“I’m sorry to hear about your mom,” I say, reaching out to lay my hand over his.
“Thanks. I’m sorry you went through all of that.”
“It was a weird time for me. I was already struggling with… stuff.” Now is not the time to detail my faults and failures. I was honest about rehab and being sober, but the last thing I want to do is give him another reason not to trust me by going into the details of my spiral. “I didn’t know him, and he certainly didn’t know me. He called me after he saw me on TV, playing at the Grammy’s for the first time. He didn’t even know I was a musician,” I snort. I’d called my mom and scolded her for giving that deadbeat credit for the guitar I’d been given for my tenth birthday. I pretty much assumed every gift with his name on it had really just been her. Which hurt even more, because I know she must have worked overtime just to afford it. It wasn’t super expensive, just a used and beat up old acoustic she’d found at a pawnshop, but every dollar was stretched in those days.
“How long had it been since you talked to him before that night?”
“A few years,” I answer. “When I was a kid, I used to call on his birthday and Father’s Day, but then when I got into my teens I realized how one-sided it was. As an experiment, I stoppedreaching out, and I didn’t hear from him for years. And all he had to say was some snide comment about how it looked like I was wearing a skirt. Which I was, and I didn’t give a fuck about his opinion on it, either. I remember looking down at the phone to make sure the call was still connected because he’d gone so quiet, and then laughing and saying, ‘It was nice to hear from you, Dad. We should check in again in another four years or so, yeah?’ and hung up on him. That was the last time we talked.”
My throat feels tight. “When he died, the media made it into this huge thing about me being a hateful, ungrateful son for not going to his funeral. Some tabloids even claimed I showed up and wrecked it, the way we supposedly wreck hotel rooms. Which, by the way, is also not true. But really? He’d already been dead to me for years. I’d already grieved. When I cried, I didn’t even know why. Why cry over a stranger?”
When I glance up, I catch a flicker of recognition in Luc’s eyes. I smile faintly. “Wait a second–you said you didn’t listen to our music.”
His lips twitch. “I might have looked you up when we were invited to the concert. And I’ve maybe listened to a few songs since. Once I knew it was you.”
I gape at him. “That’s not one of our popular tracks. It’s practically obscure. Luc, are you a fan?” I clutch my chest and fake a swoon.
He scoffs. “You wish.”
We laugh, and then he asks quietly, “Did writing that song help you process?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “That and being shit-faced all the time.”
His head tilts curiously. “Is that why you wroteRemember My Name?”
I freeze. Somehow, after all this time, it never occurred to me that I’d have to answer for those lyrics.
“It’s about that night, isn’t it? The bonfire, and… after.”
For once, I’m not sure how to answer. How much can I divulge without sounding totally obsessive?
“I wrote the hook on a napkin at a diner the morning after,” I admit finally. “Finished the rest on the plane. After our first meeting in New York, Naz found me passed out with a vodka bottle and a notebook open to the lyrics. He suggested we use it for the debut EP.”
“Wow. Who would have thought?”
My throat tightens. “It’s not the only song about you on that album.”
“What other songs?” His curiosity is too sharp to ignore.
“Make Me Real. The Tide. Take It Back. Pieces. Haunted.” I don’t tell him that nearly every filthy lyric I’ve ever written came from thinking about him.
He mouths the wordHaunted, looking unsure. Maybe it’s not familiar to him, because he pulls out his phone, types, and scrolls. His lips move as he reads silently, then he reads aloud:
You’ve haunted me since that night
One touch and I came alive
I’m still burning, I can’t make it right
Possess me, bury me, take me
From the silence where you left me behind
Luc frowns. “Leftyoubehind?”
I lift my shoulders and make a pitiful cringe face. “Artistic license. The guys thought the song sounded better this way, and I wasn’t ready to admit just how pathetic I was.”
“So they don’t know where the songs came from?”
