by Kellen Hertz
Logan opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly struggling. I smirked, satisfied that my point had been made.
“Both of y’all, take it down a notch,” Portia said gently. “Instead of getting riled up, let’s try brainstorming together. Logan, how about you try to riff off of Tenney’s chorus idea.”
“Okay,” Logan said. He attacked his guitar strings, playing what sounded like a whole lot of angry noise.
“Are you kidding?” I blurted, even before he’d finished.
Logan clapped a hand over his strings, silencing the guitar. “You don’t like it?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t like it! It’s awful!” I said, my voice flaring into a yell. I turned to Portia. “He’s not even trying to collaborate!”
“Neither are you!” Logan threw back at me.
I was hoping Portia would take my side, but she kept silent. Right as I was getting uncomfortable, she stood up. “I’m going to go make myself some tea.”
“Now?” I said.
“Yup!” said Portia. “I’ll be gone for a while.”
“Why?” Logan said, sounding uncertain.
“Because you two need to work this out on your own,” Portia said.
“W-what?!” I stuttered. Panic rang inside me like a fire alarm. Zane had promised that Portia would help Logan and me work through our problems. And now she was abandoning us?
Portia crossed her arms, regarding us. “I want you both to take a deep breath and answer one question: Why are you arguing?”
“Because we have different opinions,” Logan said.
“No, because we have different personalities,” I corrected him.
“You’re both wrong,” Portia said matter-of-factly. “You’re arguing because you’re not dealing with your differences respectfully. In order to collaborate, you need to be able to disagree without making it personal. If you can’t handle that, you probably shouldn’t be working together.”
“Exactly,” I muttered.
Portia zeroed in on me, her eyes as sharp as pins. “Except maybe as a team, you make each other better,” she said. Her words hung in the air for a few moments.
“I’ve been co-writing for thirty years, and I’ve learned the hard way that two people can’t write a song without trust,” she continued. “You need to trust yourself to be honest and vulnerable. And you need to trust the process. You can get over disagreements if you keep in mind that every song goes through rough patches. The most important thing, though, is to trust your writing partner.” She looked me in the eye. “It doesn’t matter if it’s hard—you have to be honest, say what you feel, and trust that your partner’s going to listen with open ears.” Then she turned to Logan. “And you need to trust that Tenney wants what’s best for the song, just like you do. Because at the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for your music,” she finished, her eyes cool and sharp. “So? Do you trust each other?”
I bit my lip. Logan shrugged. Neither of us said anything.
“Okay then, that’s what you need to work on first,” Portia said. “Because if you can’t trust each other, well, then, I don’t know if I can help you.”
She moved to the door and looked back at us.
“You have half an hour. After that, let’s hear what you come up with together.” And with that, she disappeared into the kitchen.
Logan and I sat there, not looking at each other.
“All of this is your fault,” I whispered. “If you hadn’t been late and picked a fight, she wouldn’t have gotten mad.”
“You’re the one who went off and tried writing my own song without me!” he hissed.
I wanted to snap at him, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to make things worse.
We sat for a long while, holding our guitars. In the silence, it felt like the sea was quieting after a storm.
“I’m sorry your feelings got hurt,” I said. “I was just trying to get us started.”
Logan studied his feet. “It’s okay,” he mumbled after a moment. “I should have asked you not to work on it without me. Sorry I blew up.”
“Okay,” I said.
We sat in silence for a while longer, not sure what to say next.
At last, I spoke. “I know this is tough, but we have to try at least. Right?”
Logan nodded. He resettled Portia’s guitar on his knees. His fingers drifted across the fret board, picking out a few thoughtful notes.
“I actually liked part of your chorus,” he said, talking over the music, “but I feel like something doesn’t work about how it comes out of the verse melody.” He played the section again. He was right: Something didn’t match up.
“I hear that,” I said, playing the transition again. “What about something like this?” I replayed it, this time adding a few notes to the measure.
Logan cocked his head. “That’s better … but what if we try this?” he said, changing a couple of notes. All of a sudden, the chorus felt brighter. I liked it immediately.
“Yes!” I said.
Logan looked encouraged—and a little vulnerable. “Um, I’ve also been thinking that the bridge needs to be just a short instrumental break, so we can get back to the chorus at the end,” he said.
“I hear you,” I agreed. I drummed my fingers on my guitar’s neck. “What about adding a few wrap-up lines to the second chorus? Something like this?” I played a variation on the chorus melody that built to a bigger climax.
“I like it!” Logan said. He played it back to me, tightening some notes.
It sounded better, and we both grinned.
“Let’s play it together from the top,” I said.
And so we did, both of us nodding to the beat. When we finished, Logan had an idea. Then I got an idea from his idea. We didn’t talk much. We mostly just said, “How about this?” and played bits of the song back and forth, working on different moments that could be better. I lost track of time. It felt like five minutes had passed when Portia popped her head in.
“You ready?” she said.
“We’re still working,” I said, a little breathless. Portia cracked a smile.
“You’ve been at it for an hour,” she said. Logan and I looked at each other, surprised.
