TWELVE
WILLA
The next morning, I woke with an unfamiliar exhaustion that ached in my bones. I lay there for a moment, confused, before it all came back to me: not a wild night of drinking or partying, as one might expect from a pop star, but a night in a small town with women I had just barely met, adrenaline pumping through our veins as we vandalized a man’s house. The man who grabbed my wrist when I tried to flee the scene of the crime and tugged me into his chest before looking down at me with a heated glare.
For the first time in years, Leo Sinclaire had looked at me with something other than the cool indifference he always showed me.
A shiver rolls through me as I remember how he looked at my lips, how he held me tight, how his body felt against mine.
Once I push past those memories, I stumble across the next, more important one: I started writing a song last night. At that reminder, excitement courses through me, and I roll out of bed, eager to get on with my morning. I speed through washing my face and brushing my teeth, and head to the kitchen for water and my green juice. When I pour it into a glass, I stare at the goo for longer than usual, a grimace on my face.
Do what you want.
One thing I know Ido notwant is to drink this green sludge, and in a moment of impulsivity, I upend the glass over the sink and drain it.
A wave of excitement rushes through me, and I’m nearly giddy as I move through the pre-recorded online class on my computer before taking my shower and having a quick breakfast.
Then I sit down in front of my guitar and paper and take a deep, nervous breath before reading over what I jotted down the night before.
For a moment, I fear I’ll be back where I started, that what I wrote will have been shit, but instead I realize I’ve finally got something. I spend the entire day adding and tweaking the lyrics and adding a bridge. Joy fills me as the vision I’d already had for the album grows and takes shape, becoming almost tangible.
Each of my albums tells a cohesive story, so if this is the first track for the album—a night out with your friends and getting into trouble—then track two would be about meeting the person you’re about to date, about knowing from that very first glance you wanted to learn more about that person.
Halfway through the day, my clothing delivery arrives, and I excitedly put on one of the colorful sweatshirts and a pair of comfy lounge shorts before finishing the first song over leftovers from the night before.
I head to bed that night feeling more hopeful and inspired than I have in months.
The next morning, I wake up and start my routine, though today I don’t even bother cracking the seal on my green juice. By eight,I’ve worked out, showered, and eaten, and I’m sitting on my couch with my guitar in my lap, ready to start writing.
That’s when the panic drifts in once more.
I thought that since the previous song came so quickly, I was on a roll and the rest would finally start flowing in.
I was so horrendously wrong.
I sit down to work on the next song, one I decided would be about meeting someone and having a crush on them, that butterfly feeling in your chest that accompanies it. I know the vibes, the general idea of the song. I’ve written down words to spur anything on, but just like before I wrote “Good Trouble,” I getnothing.
Nothing comes to me.
At first, I think it’s a fluke. At first, I thought I might just need to rest and get some space between the first song and the next, but then the same thing happened on Friday.
And Saturday.
And Sunday.
On Monday, I head to Adam and Wren’s house, and he helps me refine “Good Trouble,” then records the track in a messy first draft. That goes smoothly, and I think maybe it was just being alone that had me stuck, but on Tuesday, when I try to write the next song with Adam, I hit that same stupid wall.
I hate everything I write.
It’s all terrible.
By Thursday, I’m back to writing alone and crawling out of my skin, trying to find that thread of inspiration, when Nat calls. Eagerly, I answer, desperate for any kind of distraction.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“We’re going out tomorrow,” she says with no fanfare, no pleasant small talk. My brows furrow in confusion as I stare at the blank wall before me.
“Out?”
