My fingers shake against the strings. I second guess almost every single move I make, which only makes me mad at myself. This isn’t how I play. This isn’t howweplay.
By the time Nikolai’s final note rings out, the energy has changed from excited to dreary. Nikolai spins to look at everyone. “That could’ve been worse.”
“Could it?” Walker asks, flicking his hair back from his forehead.
“I mean, I’m sure we sounded worse when we first started.”
“That’s not saying a whole lot,” Hayden grumbles.
“That was fucking garbage,” I add.
Nikolai shoots me a dull look. “That’s not helpful.”
“Never claimed to be.”
“Let’s just run it again, okay?” He gets everyone ready to go, and the second time is slightly better. We switch to a different song, this one a little slower tempo, and again, it’s a bit of an improvement from the last one. We run through a few more before deciding to call it on that, all sufficiently warmed up.
Everyone switches over to the seating area surrounding a small glass coffee table. I grab the acoustic guitar before sitting next to Nikolai on the gray leather couch. Hayden sits to my left in an armchair, Walker to the right in a matching one.
“Does anyone have any ideas they wanted to start with?” Hayden asks. Our song writing process was almost down to a science by the time we recorded our fourth album. But when we tried, and failed, at writing the fifth album, I think that process went out the window.
Clean slates.
“I had an idea for a song a few weeks ago.” I pull the notebook out from my guitar case and set it on the coffee table. “It’s probably shit because it’s been so long since I’ve written, but maybe it’s something to get us brainstorming at least?” The back of my neck grows hot as the three of them take turns reading over what I wrote. It’s been so long since I’ve even attempted to write lyrics, let alone allow someone else to read them.
I thought about running them past Penny, but the voice inside my head silenced me.
Surprisingly enough, Walker’s the first to speak. “I like it.” I rear back slightly at the compliment. But the haunted look in his eye makes the praise short-lived. He likes it because he understands it. Because of what I experienced in my childhood, and what he’s dealing with with Scar.
I never tapped into the emotions, memories, or feelingsabout my childhood while writing before. But facing all the things I constantly turned away from has unlocked a new well of inspiration to pull from.
“Yeah?”
He covers his mouth, staring at the words again. “It’s darker than some of our usual stuff, but it works.”
Nikolai takes the notebook from him. “I actually had an idea pop up for a bridge that could play off the verse here.”
And from there, we’re off and running. The four of us pour ourselves into these lyrics. Tweaking single words over and over again. I swear the four of us could spend an entire day picking apart a single chorus until it’s perfect.
But this isn’t about perfection. It’s so much more than that. And as we all sit side by side, energy alive with our shared ideas…that damned bubble of hope in my chest threatens to explode once and for all.
Hayden’s knee bounces. He chews on his fingernail, looking contemplative at the pad of paper in the middle of the table.
“What?” I ask him.
Frown lines carve his forehead. “I…” He looks at the paper again, humming the melody we’ve already created. “It’s nothing.”
“What is it?” I push. He flicks his eyes to mine and I hold his stare. “I want to hear what you’re thinking.”I want to show you that I’m trying. That I don’t think you’re the weak link.
I never did.
He rubs his jaw, nervously glancing at the other two, before saying, “I don’t know. It’s just…I like the melody. I think it works so far with the lyrics. But the tone behind the song kinda reminds me of some of the stuff I’ve been listening to lately. It—it just gave me an idea.”
I arch my brow at him, waiting. The others do the same.
“The words, they’re kinda…angry. Painful, somehow hopeful, but angry. And it makes me want to scream.”
“Scream?” Nikolai leans forward on his knees.
