Union Avenue Books in downtown Knoxville becomes the first place I learn to tamp down the way I want him.
Chapter 4
June, Now
Liam.
Song number twelve is about Liam.
It’s notkind ofabout Liam. It’s notvaguelyabout Liam. It’s really, one hundred percent, no mistaking it about Liam.
Which is why I wasn’t planning to let anyone ever hear it. Nobody besides me even knows that song exists. It was never workshopped at school, never played for my friends or sisters. Because, for the sake of my threadbare sanity where he’s concerned, Liam Bishop is the last person I should be writing songs about.
And anyway, I wrote that song four years ago at the very beginning of my musical education. I was only a month into school when our teacher sent us home with an assignment to practice in minor key. I wrote it in one head rush of a session, then put it away and promised myself I wouldn’t write about Liam again.
I return to work in a daze, letting my mind finally spin out as I perform the rote tasks of waiting tables. Our manager forces a Pepto Bismolanda Midol on me. Folly shoots me loaded looks every chance she gets. When she clocks out at two thirty, I promise to tell her what happened when I get home.
The problem, I reason to myself, wiping down a table, is the song about Liam is possibly mybestsong. It’s angry and bitter and viscerally different from the rest of my music. Less simmered, moreboiling—the lyrics are, anyway. But the melody might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever written, like whispering your hatred into someone’s ear packaged in sweet nothings.
If I had played it for Paul Friedman, I think he might have even been moved.
Flat. Unemotional. Derivative.The more I consider those adjectives, the more I can’t get away from the harsh truth of Paul’s pronouncement.
I was so embarrassed by how raw and vulnerable that first song came out that for the rest of my time in college, I locked my big emotions away.
As I drive home, I look at the problem from all angles, breaking it down, detangling it until I come to the barest, most core of conclusions. When realization finally hits, I’m opening the door to our townhouse, and I say the words right to Folly, who’s waiting in the living room with a bottle of red wine on the coffee table.
“I don’t have any songs about having my heart broken.”
Several moments elapse. Folly crisscrosses her legs on the couch. I notice there are two wineglasses beside the bottle just as the pop of a floorboard has my gaze cutting to the corner of the room—where Harry stands.
Harry Rivera, my classmate from Belmont, is a nepo baby to boot, but at least one of the good ones. His father was a drummer in three separate bands over the course of his storied career. Folly must have invited Harry over because she thought I would need a nonpregnant, musically inclined drinking buddy tonight.
“He hated your lyrics,” Harry guesses.
I all but launch my keys at the wall. “The only way you could have guessed that is if you also hate my lyrics.”
Harry raises his palms and cocks a hip. “I don’thatethem—”
“You’ve been lying to me all this time?” I flick the front door closed and flee inside, tossing my keys on the kitchen counter. Harry sighs, and Folly gets to work on the cork.
“Look, if we’re being honest, honey, your lyrics could use some work.”
I aim a brittle laugh at the ceiling. “Funny. That’s exactly what Paul said.”
“What else did Paul say?” Harry asks, sitting beside Folly on the couch.
“He wants them to be… rawer. Realer.About something.” I shake my head, trying to rattle out the white noise. “I can’t believe I spent money on demos with those lyrics.”
“The songs are good!” Folly chimes in. “I love your songs, Paige.”
“Theyaregood,” Harry adds, “and they were ready to be demoed.”
“But you think the lyrics are weak?” Harry’s silence is his answer. He accepts a glass of wine from Folly. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shoots me a fatherly look, crossing his legs. “Didn’t I, Paige?”
“When?”
