“If you’d gotten me drunk enough to tell the truth a couple of months ago, I would’ve said I was still in love with him, but I wasn’t a good enough person for him to love back.”
Ouch.
I rubbed the cool bottle over my sternum, but it did nothing to soothe the ache underneath. “And are you drunk enough to tell the truth as it stands today, now that you know your self-sabotage around love was unfounded?” I asked, hating myself.
“Yeah, but… let me grab another beer, just in case.” Fishing out another bottle, he took a long draft. “Ask the question, Sawyer.”
I found that I needed a second to gather my courage, so I took a long pull and swallowed slowly. I let out a sigh, knowing I’d have to accept his answer either way. “How do you feel about Walker today?”
Hendrix roughly set his beer in the holder. Pulling his hand from mine, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
After what felt like an eternity, he answered, “Walker will always be very special to me. But, looking back, I now realize that loving him was a convenient way to keep my heart on the shelf.”
Steady.
Don’t get your hopes up.
“Do you want your heart to stay on the shelf?” I asked, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“I don’t know.” He lifted the bottle to his lips again, then changed his mind, returning it to the holder. “There’s a part of me that feels like it’s too late. Like the die has already been cast, and I’m just not built for love.”
That’s not true. It can’t be true.
“And the rest of you? How does it feel?”
“The rest wonders if I’ve been lying to myself this entire time,” he said, picking up the guitar again. He strummed softly, tilting his head in concentration. “And so it goes, round and round in my head. Is it too late, or am I just getting started? Same with the music,” he said, picking out a tune. The one he’d been working on recently. “Am I a has-been, or can I take a crazy leap?”
“What kind of musical leap would you want to take?” I asked, happy for the change in subject. My soul couldn’t take talking about his ability—or inability—to love for another second.
“The punk scene has my heart. Always will. It’s reassuring to know that there are people who feel exactly the way I do. Life’s kicked us in the teeth, but we’re going to respond with both middle fingers and a roar from the base of our guts.”
I kept my mouth closed, sensing abut.
“But. From a logistical perspective, my vocal cords can’t keep doing that. And from an artistic perspective…” He paused, rubbing his chest. “I want to try something new.”
“What are you thinking?”
He ran a finger over his bottom lip, pushing it from side to side. “You know how a well-written song will sound good no matter the genre?”
“Like the way a hip-hop anthem sounds heartbreaking when sung by a forties-style torch singer?” I asked, thinking of one of my newer favorite artists.
“Exactly,” he said, picking out a few familiar notes.
I immediately recognized the song. Normally, Robbie would be on guitar, firing up the crowd as Sago came in with insistent beats on the drums. Hendrix would enter on a banshee scream.
This was not that.
“No one loves me for me,” he crooned over an Americana chord, his voice smooth as silk, his Doc Martens on the wooden decking his only percussion. “And I can only love those who look the other way.”
This had been his first number one hit on the punk charts, and it sounded like something one of the recent crops of thinky folk singers had come up with. After a few more lines, he switched to his latest tune.
I drank as he picked his way through the song, stopping to look at his notebook, to rearrange a few chords here and there. I’d never heard him sing like this before. I’d never heard that flinty voice of his used in this soft, brutally poetic way.
“I thought it was my fault,” he sang. “I thought I’d never give my heart the chance—” He stopped midverse and sent me a nervous look. “What do you think of what I have so far?”
I didn’t have to scramble for a delicate truth. “I think that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Heartbreaking but real. Of course, everything you write is authentic, but with this you’re going deeper.”
“Yeah?”
