“That’s what scares me the most—losing my passion for music. I made a New Year’s resolution to finally work on my songs again, but now it’s June, and they’re just as unfinished as they were in high school.”
“You can still finish them,” Brandon says.
“That’s if they’re any good,” I mutter.
He doesn’t rush in with an‘I’m sure they’re amazing!’ like everyone else does.
And I wish he would. Just a little.
His quiet lands too sharply, and for a second, I take it as agreement—that my songs are useless.
Which isn’t fair to him. He hasn’t heard a single note. But even so, the fear digs in.
Then he adds, “When you’re ready…I’d love to hear one.”
A small thing. But it steadies me.
It isn’t praise. It isn’t pressure. Just a quiet space he’s leaving open for me. And something in that—something I don’t fully understand—feels like mercy.
“Anyway. I ended it six weeks ago…” I pause, remembering the echo of that day. My voice thins. “We were at a rehearsal when Toby told me to sell my guitar in front of everyone.”
“The one your father bought you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His cold tone catches me off-guard.
My words are barely audible. “He said I’d been struggling with it for months.”
Brandon’s nostrils flare, but he says nothing.
I remember being painfully aware of the other musicians watching as I hugged my guitar closer, as if I could shield it from him.
“That was the final straw,” I say in a low voice. “When I left him, I thought playing music would get easier, but instead…it just stopped.” A dull heaviness settles in my chest. “Now, I can’t play at all. I can’t even sing, let alone write any lyrics.”
“Six weeks is still very recent. You can’t expect to feel whole again straight away.”
“I suppose not. But I feel so stuck. It’s like I left the music with him, and now I don’t know how to get it back.”
“He didn’t take it from you, if that’s any reassurance.”
Strangely, it is. But it’s not enough.
I attempt a light joke. “So, what are we going to do to fix me?”
He frowns. “Fix you?”
“You know, get me playing music again.”
“Nothing.”
My breath stutters. “Nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
The certainty in his tone startles me. I stare as he stoops for another stone, winds back to throw it—then hesitates. He turns it over, then offers it to me.
