Hard Rock Crush
1
The stage was empty. I tasted anticipation in the air. The band wasn't going on for another twenty minutes, and the crowd already buzzed with excitement.
"Who's playing?" I asked my brother. The launch performance for the city's Concert in the Park series always drew a big crowd, but the courtyard seemed busier than I expected.
"Don't know," Gael said. "Some local band."
"If you don't know, then why are we here?" I asked.
"We need to scope out the competition." Gael's bright blue eyes met mine as he grinned.
"Competition for what?" I asked. "We don't have a band yet. I'm not even sure I'm on board with the idea."
I had been, once. Singing in a band was all I ever wanted to do. My fiancé Harper and I'd had dreams of making it big.
But that was before.
A black pit in my stomach yawned open. An ever-present swirling mass threatened to swallow me whole.
I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath through my nose. Exhaled through my mouth. Did it again. And again.
The darkness was still there, but I was able to steel myself against it and shove it away. I refused to let despair consume me. Not anymore.
"Besides," I continued, my voice only slightly shaky. "Even if we wanted to start a band, there's only two of us. We'd still need a drummer and a guitarist."
"You play guitar," he said. "That's enough."
"I'm still not comfortable singing and playing at the same time," I said.
"Growing pains."
Someone jammed an elbow into my side with a muttered sorry. Another person stumbled into me from behind, this time without a sorry. The crowd was getting fuller by the minute. I'd never seen a Concert in the Park audience as packed as this one.
Gael glanced at me, eyeing the long hair that tumbled down my back in waves.
"That's a new shade of red," he said.
And with that comment, I knew the real reason we were here.
Gael was worried.
"Since when do guys notice when a girl gets a different hairstyle?" I asked.
Gael shrugged. "It's hard to miss when your lips are the same shade as your hair."
"So I bought new makeup to go with my new hair color. Why do you care?"
"It's different, that's all I'm saying."
That wasn't all he was saying. I heard his unspoken words.
Why did you dye your hair again?
Are you feeling okay?
Have you been thinking about him again?
