Before she goes, I jot a lyric scrap in the margins.Found, silver, names unknown, face in a locket, home is a person not a room.She reads it and taps the wordhome.
“That one,” she says.
I circle it. Mom nods from the doorway like we just picked a nail for a picture. Small choices. That’s how a song stops floating.
At one fifty, Lou closes her sketchbook and tucks her pencil into the wire. “I’m going to the suite to build a grid and not doomscroll.”
“So, just some light doomscrolling then?”
“Of course. You need anything?”
“Just send me your file,” I say.
She stands, and I do too. “Thank your mom for me. For letting me dig. It helped my creativity.”
“I will.”
She hesitates, then touches my arm. “That melody’s good. Don’t lose it.”
“I won’t.”
She heads out. Mom watches her go from the hall and comes back in with the cinnamon roll plate and a grin. “I like her. She’s not soft. She’s kind.”
“She’s both.”
“Good,” Mom says. “Now hug me and get back to work.”
I do. Her perfume is the same as it was when I was ten and needed to know the world could be steady. I step back, sit, and press record. Music is the thing that makes the world make sense, and right now, I need that more than I knew.
12
SALEM
I takeLou far from the Strip because I need a place that doesn’t scream about itself. West, then south, then nothing but scrub and sky. The hotel fades in the mirrors. The neon gives up. The road is a line I can follow without thinking. Lou rides behind me with her hands easy at my waist, not clutching, not careless. She leans when I lean. It’s starting to feel like our language.
The diner is low and sunburned. Tin roof, chipped paint, a busted sign that still hums. Inside is cool and quiet. Jukebox in the corner, chrome stools, pie under glass. A woman with a pencil behind her ear waves us to a booth. I keep my shades on until the world widens again.
“Fries,” Lou says, like a prayer.
“Same here,” I tell the waitress. “Two plates, extra crisp. Coffee for me. Whatever she wants for her mouth.”
Lou smirks. “Milkshake. Vanilla.”
I raise a brow. “Vanilla is a flex.”
“It’s control. You can add anything later.”
“Like blindfolds?”
She snorts, and the waitress rolls her eyes and leaves us be.
I pretend to be good at this. I’m trying on normal. But it fits like I’m wearing someone else’s skin, and it’s two sizes too small. I’m terrible at it. My knee bounces. My fingers find a drum part on the table without asking me.
What do I even say right now?
Lou watches, amused, like she’s collecting data. “You’re not built for stillness.”
“I can do studio still. Live still isn’t my trick. Live is where you perform.”
