"The tour routing made sense?—"
"It made sense cause you wanted it to make sense.” Ana interrupts. "Because you've decided what's best and you'rebrilliant at convincing the rest of us that we should trust your judgment, but that's not trust. You just want us to be obedient."
Sandy walks in. Forty-three minutes late, guitar case in hand, sunglasses on her head. She reads the room in two seconds—the setup, the silence, the energy of something that already happened.
"What did I miss?" she asks.
"Everything," Jo says. "You missed Rhonda reading us all a list of our failures."
"That's not what's happening," I say, but my voice is quieter now.
"It's exactly what's happening," Jo says. "You're doing it right now. You're the only one who can see. The only one who cares enough to make hard decisions. The only one who matters enough to keep score."
I look at Jo. Jo looks at me. Five years of partnership visible in the gap between us. Five years of writing together. Touring together. Building this thing from nothing..
Perhaps I was keeping us alive when maybe I was just keeping myself necessary.
"You're right," I say. "You're right about all of it."
"I know I'm right," Jo says. "But you're right too. About the momentum being important. And about Sandy's thing being a distraction right now. You're right about all of it. But you're also cruel about how you deploy the right things. And I can't keep working with someone who uses what I do wrong as currency."
"I never?—"
"You did. You're keeping tabs and you're going to keep it until it's heavy enough to justify whatever you want to do next."
I unplug my bass. Put it in the case. Zip it with deliberate calm.
"Where are you going?" Sandy asks, her voice careful.
"Home."
"We have studio time."
"I know. I booked it."
"Rhonda—" Jeremy starts, but doesn't finish. He just watches me go.
I walk out with my bass and I don't look back.
The parking lot is cold. Mid-evening asphalt wet from earlier rain. The van sits twenty feet away. I walk to it because my car feels too small, too much like a container for all the fury that has nowhere to go.
I sit on the bonnet. Pull out my phone.
What did you eat for dinner?
The three dots appear after six minutes. Six minutes is longer than immediate but shorter than deliberating too hard. The number feels important.
Roast chicken and too many potatoes. You?
Haven't eaten yet. Had a thing at the studio.
Three dots. Disappear. Appear again. Disappear.
I had a really bad disagreement with the whole band.
I read that. Her reading my subtext even through text.
Do you want to talk about it?