“I guess we can play what we have so far,” Logan said.
“It’s still rough, though,” I added.
“Rough is a start,” Portia said, settling into her armchair. “Let me hear it.”
“I’ll play guitar, you hum the melody, okay?” Logan said, and I nodded.
We started slowly. There were a few bumps, but after a verse, we slipped into a rhythm. By the time we finished, Portia was smiling.
“Now that sounds like the start of a real song!” she said. “How was it working together?”
“Hard at first,” Logan admitted, “but it got easier.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Well, you’ve got a good, solid song structure there; just keep refining it,” said Portia. “Let’s meet again on Sunday. I’ll invite Zane to come over and hear it.”
Worry rippled through me. What if Zane heard our rough version and didn’t think it was good enough for our EP? “It’s too early to play it for Zane,” I said. “We need to work out lyrics first.”
I turned to Logan, hoping he’d back me up, but he was already walking across the room, Portia’s guitar in hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I have to go,” he said, settling the guitar back on its stand.
“Now? But what about the lyrics?” I protested.
Logan gave me a little smile. “We don’t have to finish the song today, Tenney.”
Before I could respond, he hiked his backpack onto his shoulder and hustled toward the door. “See you on Sunday, Portia,” he called back, letting the screen door slam behind him.
Portia shook her head. “Now he was itchier to get out of here than a rabbit in a foxhole,” she noted.
She turned to me and put her hands on my sho
ulders. “I’m proud of the progress you made today, Tenney.”
“Thanks,” I said. As we hugged, I peered around her shoulder to see if I could catch Logan before he left. Sure enough, he was still fiddling with his bike lock.
I quickly packed up my guitar and said goodbye to Portia.
Logan was halfway down the street when I got outside.
“Logan!” I called to him.
He screeched to a stop and looked over his shoulder. “What?” he said, sounding annoyed.
I squared my shoulders. “I really think we should add an extra songwriting session to our rehearsal schedule so that we have something more finished to play for Zane on Sunday.”
“I don’t have time for another session,” he said with a shrug. “You write the lyrics, Tenney. You’re better with words than me, anyway.”
Huh? First he was mad at me for working on his song without him. Now he was ordering me to work on my own again after we had just finished a great session together! My cheeks got hot. I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered that Logan trusted me with writing the lyrics or annoyed that he was leaving the work to me.
Besides, what if I wrote the lyrics and Logan hated them? We had been able to work through our differences this time, but who knew how he would act at our next rehearsal. Logan’s mood swings made me nervous. I loved the way we sounded when we played together, but I knew now that this wasn’t enough to build a successful career in music as a duo. Deep down, I had to admit, I wasn’t sure if my musical partnership with Logan was strong enough to last.
“Tenney, those dishes are clean.” Mom’s voice broke into my thoughts, gentle but persistent. I looked down at the open dishwasher, where I was about to put a sticky, crumb-splattered bowl. It was full of gleaming silverware and plates.
“Oh, right,” I said, embarrassment heating my cheeks.
I dunked the dirty bowl back in the sink, where the rest of the dishes from dinner were soaking. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and started putting away the clean dishes. Mom leaned against the kitchen counter next to me, watching.
“Are you okay?” she said. “You were a million miles away at dinner.”
“I was just thinking about a song,” I said, avoiding her gaze.
It wasn’t really a lie. I had been thinking about the song Logan and I had worked on this afternoon, but I’d been thinking even more about Logan’s strange, moody behavior. I wanted to talk to Mom about it, but I hesitated. Mom really liked Logan, and I didn’t want to hear from yet another well-intentioned adult that I needed to try a little harder to get along with him. You signed a contract to be musical partners, I could hear her say. That means you’ve got to learn how to work with him, no matter what.
“Really, I’m fine,” I told Mom, forcing a smile. “You know how I get when I’ve got a song in my brain. I just have to get it out.”
I think Mom could sense I didn’t want to be pushed, because she gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Okay,” she said, easing past me to the living room. “You know where I am if you want to talk about it.”
Once I was alone, my heart felt heavy. Maybe there was something to the line I had given Mom, and I just needed to get out my emotions. I thought of what Portia had said earlier this afternoon: The best way to heal from anything is to do what you love.
I’ll work on the song lyrics, I thought, carrying a stack of plates over to a cabinet. Logan told me to write them on my own. That’s exactly what I’ll do.
I looked through the glass door that opened out to our backyard. The grass shimmered with chilly evening dew. So much for writing outside, I thought. I went into the living room. Mason was showing Mom something on his phone. Waylon was asleep on the couch beside Dad, who was coaching Aubrey through a new song on her accordion. They barely noticed as I passed through on my way upstairs.
I closed my bedroom door behind me and grabbed my guitar from its stand at the end of my bed. Then I slipped its wide leather strap over my head, shifting the instrument into place on my body. I walked the room, testing each guitar string to make sure it was in tune.
