking about their respective businesses and I find myself asking Melanie for good ideas for a wedding reception. She can’t even believe it’s actually me asking.

“Seriously, this is almost creepy, Pan!” she swears.

We laugh it off and so does Kyle’s girlfriend, Terry, and soon, my grin starts to hurt on my face. All this time, I feel Kenna’s hand moving on my bare arm and shoulder—a gentle reminder that he’s by my side even though he’s talking to the boys and I’m talking to the girls.

I keep stealing touches, squeezing his hand, rubbing his hard thigh—just so he knows I don’t forget for a second who I’m with from now on.

That night, I slide into bed with my guy and start kissing him with all the passion I feel. I nibble on his jaw and slide my hands over his sexy buzz cut and press as close as I can get. I nibble on his lone diamond earring and then on the ear where my ring-diamond used to be. There, I whisper what I used to be so afraid of saying. I didn’t say “I love you” for so many years, yet now I can’t say it enough. I can’t hear it enough. And Kenna shows no signs of asking me to shut up either. He rolls me beneath his body and takes control of the situation, with one sure, perfect move, getting up as close and deep as possible to me.

One day later, it’s Sunday morning and we’re listening to I Heart Radio, like we usually do when we wake up. Then it happens.

“So, now we get to hear the first single from Crack Bikini’s new album. This is ‘Lullaby.’ ” And suddenly we both grow quiet. And there, in his arms—where I feel loved and accepted, warm and safe, wanted and forgiven—I close my eyes and listen to his heartbeat with one ear, and his song with the other.

Young and in love

We thought we were invincible

If you’re lonely or sad

Need to feel someone’s there

Precious baby, let me sing you our lullaby

Let me sing you this lullaby

You may be five or six next year

You may be fifteen in a second

Growing up in a record

Lipstick, girlfriends, boyfriends, first times

It hurts we will never be a part of that

We couldn’t give you what you needed

Couldn’t keep you by our sides

But, baby girl, we can give you

All our love, right in this one lullaby

Your mom and I

Thought you’d have a better life

We were broken, young, and wild

Our sweet girl, you will never know why

But for this moment here’s a lullaby

We’d turn back the clock

I’d man up and stop

Make sure you knew who you were

You were hers and mine

But time, that’s something we never recover

Mistakes we make, promises we break

Things we can never get over

So here I stand

Hoping you can understand

It wasn’t you; it was us

Nothing wrong with you

Our little baby girl

You were perfect; you still are

So here’s your lullaby

“ ‘Lullaby,’ ” the voice on the radio crackles in. “Already topping the charts as the singer and his fiancée hold a worldwide search for all the girls born on January 22, five years ago . . .”

Tears trek silently down my cheeks while Mackenna quietly cups my face and lets them fall into his palms. “What will we do when we find her?” My voice breaking, I swallow. “We can’t take her away from her real parents now. But we can’t not try to be a part of her life in some way.”

“We’ll do whatever she wants,” he promises me—and his eyes, they look as wolfish as ever.