by Nicole Reed
The night air is crisp and clean as I stumble back to the apartment. My mind is not exactly free of my thoughts but not overrun by them either. The booze helps, but I can still feel everything on the edges, just waiting. I make it back to the apartment within five minutes, in plenty of time for fucking curfew. I stroll through the front door, noting Josh sitting on one of the barstools.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asks, clearly fishing.
“Yes, Mother. I did,” I reply in my best Norman Bates imitation, not planning on stopping to chat.
“Anything that’s going to show up on the drug test Friday?” he asks.
I stop, pop my neck muscles, then turn to look at him. “Not unless you’ve got one that tests for Jack Daniels. Alcohol isn’t illegal.” Stupid motherfucker.
“It’s not, but I hope you’re not too dumb to realize that it could inhibit your ability to make the right choices. I’m not your enemy, Rhye. I don’t want to be.”
“No, you’re just my fucking warden, and you sure as shit ain’t my friend, so by default, that makes you enemy number one.”
He stands, stretching his arms out in front of him while shaking his head. “Are you honestly going to waste this opportunity? Man, you’ve got more God-given talent in your pinkie finger than most people could ever dream of having. People would kill to be you, but here you are, squandering it all away. For what, Rhye? You think you’re going to find what you are looking for in the nod or at the bottom of the bottle? You’re not. You’ll give it all away for nothing.”
The all-consuming rage that sleeps lightly under my skin awakens and bursts forward. I step directly in his face, ready to take him down. “You don’t know jack shit about me. Where I’ve been. What I’ve done.” The anger speeds my heart rate, my breathing turns rapid. I ball my fist up at my sides, ready for him.
“You’re right. I can’t imagine the things you’ve seen and done, but Rhye, if you can’t change them, you have to let them go. They will take you down, not caring who you take down with them. What do you think happens if you end it? You think that rights all the wrongs? It doesn’t. You have to find some type of closure that you can live with and then let all that shit bothering you go. Just let it go, man,” he says, not backing away.
“Hit him. HIT! HIM!” my demons chant, but something else inside of me halts my actions. FUCK! Does he ever just shut up? Knocking my shoulder hard into his, I walk by with force, causing him to stumble and daring him to say something. Any sound he makes and I’ll turn around and mess him up. Damn the consequences. I’ll do it if he remotely breathes in my direction. He gets the hint and doesn’t say anything else as I head back to my bedroom.
Locking the door, I turn to brace myself against the wall. I hang my head and try to control my breathing, my buzz obliterated. How do you let go of the kind of the things I live with? That I’ve seen with my own two eyes? Two guys are dead, directly from decisions I made. A girl, once my girl, has no idea that the reason she lost him was because of me. ME! She has no clue that I set it all in motion, the very thing that would cause her to try and end her own life.
Jay. Fuck me. Years have passed, but knowing that she chose someone else still tears my shit up. Not going there. It doesn’t matter anymore. She doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing fucking matters anymore. I push away from the wall and head into my bathroom to take a hot shower, hoping the water will at least lessen my body’s aches. Knowing it will never wash away my sins.
The sound of my alarm clock blares loudly, waking me from the restless sleep that I fought hard all night. I sling my hand over to pound the snooze button. Every sleepless hour completely wasted thinking about him. Groaning, I grab my pillow to cover my head, trying not to remember all the stupid thoughts that went through my crazy head.
Yesterday, Rhye ran from the studio so fast it made my head spin. I understood the need for escape. What I don’t understand is how I could take half the night worrying about where he was or who he was with. That doesn’t make any sense to me. It shouldn’t matter. I need it not to matter.
I growl, sitting up and tossing my pillow across the room. It’s only day two. Day. Two. How am I supposed to function knowing I just spent the night worrying about a guy I don’t know and have no business worrying over? Who cares if he is a tortured soul that I feel like I could be the one to help? You can’t change people. Ever.