My eyes drifted to a small window next to Aubrey’s desk that overlooked our backyard. Through it, I saw a patch of blue-black night sky and a cloud of silvery oak leaves and branches. I didn’t look out at this view very often, I realized. It was a new perspective. I liked it.
I settled my fingers on my guitar strings and started playing the tune Logan and I had worked on this afternoon. The melody was quick and fun, and as it flowed through me, I felt proud of what Logan and I had created together.
But uneasy moments kept flashing through my head. The way Logan had rushed out of our meeting with Portia. The tone in his voice when he’d called my ideas “cute.” His shrug when he told me I should write the lyrics. He hadn’t even asked if I wanted to write them; he’d just said it like he had decided for both of us.
Of course, I did want to write the lyrics, I admitted to myself, but that wasn’t the point. Deep down, it still didn’t feel like Logan and I were a team.
I stopped playing, frustration and uncertainty storming inside me. I realized that I needed to let Logan know how he made me feel.
Setting my guitar on the floor, I grabbed my songwriting journal from my nightstand. I curled up on my bed, grabbed a pen, and flipped the journal open to the first blank page, near the back. I started listing everything I’d been too polite to say to Logan since we’d started playing together:
You don’t listen to me.
You’re rude.
You change your mind all the time.
You’re unpredictable.
You’re hot and cold.
You shut me out.
I can’t tell what you’re thinking.
I can’t trust you.
I paused. After all we’d accomplished today, I knew it was harsh to say I still didn’t trust Logan, but at this moment, it was truly what I felt.
I kept writing, emotions flooding through my pen. I hadn’t fully understood how much I wanted to say to Logan, but before I knew it, I’d scrawled down two full pages of thoughts and feelings. When my hand started to cramp, I put down my pen and stretched my fingers, looking at what I’d written. It didn’t all make sense, but putting it down on the page had helped me feel better.
Not only that, I could see what I wanted our song to say.
I started on the lyrics. First, I tore out my two sheets of brainstorm notes. Then I used scissors to cut out each idea, and started arranging each piece of paper on the floor. This idea could be in the first verse, I thought, placing a piece of paper to my left. This one is better for the chorus, I decided, placing another slip in front of me. Piece by piece, thought by thought, I could feel in the pit of my stomach which lines worked best together.
I opened to the next clean page in my journal, and I wrote down the number of beats in each line of our song’s verse pattern. Then I got to work stringing my thoughts into a verse that made sense. When I was done with the first verse, I did the same with the second.
I wanted the chorus to tell Logan that I was sick of him being moody and angry, but also that I wished we could understand each other. I figured out something with the right rhythm quickly, then laid out the third and fourth verses. Once I had a rough sense of how the song would unfold, I started rewriting. I flip-flopped phrases and changed words, sharpening my thoughts. I went through the lyrics over and over, making sure each line flowed into the next, rhyming tightly and matching the number of beats needed. My guitar sat across the room, but I didn’t need it—the melody played in my head as loudly as if I had speakers inside my ears.
Finally, I took a break. I took a few deep breaths and squeezed my eyes closed. Then I opened them and read all my lyrics. To my surprise, I didn’t want to throw my journal against a wall or rip up what I’d written. In fact, I didn’t really want to change much of anything. That’s how I knew I was done, at least for now.
Okay, I thought. Hugging my journal, I moved to my desk and sat down
in front of my laptop.
I typed up the song lyrics, every word ringing out clearly in my head. At the top of the page I wrote “The Nerve.” I saved the document and then opened my e-mail. I didn’t want to wait until our next rehearsal to share my lyrics with Logan. If he wants lyrics, I thought, I’ll give him lyrics.
I started a new e-mail, entered Logan’s address, and typed “New Song Lyrics” in the subject line. Then I pasted the lyrics into the body of the e-mail. As I scanned the words I’d written one last time, I felt a pang of guilt. Would Logan be hurt by what I wrote? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I was proud that my lyrics told Logan exactly how I was feeling in a way that I never could have told him face-to-face.
If Logan and I are going to trust each other, I thought, I have to be honest with him.
Before I could lose my courage, I clicked SEND. It wasn’t until the e-mail whoosh sounded that I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let out a sigh. I had no idea how Logan would react to the lyrics. I just hoped he would get the message that no matter how rude he acted, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from making music.
I was getting into my pajamas when my phone shuddered with a cymbal crash from my night-stand. I’d picked that sound for Logan’s texts, partly because he played drums but also because, like percussion, Logan sometimes gave me a headache.
Curiosity shivered through me. I checked my phone. On the screen was Logan’s text:
Got the lyrics. Good job. Let’s meet at your dad’s store tomorrow after school and keep working on it.
“Okay,” I texted back, but I was a little surprised. Good job? Is that really all Logan had to say about what I’d written? Usually, he was so critical. Plus, I’d basically used the song to list all the things about him that annoyed me. Could it be possible that he hadn’t noticed that? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t feel like discussing it through texts. I was going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out exactly how Logan felt about my lyrics.
When Mason and I arrived at Dad’s music store the next day, Logan was locking his bike to the rack nearby.