Stolen Harmony

1. Static

Static

Rowan

Present Day…

T he bass line from the stage felt like someone taking a sledgehammer to my skull, each thump reverberating through the concrete floor and up into my bones until my teeth ached in their sockets.

I pressed deeper into the cracked vinyl chair, the split seams catching on my jacket as I tried to disappear into what The Underground generously called a greenroom.

Really, it was a storage closet with delusions of grandeur.

The ceiling hung so low I'd cracked my head on a pipe walking in, and now condensation dripped steadily onto the concrete floor in a rhythm that didn't match the music bleeding through the walls.

Water stains bloomed across the ceiling tiles like liver spots, and the whole place reeked of stale beer, cigarette smoke that had soaked into the walls over decades, and something else.

Something sour and desperate that might have been sweat or might have been dreams rotting in real time .

My phone buzzed against my thigh, the vibration cutting through the fog in my head.

Another notification from a dating app. The preview showed a headless torso, smooth chest catching bathroom lighting, and text that started with “Hey sexy.” I didn't bother reading the rest. Just swiped it away and added it to the collection of meaningless pixels that passed for human connection these days.

Two years. Two fucking years since I'd been home, since I'd stood in that cemetery watching them lower my mother into the ground while some stranger in a good suit stood ten feet away like he belonged there more than I did.

Two years of telling myself I was building a life in New York, when really I was just burning through days like cigarettes—lighting one off the ember of the last, never quite extinguishing the need for the next.

The setlist was taped to the wall next to me, my handwriting from three weeks ago when I'd still given a shit about the order of songs.

The edges curled now, corners lifting in the humid air that tasted of mold and broken air conditioning.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd looked at it during a show.

Most nights I just played whatever came to mind, if anything came to mind at all.

I reached for the water bottle balanced on the arm of my chair—the one that definitely wasn't water.

My hands shook just enough that the liquid sloshed against the plastic.

Vodka. Cheap shit that burned clean and familiar down my throat, leaving heat that almost felt like it belonged to me.

The bottle was half-empty already, which meant I was half-full of liquid courage, half-empty of reasons to care about anything happening beyond this closet.

The door creaked open on hinges that needed oil, the sound cutting through the bass like fingernails on metal.

Caleb's head appeared, his usually perfect hair disheveled and his button-down wrinkled like he'd been running his hands through it.

Dark circles shadowed his eyes—he'd been my best friend since we'd met at an open mic four years ago, back when I still believed music could save people.

Back when I still believed in saving anyone, including myself.

“Dude, where the hell have you been?” He tried to keep his voice light, but I could hear the edge underneath, sharp as broken glass. “We’ve been stalling for twenty minutes. Marcus is doing his entire repertoire of dad jokes and people are starting to leave.”

The bass line shifted to something heavier, vibrating against my ribs like my heart was trying to escape. I took another pull from the bottle, longer this time, letting the vodka coat my throat until the burning became white noise.

“Needed some air,” I said, though the air in here was thick enough to chew.

“In here?” Caleb stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him with a click that sounded too final. The space immediately felt smaller, more coffin-like. “Ro, you look like shit. When’s the last time you ate?”

I tried to remember and came up empty. “There was pizza… sometime.”

He snorted. “Cool. A diet of whiskey and maybe-pizza. Revolutionary. When you die, I’m putting that on your headstone.”

“At least it’ll be honest.”

Caleb sat down on a milk crate, rubbing his face. “You know, you used to be late because you were flirting with bartenders. Or because you locked yourself in the bathroom writing lyrics. Now it’s because you’re?—”

“—fashionably late,” I cut in, flashing him a crooked grin. “Rock star mystique, man. They’ll wait.”

“Yeah, they’ll wait right out the door. ”

Despite myself, I laughed. The sound was raw, cracked, but it loosened something in my chest.

He pointed at the guitar case in the corner. “Remember when you used to actually touch that thing outside of shows?”

“I still touch it.”

“Wiping the dust off doesn’t count.”

“Neither does using it as a coffee table, apparently,” I muttered, earning myself an eye roll.

For a moment, the heaviness in the room lifted, like we were just two idiots killing time before a set instead of me trying not to drown in my own head.