Stepping out of bed, I walk straight into the shower, hoping to clear my head. Undressing, I sling my clothes on top of the sink and turn the water on. I contort my body out of the way of the cold water spray until the correct temperature doesn’t freeze me to death. I pour a small amount of shampoo in my hand as I lean back to wet my hair and massage it in.
He is so intense. His presence overwhelms me, calling forth something so deep within that I wonder if it’s normal. It’s not like I have someone I can call to confirm any of this. I didn’t have any girl friends in school because I worked so much. Mostly, I had guy friends, but none that I would call now. I thought I was in love with Tag. I mean, I had reservations, which now make me question just how in love with him I really was, but still.
Is this it? That mystical occurrence that poets gush over and songwriters rhapsodize about? I know it’s lust, at least for me. Not for Rhye, or so he says. Butthole. Cute butthole, but it’s still the same thing. Why feel the way I do if it all means nothing?
Finishing rinsing my hair, I shut the water off and reach for a towel to dry my wet body. Looking at the clock, I realize just how late I’m running. I rush to get ready, haphazardly throwing on my clothes. I have no time to blow my hair out. Shrugging my shoulders, I grab a rubber band and pull it on top of my head, leaving it to dry curly on its own.
By the time I reach the studio, I’m almost an half an hour late, but only Julie is there.
“I guess we’re the only ones, ducky. Ryan and Mel have some meeting this morning. Mel said he told Rhye not to come in until this evening so you and I can work alone,” she says, smiling as I walk in.
Setting my guitar case down, I flop down into a chair. “Sorry. I’m usually on time. Rough night.”
“Ahhh,” she says, the sound betraying a deeper meaning.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, turning to look innocently at her.
“You fancy him.”
“Who?” I answer innocently. Play dumb, Syn. Play dumb.
“You bloody well know who,” she says, her cockney accent more pronounced today.
I shrug, deciding not to say anything else incriminating.
Staring into my eyes, she sighs before saying, “He will hurt you. He won’t mean to. It’s just in his nature. Guard your heart.”
There is no use in denying it. We both let her words settle within the quietness in the room. My heart hurts at what she is saying, but my head agrees one hundred and ten percent. I know, more than anyone, that love hurts and those that we love have the massive power to destroy us. I loved my mother, and that love caused the most internal pain. I think I loved Tag, but either way, his betrayal cut me to the core.
No, I don’t want to love Rhye.
“C’mon you. This is great material. Let’s use it for personal gain,” she says with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Start with the title, ‘Guard Your Heart’. Write around that.”
Grabbing her notebook and a pen, she starts jotting down words, and I reach for my own pad. The first sentence I write comes straight from my heart, “I see the pain coming and I can’t stop this train wreck of my heart. You won’t ever care, and I’ll be the one left at the start.”
We work the entire morning, only stopping to get a quick bite of lunch. Afterwards, Julie and I set up with our guitars, working on the melody for two of the songs I finished earlier. When the first one seems where we both want it, I start playing with some different chords for the other, singing the chorus to myself.
Glancing up, my breath catches, held prisoner within my chest. As I look into Rhye’s eyes, feeli
ngs of fear and trepidation beat at my soul, and unease causes me to stop and stare. He stands on the other side of the recording studio glass, looking directly at me. I don’t move, frozen within his gaze. What this boy does to me. My body naturally reacts to his, but it’s my emotions that I don’t understand. I want to protect him, shelter him, right every wrong; however, the most confusing aspect is not only do I want to fix him, but I want to fix myself. I want to be perfect for him, be what he needs.
Rhye looks away, seemingly unaffected by any of this or by me. I watch Mel walk up to him and say something. He’s in a black, sleeveless shirt, making it easy to study some of the designs carved onto his arms. I’ve never been attracted to tattoos, never saw the beauty or the art, but looking at Rhye’s, it’s almost like reading his story. I see an anatomical heart, gouged with knives and needles, maybe depicting his hurt, his pain. Music notes, freely flowing, clearly indicate his love for music, but then, a broken microphone maybe tells me that he’s lost his passion.
