I played him my suggestions, and he seemed receptive to most of them. The irritation I was nursing fell away as I focused fully on the music, and I thought I could see some hardness shedding from him as well.
It sounded like a real song, and most importantly it sounded like Bleeding Moonlight. Somehow, with just the two of us, we had managed to get the sound right, and as we played through the track over and over again, pride warmed my chest.
Abel surprised me with a rare smile. The sight of it was electrifying and raised the hairs on my arms. His green eyes flickered, and just like before, the barriers between us lowered in a temporary truce.
He began to sing.
“We are shattered pieces no one would call whole
Together, we become
A grotesque work of art
Feeding on each other’s misery
Sons of broken homes
Left to no one
Born of nothing
We create our kingdom of ruin, crushed hearts, and broken bones
Is this love or hate?
The lines are blurred
Pull back the skin and check the wounds for answers
You won’t find them here
Sons of broken homes
Left to no one
Born of nothing
We create our kingdom of ruin, crushed hearts, and broken bones”
My jaw went slack as an unexpected understanding spread through my mind. Abel had revealed something to me. Something I didn’t think anyone else in the band knew.
“Abel, I…” My voice dried up. Did I have a right to ask?
He was watching me, waiting. The walls were still down.
“Were you and Charlie together?” I expected him to deny it, to shut me out, but he simply sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded.
“The rest of them don’t know. The thing between me and Charlie, it was…unstable.”
My head began to spin. What did this mean? Was Abel gay? Bi? Why would he keep his relationship with Charlie a secret from his closest friends?
He moved to put down his guitar and then changed his mind and pulled it closer, as if it were a shield. I recognized that instinct as something I often did myself.
“Charlie thought that to write great music, one had to feel the full range of emotions. He said it was no wonder some of the greatest musicians relied so heavily on drugs to feed their creative energies. Drugs helped create extremes, but I was always categorically against them, having been raised by an addict. So Charlie made me feel in other ways.”
His voice trailed off to a whisper. Pain was radiating from him, still fresh and potent. The backs of my eyes prickled as my own emotions threatened to overwhelm me.
“He’d call me names, tell me my work was shit. He was verbally abusive for days on end, isolating me from the outside world, and I’d let him, because somewhere along the line I started believing that without it I couldn’t make music. When I got close to my breaking point, he’d flip a switch and become compassionate and kind. He’d bring me back from the edge and show me that in my despair I had managed to create something great.”
