“It’s nothing,” I croak, releasing a sigh as my head knocks back against the brick. “I thought I heard something.”
How absurd, to think I could hear a dead woman’s voice in the rain.
I turn back to Lily-Anne, who’s regarding me worriedly. How much of a spectacle have I made of myself? Should I attempt an explanation?
“I’m sorry,” I manage, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“That’s okay,” she begins, then she frowns, head tilting as though listening past the rain. “Hold on. Is that…Ribbons? By Nova?”
Yes.It calls to me, clear as a siren’s call, wrapping itself around me like a net I can’t break free of.
“Hold me like a pretty ribbon, soft in your hands.Tie me like you tie me when you want me—please, want me.Knot me in your pocket like my heart—please, don’t free me.I’m solid like a diamond, but so soft to your commands.”
I feel sharp relief to know Lily-Anne can hear it too, but the feeling doesn’t last. The throbbing bass hijacks the rhythm, twisting the song that was once tender into something cheap.
Fury ignites my veins.
I step into the downpour and stride towards the alley’s mouth. I know exactly whose walls this desecration is pounding through.
And he should be ashamed.
The rain is icy on my skin, but it does nothing to cool me. It might as well be blood sluicing over me, red as the memories it conjures.
Red wine.
Red lipstick.
Red bathwater streaked from slit wrists.
That wasn’t how Nova died—an overdose took her a year later—but this is how I always picture her now, with wrists incarnadine, never to be washed free.
Yet, it’s not her hands that bear the stain.
I cross the cobbled courtyard, fury propelling me towards Willoughby’s Café. I halt outside, fists clenched to stop them trembling. Through the fogged windows, neon lights flash purple and blue, crowded bodies dancing without a care.
Lily-Anne appears beside me, staring through the glass at the silhouetted dancers.
“Oh. I got coffee here yesterday,” she mentions, her tone careful. “Well, the coffee got me. I spilt it on my dress.”
She’s trying to draw me out without prying. But I don’t know where to begin.
“I met the owner,” she adds. “Willoughby.”
I tense. “Did you?”
I almost forgot he calls himself that. It wouldn’t do for people to simply think he was ‘Jack’.
“Yeah. He seemed nice.” She studies me, frowning, before her gaze flicks back to the window. “It looks more like a nightclub now.”
“It does.” Thanks to Jack, it tries to be everything at once, from live bands and talent shows to DJs. Always chasing whatever noise he hopes will draw a crowd—or a talent scout. It’s left the place with no voice of its own, just an endless churn of whatever’s trending.
Which is his business.
But how could he do this to Natalie? Play a loud pop remix of her most intimate song? Its carefully wrought verse is distorted beyond recognition, her voice drawn out, on and on in an endless wail, all for the sake of a bass drop that takes too long to hit.
When it does, I shut my eyes.
Her early albums were moody and hypnotic, shaped by old jazz, bruised blues, and dark soul. Confessional songs drenched in sorrow that still held a glimmer of light. Just likeRibbons.
