From: StringTheory27
To: DeadStrings
Date: May 2nd, 1997, 9:55 PM
Subject: The awkward silence?
Sorry about the awkward silence.It wasn’t intentional, just had to make some calls.
So, let’s discuss “Black.”
You mentioned the song, and it’s been playing on a loop in my head ever since.Not just the melody—but the ache behind every lyric.
That slow, unraveling grief feels like it’s crawling beneath your skin, dragging old memories to the surface—memories you believed were buried under layers of years, denial, and distraction.
It’s not just heartbreak—it’s an absence that carves into you, that lodges in your throat, pulses in your teeth, and settles in the soles of your feet like a bruise you keep stepping on.It becomes a quiet, aching hunger to feel what you once had again—just for a moment—even if reaching for it means tearing yourself apart all over again.
And the way Eddie sings, hoping she’ll have a beautiful life, as if he’s okay, she’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky ...
That line—it feels like the moment you let go, but your hands still shake from holding on too long.From still loving, but knowing you can’t get her back.
I wonder if that’s how you felt.
I wonder if she was your sky.
If you still watch her shine from a distance and tell yourself that you’re okay with being the darkness behind it.
I wonder how long a love like that stays hidden beneath your skin—woven into your breath, settled in your bones, refusing to let go no matter how far you run.Does it live in your soul not as pain, but as a tune that hums beneath everything you do, even when you swear you’ve moved on?
And maybe I’m asking too much.
Maybe I should just let this be what it is—anonymous confessions in a quiet little corner of the internet where everything hurts less when we type instead of speaking out truths to those we’re supposed to trust in real life.Not that this isn’t real, but ...somehow, it’s different.
But your words feel ...they broke my heart a little.Then add “Black,” which is not a song you pick casually.It’s the one you choose when you’re bleeding somewhere no one else can see.
So, no pressure to reply quickly or even respond at all.I just wanted you to know that the silence wasn’t because I didn’t care.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Roderick
May 2nd, 1997
This isn’t how I expected my conversation withherto go—not even close.
I thought it would be like usual.Top whatever songs exchanged.Something that would give me some inspiration.Which I need badly because I can’t seem to be able to play more than a couple of notes on my guitar.Lyrics?Forget it.I suck at them too.
Yet here I am, staring at a screen, heart thrumming in my throat, completely thrown off course by an email exchange that wasn’t supposed to matter but cracked something open I hadn’t touched in years.
What started as casual turned into a confession meant to be a distraction, and became something close to a reckoning.I’m talking about Kit, of all people.Remembering things I’ve spent years trying to suppress, things I locked in boxes and buried beneath songs, soundchecks, and the blur of faceless girls I fucked and can’t remember because I was drunk, high, or both.
I don’t even think this is a good conversation for me to have, like seriously.Why am I doing this to myself?
I scroll up, my eyes catching on the lines that knocked the wind out of me the first time I read them.Words I haven’t been able to shake since they appeared like a dare on my screen.
I wonder if she was your sky.
If you still watch her shine from the distance and tell yourself that you’re okay with being the darkness behind it.
