“Just give it some time. You can’t worry about it right now. It will only make everything worse.”
“If you play a song, then I’ll stop worrying.” He manages to make that sound not even the least bit manipulative, and he has the audacity to take it further and even crack a smile. “Music is the best medicine. There’s real science in that.”
“That’s incredibly—wow. Nothing like straight-up bribery here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
He loses his signature charm and smile and looks me right in the face, so I know there’s not a single part of him that’s not genuine. “I would really love to hear your song. I love the processmore than anything. Writing, putting it together, playing it for the first time. It’s as close to real magic as I’ll ever get.”
His words stitch themselves into my being. There’s nothing like the feeling of hearing a song for the first time, and it changes your body chemistry, rocks your world, and rearranges you on a cellular level. You’redifferentafter hearing it. Music is so powerful, and it’s been my salvation in so many ways.
So many musicians inspired me. Lately, it’s been the very man in front of me and the band behind him.
I went from truly disliking their music toknowingandseeingWilder, and just like the rest of the world, I was a goner. It’s funny how you can like something more by just adoring the people who create it.
I stomp over to the corner and unlatch the case, lifting the lid. Matt’s perfect, amazing, gorgeous, out-of-this-world, lovely guitar is nestled safely on a bed of red fuzzy lining. “You’re the only one I know who wanted to just be human in a world of gods,” I whisper, half seething, half pouring out my heart.
“The haters think it’s all fake. Once a performer, always a performer.”
“Yeah, well, fuck the haters,” I grouch.
He gasps in delight behind me. It’s probably the first forceful, somewhat negative thing he’s ever heard me say.
I pick the guitar up carefully, just about every bit of me screaming to put it back down. This is a bad idea. Even if Matt doesn’t find out, I’ll feel like a sneak. I touched something of his without asking. Some part of me knows he’d tell me it’s fine. Matt is a good man. I really like him as a person, and I know he likes me just fine. But this still feels wrong, even if I do have Wilder’s permission.
Ishouldn’tneed anyone’s permission because I don’t even want to do this in the first place.
Why does that sound like an argument I’m losing inside my own head?Argh.Grumph.All the frustrated brain sounds.
I slip the acoustic’s black strap over my shoulder. It hangs a little lower than I’d like, but there’s no way I’m adjusting it. I’m already pretty much committing a felony here. It’s perfectly in tune, but there’s also no way I’d check. Again. Touching, bad. Touching, very bad.
I’m about to panic and get this thing off, get it back in its case, and tell Wilder to throw the damn journal out, when his eyes start to glow. Not in a creepy, creature of the night way. They light up, immediately changing from dark to soft. It’s the most intimate way Wilder haseverlooked at me. My breath vaporizes out of my lungs, and my chest feels like it’s going to crush in on itself. I can’t move. There’s no playing, but I’m also not putting the guitar back. I just stand here, transfixed by the depth of emotion flooding the room already.
Fuck.
This is exactly what I knew would happen.
Why the ever-loving shit hell damn am I doing it then?
I’m still making incredibly charged eye contact, and it’s not like I can take it back. The panic is immediate andreal.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckkkkkk.
I spin away so Wilder can’t read a single dangerous emotion off my face. Before I can think about it, I’m playing.
I don’t need the journal in front of me. I have every song memorized.
Now I get why people do this.
I lose myself. I’m not here on a tour bus, there’s no one outside this door, I’m not playing a sort of borrowed guitar, the world isn’t falling apart once this tour ends, my job isn’t in question, and my life isn’t going to crumble because I might never see Wilder again, which is even more horrible than thinking about loving him forever and him never knowing.
Wilder isn’t even in this room with me.
I’m here alone. It’s just me and the music.
My music. My pain, my love, my emotion. It’s me feeling nothing and everything, and I’m entirely free to do that.
