There’s no sense of time or place.
Until there is.
When I crash back into my body and into reality, I realize I’ve played through several songs.Several. When I didn’t even want to play one. They’re out in the world now. They’re no longer just mine. I’ve bottled up all my pain and frustration, my generosity, humanity, compassion, kindness, and unrequited love, and I’ve just laid them all bare for the one person in the entire world who never should have heard me do it.
The silence that fills the small room is crushingly uncomfortable.
I hastily remove the guitar strap like it’s a big warty toad trying to kissmeto turn me intoitsmate. Although, would that really be so bad? Toads are awesome.
I gently put the guitar back into its case and shut the lid. The little latches click into place easily. My panic feels more contained now that the guitar has been put back, like everything that just happened can be tucked away as easily.
I angle around so I can steal a glance at Wilder’s face.
He’s inawe.
There’s no other term for it. He catches me looking, and I have to turn around fully or risk one of those weirdI see you, but I’m pretending I don’t see youmaneuvers that would make me look even more guilty.
I argue with myself that Wilder doesn’t know those songs were written about him. He doesn’t know everything about me. They could easily have been for someone else. Some of them are so abstract that they could be about anything. He’s never written songs solely about his life either. His most successful ones aregeneralized, so they could be meaningful to anyone who has ever experienced loss or true connection before.
Wilder opens his mouth to say something, but I put up a hand. “You should try to rest.” I walk over to tuck the covers around him even though they’re already perfectly in place. I slide the journal out of his hand and put it on the nightstand.
“This is going to sound so crazy,” he mumbles, his tone gravelly, like he’s taking a huge risk. Him.Wilder. Withme. “But would you… um, lie on the bed behind me? My grandma used to do that for me when I couldn’t sleep. It really helped.” He flushes, but it’s a nice change against his too pale complexion.
My heart tumbles over itself.
I gave him my songs. My journal. My past and future, my blood and bone, my everything. I made myself vulnerable when it was the last thing I wanted to do. This isn’t an exchange where he feels obligated to do the same, but itisa new level of trust we now share. Hetrustsme enough to have me at his back when he needs someone.
That’s how I end up curled around him with one palm pressed against his back between his shoulder blades, his warmth soaking into my hand and suffusing my whole body while the bus hums steadily on.
It’s how I stay that way long after I know he’s asleep, guarding him, listening to the sounds of his breath, and memorizing every detail while my brain spirals out of control.
I’m still freaking out, but at the same time, that expression is a small balm to my fractured insides. I don’t feel like I’ve left anything undone. If I have to move on, maybe I can do that. It’s coming. I know it is. My body can vacate this space, but my heart will always stay with this man. It’s so wrong to be this close to him, but at the same time, it’s so right.
It’s just this one night.
Because he needs someone.
Not because I need him just as badly.
Chapter five
Wilder
This.
This is why I do what I do. I think it’s why every musician does it.
It’s not the crowd screaming my name. That’s fame, and I can take fame or leave it.
It’s long past that, further into the night, when we shift gears from doing the energetic songs to the more intimate ones. Songs that I wrote at the bottom of a pit of despair that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to climb out of. Songs that contain all my emotions and my whole heart. Songs where I wrote the music first because I couldn’t find the words, but then they came, flowing out of me like a wild undercurrent.
It’s the emotion felt by every single person here, young or old, from the front row all the way to the back. It’s the sea of arms waving side to side, the lights from thousands of phones flung up into the air. It’s the voices of so many people from so manydifferent walks of life, each one belting out the lyrics because they’ve been exactly where I have.
It’s theconnection.
We’re playing an amphitheater for our last show, and the acoustics are incredible. It’s just me and the band, the crowd, and the wide-open starry night sky.
In the past, I used to feed off the wild energy of the crowd. As soon as I step foot on stage, I give them all of me, and they give it all back. They get to watch us perform as a band, but I get to see all their smiling faces. Faces dancing with eyes closed, faces painted with near transcendent bliss, even faces streaked with tears.