I follow several colorful designs twisting up his shoulder, traveling the lines of his neck muscles, and over his beautiful face, stopping to again note that lower case “j” inked next to his eye like a tear drop. Who would he mark his face for? A girl? Someone he loved. Someone he hurt? Someone who hurt him?
He catches me assessing him, and the look in his eyes makes my heart pound. A small smirk marks his mouth, and I see a spark of something in those dark brown eyes. Life. Mel, still speaking to him, playfully tags his arm. Rhye turns back towards him to reply to whatever it is he’s saying, and I look down, trying to control whatever this is inside of me.
“She’s not my type,” I say, looking back to Mel.
“I’m just pointing out the obvious, brother,” he starts, holding his hands up. “The girl can’t keep those big cat eyes of hers off you. She was staring so hard yesterday that I thought laser beams were going to shoot out of her eyes. Hell, what am I saying? I’m sure you get that shit all the time with the ladies.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I look back through the large, clear glass to watch her. As I was about to walk into the studio this morning, the image of her made me stop. She looks so damn young. Her hair is pulled up in one of those bands where all of it looks like it will fall down at any second. She has on a t-shirt and, I guess, shorts because a pair of hot tan legs are crossed out in front of her. Innocent. Sweet. Words I’m not familiar with aptly describe her.
Those strange, yellow eyes look back up to me. Syn. Isn’t that her name? Just how sinful are you, little Syn? Are you like most girls, wanting the world to think you’re one way when, behind closed doors, you like it down and dirty? I bet that’s her deal. I normally wouldn’t give someone like her the time of day. Again, I like the ones who dress trashy and a little slutty, wearing their pain and pleasure on the outside and giving their middle finger to society and its dictations.
Maybe if I give her what those eyes evidently are begging for, she can quit with the whole, “Look at me, I’m so wholesome” act. It’s starting to aggravate the shit out of me. Well, actually everything is aggravating the shit out me. Josh tried to wake me at fucking six o’clock this morning to go ride a bicycle. A fucking bicycle. I threw a lamp at him, missing, and shattering it against my bedroom wall.
Shaking my head, I see that she is back to writing something down in that stupid notebook. If I’m lucky, she’ll be writing down all of her nasty little secrets and offer to act them out later. My dick starts to get its own ideas. Yeah, I can get down with her this one time. Make an exception.
“Do you want to work on that song from yesterday? I think studio B is open. We can play with some different beats, see what works,” Mel says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Let’s do it,” I say, forgetting about Syn for now.
Following Mel into the next studio, we both sit down in front of the boards. He pulls out his notes from yesterday and hands me a piece of paper and a pencil. Not sure what he wants me to do with these unless I’m supposed to look busy.
“Look over these lyrics we talked about. Let’s see if you like this new sound I’ve been working on. It’s a dark, heavy beat, but man does it have a mean guitar melody that I think would be perfect for you,” he says, pressing buttons on the sound board.
Music starts to thump through the room. My eyes close on their own accord, and I let the rhythm take over. For the first time in a long while, I feel it flow through me, energizing and renewing. My heart beats in synchrony, my fingers search out the matching chords, playing an air-guitar as precise as I would play my own.
Without letting it end, Mel loops the song, and it continues to play. The third time I listen to it, I open my eyes to look down at the lyrics Mel wrote. I begin to sing, but I don’t use his exact written words. I add in my own, letting them come straight from me. “Without remorse, without shame, I’m the only one to blame. Take my heart, Take my soul, but know they come empty, riddled with holes.”
I get lost in the music, escape in the melody, and purge myself within the lyrics. Something tugs inside of my abdomen, reminding me it’s still there. My soul. It merges with the music, the only time it’s free from the encasing darkness. The only time I’ve ever felt whole is in my music. I thought it was lost for good. Sitting in this room, I find it again, feeling a little peace for the first time in two years.
When the music comes to an end, Mel starts to clap enthusiastically while whistling, and I remember I’m not alone. I come back to myself only to find several others’ applause joining his. Turning to the doorway, I see that Ryan, Julie, and Smiley herself have witnessed this intangible moment, and I hate it.
