“Turn that shit off,” I said, not wanting to see what came next.
But I couldn’t avoid hearing it. Maia’s voice saying, “I’m so sorry. There’s someone else.”
I reeled.
Again, Maia?
I was back in a hotel hallway all those years ago, crushed and inadequate.
In a daze, I got up and wandered across the room, picking up a guitar before I even knew what I was doing.
She might be single now.
The thought popped into my head and I had to set the guitar back down for fear I might go full-on rockstar and smash it just to make myself feel better.
What kind of masochist has his heart ripped out and then goes back begging for more? How could I possibly still want her after what she’d done?
What she’d done again…
I hated myself for still wanting her. I hated her for being the bar no one else would ever live up to.
She was undeniably something special. That wasn’t her fault.
Her fault was in letting us mere mortals convince ourselves we ever had a shot.
She didn’t want to be tied down. And she was never coming back to me.
When she left me broken-hearted all those years ago, I poured every last feeling into writing the album that gave me my big break and changed my life. It was raw and personal in a way that resonated with people. But it meant year after year, night after night on tour, I had to dredge up pieces of heartbreak to do those songs justice.
Winning awards to celebrate music that told the story of some of the worst moments of your life was a strange experience. Was I supposed to be grateful I’d been hurt like that because the outcome was my big break?
I’d once told her my dream was to write music that was true. But I hadn’t known the cost then.
So many times over the years, I wondered how she felt when she first heard them, whether she still thought about it, whether she even noticed they were my songs.
I was fucking done being pathetic.
Kelly said something, but I couldn’t focus enough to make sense of it.
I picked the guitar back up and played until the rage inside me started to take form into new words and a melody.
I was the lead singer of Travesty for fuck’s sake, not some lovesick kid anymore.
Pieces of a song poured out of me, not like they had back then, but it was a song all the same.
I hope it haunts you still when you try to move on.
I hope you hear my voice when he sings you that song.
All alone in your bed, dreaming of me.
Turns out, I didn’t need you to be happy.
Kelly and Dan exchanged a look, but I was past caring.
“Sounds like you’ve got a song,” Dan said in that matter-of-fact tone of his.
Fuck it.
