Page 63 of The Song We Lost

The papers sit untouched in my bag. Wrinkled and Ignored. I haven’t signed them.

I won’t.

If I don’t sign, it’s not real.

If I don’t sign, she hasn’t really left.

If I don’t sign, this is just another fight we’ll survive.

That logic makes sense to me when I’m sober. It makes even more sense when I’m not.

The pills come easy.

Something to wake me up before meetings, to take the edge off before shows, to help me sleep when my brain won’t shut up and then to help with the side effects of the pills and booze.

Because someone always has something and everything that hurts me has a pill to make it better.

I don’t ask questions anymore.

I swallow whatever’s handed to me and wash it down with whatever’s open, because feeling nothing is better than feelingthis.

The label meeting happens in a glass-walled office that smells like money and ambition. Everyone smiles too much when they call me “authentic.” Says my pain reads as grit.

They slide a contract across the table. One album, with optioned tour support and performance-based extensions.

It’s not what I wanted.

I wanted three albums.

I wanted control.

I wanted proof that Bailey didn’t outgrow me.

“This is a test run,” one of them says smoothly. “Given the circumstances.”

The circumstances being my wife serving me divorce papers and the internet watching me unravel. But this is what I sacrificed for, what I needed to prove to her it was all worth it. So I signed the deal, because I have so much to prove.

I tell myself it’s temporary, that I’ll prove them wrong. Bailey for trying to leave me and this label for thinking I’m only good enough for a single album.

I want to write the album, they tell me that it's not an option unless Bailey is co-writing with me. They haven't liked the stuff I have written on my own, so they bring in writers.

People who don’t know me.

People who don’t care.

They talk about abad-boyangle. About leaning into the chaos and giving the audience something to latch onto.

“The fans are already creating a narrative,” one of them says. “You just need to lean into it."

I nod like I agree, but inside, everything feels hollow.

The songs are garbage, so I try and write my own, to prove to them that I can. That Bailey wasn't the only talent when we wrote together.

I stare at the pages for hours and nothing comes. Or something comes and it’s wrong. Forced. Cheap. Like I’m pretending to be someone I don’t recognize.

I pop a pill Dave gave me to relax and close my eyes. Memories haunt me, show me everything I have been walking away from in slow motion. Bailey used to pull the truth out of me without trying. She’d sit on the floor with her back against the couch, guitar in her lap, and say,Stop thinking. Just feel. Just play.

Now I can’t write without hearing her voice, so I've stopped trying.