Chapter 26

It's already the last day and Tiffany is there to specially wake Howard up, but he denies it. Resorting to no other choice, she gets on top of him and when the maid comes in, their position gets mistaken as them doing something else. In slight anger, Howard changes positions so that he's on top as he fights with Tiffany which causes another misunderstanding. After getting off of one another he finally asks where they're going but Tiffany keeps it a secret. She does let him know that she needs his small speaker.
With Howard blindfolded, they arrive at the destination where he says that he feels at peace at the place. Tiffany takes off the blindfold but keeps Howard's eyes closed until she starts the music, when he's finally able to open his eyes.
At the sight of the ocean in front of him, Howard panics a bit but Tiffany tells him to close his eyes and introduces him as though he were at a concert and assures him that anywhere can be his stage as long as there's music.
So, with a deep breath, Howard begins to sing as he slowly begins to step closer to Tiffany, who steps closer to the waves. Soon, he's standing in the beginnings of the ocean with Tiffany encouraging him every step of the way.
Eventually a strong wave comes and knocks Tiffany over and on instinct, Howard jumps into the water to try to rescue her. He manages to help get her to shore and passes out.
He wakes up in the hospital asking for Tiffany when Bernice is the one holding his hand. Andrew tries to brush it off but when Daniel comes in, Howard immediately asks about Tiffany. Daniel says he only suffered from physical distress but Howard is only concerned about Tiffany. Daniel explains that she watched over him all night but had to leave in the morning due to an emergency. In a text Tiffany explains that her grandfather fell ill so she had to head back home.
Howard doesn't care that he's in the hospital, he only wants to go see Tiffany but gets stopped by Andrew and Daniel. On the other side, Bernice wipes away her tears. Howard apologizes to her but she gathers her things and leaves. It takes a little, but Andrew rushes out after her.
She wants to know if Andrew came to make fun of her but it's not that, he just wants to cheer her up. Andrew wants to know what's wrong with him but Bernice doesn't give him an answer telling him to turn into a ball and roll around. Andrew argues back with her but eventually does go on the ground and rolls around for her. She does have a small smile.
Once he's released, Howard goes to visit Victoria's grave. He tells her that before visiting her was the thing that scared him the most. He gives her a bouquet of flowers as kengsington walks nearby, also to visit. Howard admits that he thought of Victoria as his loving older sister and promises that he will never change but he understood that he was too stubborn to let her go, that he didn't want to forget the painful memory. But now he believes he can let her go since he believes she would want him to live his life the way he would want, sing the songs he wants, and love the person he wants. He bids her goodbye before taking his leave.
In a dark office, in a dark figure head over to the computer with a flash drive. That person is kengsington who hands the flash drive over to the guy with the box in the hallway earlier when Howard went to discuss his commercial and tells him to not disappoint him.
Well if that doesn't sound like some trouble. It doesn't seem like it. whatever they have planned is going to be nice for Howard, since kengsington still has business with him, It seems like his hatred just can't be let go. But honestly, it still probably has something to do with Bernice. He doesn't want Howard to hurt Bernice and if she cries to him about Howard, then he's probably going to do something about it.
It good that Tiffany created a plan for Howard and was willing to get in there with him, like the fountain and even walking backwards as he approached her on the beach. She wasn't afraid to be in it 100% with him to help him overcome his fear and feel like conquering his fear was the last thing that he needed in order to move on with his life and that's why he feel that him visiting Victoria's grave was kind of like a goodbye from him in a way. He's ready to move on and do what he wants to do, whether in songwriting or love, without her memory holding him back, or rather him holding onto her memory. He admitted that he was holding onto her because he wanted to remember the pain, which might be why he had the fear of water. It wasn't just him having an accident in it, one of his good friends lost their loves in it because of him and so him being afraid of water like that was a reminder that he had gone through something like that in which must be remembered so Victoria's memory doesn't die. Finally getting over that fear of water was the start to a new beginning of him. With that, it was like all of his insecurities about the past were beginning to heal.
And one would think that Bernice would finally get the message, even after Howard woke up in the hospital saying Tiffany's name and frantically wondering exactly what happened to her. But nope, she's going to try to remain faithful to him even though it's probably not going to work for her. She clearly has to see that he doesn't like her, but like she mentioned before, she's going to try to stick it out, whether he likes her or not.