For seconds, the fiery anger inside me threatens to be unleashed. Goddamn them all for seeing something so personal and so private that it physically makes me ache inside to be flayed open; however, I instantly realize they have no clue that my spirit has been severed from my music and only now rediscovering it. They can’t comprehend what they’ve witnessed, and I have no desire to share it. I look down, trying to control all of these feelings so they don’t escape.
“Man. Son, that’s not half bad,” Ryan says, standing somewhere near me.
“Not half bad?” that chick Julie asks with her accent. “That was bloody amazing. I’d buy that iTunes single right this second.”
“Damn, that was bad ass,” Mel says, joining in with the others.
Once I’ve masked all my emotions, I look up to glare at them and shrug. I can’t help that my eyes immediately seek Syn’s. Are those unshed tears? She stands with her hands grasped at her chest, her breathing rapid. We stare at each other while the others talk over us. She knows what just happened with me. How can she possibly know? Goddamn it! How can she know?
He found it.
No wonder he hasn’t been playing. He couldn’t feel the music. It’s a musician’s lifeblood. If you can’t connect with the music, it’s all a lie, and the fans can spot that a mile away. And that’s not the truly painful part. If you are a musician, you live and die for your music. It connects you to life, to people, and for some, yourself. It’s like a chef not being able to taste food. You can cook it, slave over it for hours, but no matter how delicious it looks, it’s tasteless. For a musician, it’s losing yourself. Your soul. And for a precious second, I watched him find his.
Ten minutes ago, Julie and I were working on my music when Ryan popped his head into the doorway and told us to come with him. We looked at each other, perplexed at what he wanted, but stood to follow him. He led us to the room next door, and from the doorway, we watched, not wanting to interrupt Rhye. Oh my, the raspiness in his voice, soft and smooth with a thick texture. There is a husky quality that all great rock singers have, something that calls to its listeners, and Rhye has it in spades. I watched him, with his eyes closed, as he swayed his body to the rhythm, a seemingly innate ability to blend into the music.
I stood motionless, imprisoned by the sound of Rhye singing. It wasn’t his voice that made every fine h
air on my body stand straight on end, it was catching a rare glimpse of the real him. I watched him connect with his music, and my body quivered with unrequited burning lust. For a fleeting second, I saw him unearth the man he was meant to be beneath the black abyss of pain and hurt burying his soul. My insubstantial world was incinerated, reforming into what he needs. What I now need.
I’ve fallen for him… into a million pieces. Separately, the pieces don’t make a lick of sense, but together, all my questions in the universe are answered. I feel this is where my life has been leading me. To him. When he was singing, I couldn’t breathe, afraid he would stop, the moment would be lost forever, and his soul would be restless for eternity. I know I can’t find him lost like that. I know that he has no chance to find me when he is so broken.
During the song, when I noticed that he found what was missing, an immense feeling of completion rocked me to my core. Tears gathered in my eyes, and I held back, not wanting to share this moment with the others. Why couldn’t Rhye and I have been alone? Even now, as he stares at me, I don’t know what he’s thinking. After feeling closer to him than any other human being in this world, I have no clue. It’s almost too much to bear. His glare turns from questioning to angry, and it burns into my soul, scalding my insides.
“Syn, did you hear what Ryan just said?” Julie asks, shaking my arm to get my attention.
“Huh? What?” I ask, noticing the concerned look she gives me.
“You and Rhye are performing tomorrow night at a club down the street. They normally have musicians play from a mixture of rock, pop, and country, so it will be a great spot for both of you,” she says, glancing from me to Rhye, who is still glaring my way.
“Yeah,” Ryan interrupts. “My meeting this morning was with the music label. We need Rhye to have some good press. Let his fans know he’s working on getting a new record out soon. Syn, you are going to perform your new single that is flying up the charts. Your band members should all be here by tomorrow morning, and you can practice with them. Rhye, at this point, we are going to let you sing something of your choice acoustically.”