“It was free.”
The guitar began.
Quiet.
Uneven in places.
The room stayed audible around her: a horn outside, fabric shifting, fingers sliding over strings.
It did not sound like Savannah Brooks.
Not because her voice was different.
Because nobody had polished the space around it.
The first verse was about a light left on in an empty room. Annie sang something about standing outside a door with the wrong key and continuing to try it because admitting it did not fit would mean going home.
The image was strange.
Not entirely clear.
I liked that.
Halfway through the second verse, she lost the melody and stopped.
“No,” she muttered. “That sounds like I’m blaming the door.”
Rachel said something I could not hear.
“The door has done nothing wrong,” Annie replied.
The recording clicked.
She began again.
This time, the verse moved toward a conversation delayed so often that both people began remembering different versions of it. There was a line about later being a room she kept furnishing without ever entering.
It was good.
Too good, possibly.
Then Annie reached the chorus and stumbled over the words.
The first version asked someone to leave the light on.
She stopped playing.
“That’s manipulative.”
“It is a little,” Rachel said.
“A little?”
“It has plausible deniability.”
“I don’t want plausible deniability.”
“Then remove it.”