The door slammed open with enough force to rattle the frame. Sasha stormed in like a tornado in a business suit, her heels clicking against the concrete in sharp staccato beats. The manila folder in her manicured hand looked like a weapon.

“Twenty-six years old and you still can’t tell time,” she snapped, dropping the folder on the makeshift table with a sound like a gunshot. Papers scattered like confetti, but the mood was anything but celebratory. “Do you want to know what’s in here, Rowan?”

“Probably your fanfiction about me.”

“Cute. No. Contracts. Three of them. All canceled.” She opened the folder and spread the papers out like she was dealing cards in the world’s worst poker game. “The Mercury Lounge, Baby’s All Right, and Pianos. All pulled out in the last two weeks.”

That got my attention. My stomach clenched, but I forced my voice to stay level. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sasha’s laugh was razor-thin. “Maybe because you missed soundcheck at Mercury, showed up drunk to Baby’s, and walked off stage halfway through your set at Pianos?”

“I had the flu at Pianos,” I said automatically.

“You had a hangover and everyone knew it.” She pulled out her phone, scrolling. “Quote: ‘Rowan Hale is unprofessional and unreliable. We can’t recommend him for future bookings.’ Want me to keep reading?”

“I always did love a good review section,” I muttered.

Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose like he was already exhausted.

“There are no other places!” Sasha’s voice cracked. For a second I saw the woman who’d bet her career on me, not just the manager. “Your reputation is toxic right now. Venues won’t touch you, and the ones that will are paying fifty bucks and a drink ticket.”

“Fifty and a drink?” I shrugged. “Sounds like a deal.”

She shot me a look sharp enough to cut glass. “You think this is funny?”

“A little,” I admitted. “Mostly tragic, but a little.”

Caleb muttered, “You’re really not helping yourself.”

“Shut up, Caleb,” Sasha and I said at the same time.

For a heartbeat, the tension cracked — and then her voice went lower, more dangerous. “I’ve been doing this for twelve years. I’ve seen talented kids crash and burn, and I’ve seen mediocre ones make it because they showed up and did the work. You want to know what you are right now?”

“A pain in your ass?”

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “You’re not burned out, Ro. You’re not having an artistic crisis. You’re disappearing. And pretty soon there won’t be anything left to save.”

That shut me up.

Sasha stood, gathering her papers with sharp, efficient movements. “I’m taking a break from managing you. Find me when you remember why you started playing music in the first place.”

She paused at the door, hand on the handle. “Go somewhere quiet, Rowan. Figure out who you want to be before there’s nothing left to figure out.”

The door closed behind her with a quiet click that sounded final.

Caleb and I sat in silence for a long moment. From the stage, I could hear Marcus finishing up his stalling routine, probably running out of material. The crowd was getting restless—I could feel their energy shifting through the walls, patience wearing thin.

“She's not wrong,” Caleb said finally.

“Fuck off.”

“I mean it. You've been phoning it in for months. Maybe longer.”

I wanted to argue, but the words wouldn't come. Because he was right too. They were all right, and that was the worst part. I'd been sleepwalking through my own life, going through the motions of being a musician without any of the passion that made it worthwhile.

“We should get out there,” I said again.

Caleb nodded, but I could see the worry in his eyes, the way he was already calculating how to explain this to the rest of the band. “Yeah. Okay.”

I grabbed my guitar case, the handle slick with condensation from the humid air. The weight of it felt unfamiliar in my hands, foreign, like holding someone else's limbs. The crowd was sparse but expectant, faces turned toward us in the dim light that made everyone look like ghosts.

I plugged in with movements that felt mechanical, muscle memory taking over where my brain had checked out.

The opening chords of our first song rang out, notes that used to mean everything now just sound and fury.

I sang the words I'd written in what felt like another lifetime, when I'd still believed they could change anything .

Halfway through the third song, my fingers stopped moving.

The bass line continued for a few beats before Caleb realized what was happening.

The drums faded out awkwardly, leaving us standing in silence while the crowd murmured in confusion.

I could see their faces in the stage lights—some annoyed, some concerned, all watching me like I might explode or disappear at any moment.

“Sorry,” I said into the microphone, my voice echoing strangely in the sudden quiet.