Chapter 4 Carissa #2
“They’ll hear.” Shit. Why did I just say that? That sounds like yes, I secretly want to play for you so you know all my secrets, such that we can’t go back to a place of pretending or normalcy, and I have to immediately quit my job.
I know I was contemplating it not even twenty minutes ago, but knowing it’s the right thing to do and actually moving on are two very different things. I can come to terms with it eventually and maybe even make peace with it, but not within half a fucking hour.
“They might, but probably not. Even if they do, they won’t care. They probably all have headphones on by now and are back in their bunks, chilling.”
“If Matt found out I touched his guitar, he’d be so angry.”
“He wouldn’t be. Not if you did it. If I did…”
“Just give it some time. You can’t worry about it right now. It will only make everything worse.”
“If you play a song, then I’ll stop worrying.” He manages to make that sound not even the least bit manipulative, and he has the audacity to take it further and even crack a smile. “Music is the best medicine. There’s real science in that.”
“That’s incredibly—wow. Nothing like straight-up bribery here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
He loses his signature charm and smile and looks me right in the face, so I know there’s not a single part of him that’s not genuine.
“I would really love to hear your song. I love the process more than anything. Writing, putting it together, playing it for the first time. It’s as close to real magic as I’ll ever get. ”
His words stitch themselves into my being.
There’s nothing like the feeling of hearing a song for the first time, and it changes your body chemistry, rocks your world, and rearranges you on a cellular level.
You’re different after hearing it. Music is so powerful, and it’s been my salvation in so many ways.
So many musicians inspired me. Lately, it’s been the very man in front of me and the band behind him.
I went from truly disliking their music to knowing and seeing Wilder, and just like the rest of the world, I was a goner. It’s funny how you can like something more by just adoring the people who create it.
I stomp over to the corner and unlatch the case, lifting the lid.
Matt’s perfect, amazing, gorgeous, out-of-this-world, lovely guitar is nestled safely on a bed of red fuzzy lining.
“You’re the only one I know who wanted to just be human in a world of gods,” I whisper, half seething, half pouring out my heart.
“The haters think it’s all fake. Once a performer, always a performer.”
“Yeah, well, fuck the haters,” I grouch.
He gasps in delight behind me. It’s probably the first forceful, somewhat negative thing he’s ever heard me say.
I pick the guitar up carefully, just about every bit of me screaming to put it back down.
This is a bad idea. Even if Matt doesn’t find out, I’ll feel like a sneak.
I touched something of his without asking.
Some part of me knows he’d tell me it’s fine.
Matt is a good man. I really like him as a person, and I know he likes me just fine.
But this still feels wrong, even if I do have Wilder’s permission.
I shouldn’t need anyone’s permission because I don’t even want to do this in the first place.
Why does that sound like an argument I’m losing inside my own head? Argh. Grumph. All the frustrated brain sounds.
I slip the acoustic’s black strap over my shoulder. It hangs a little lower than I’d like, but there’s no way I’m adjusting it. I’m already pretty much committing a felony here. It’s perfectly in tune, but there’s also no way I’d check. Again. Touching, bad. Touching, very bad.
I’m about to panic and get this thing off, get it back in its case, and tell Wilder to throw the damn journal out, when his eyes start to glow.
Not in a creepy, creature of the night way.
They light up, immediately changing from dark to soft.
It’s the most intimate way Wilder has ever looked at me.
My breath vaporizes out of my lungs, and my chest feels like it’s going to crush in on itself.
I can’t move. There’s no playing, but I’m also not putting the guitar back.
I just stand here, transfixed by the depth of emotion flooding the room already.
Fuck.
This is exactly what I knew would happen.
Why the ever-loving shit hell damn am I doing it then?
I’m still making incredibly charged eye contact, and it’s not like I can take it back. The panic is immediate and real.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckkkkkk.
I spin away so Wilder can’t read a single dangerous emotion off my face. Before I can think about it, I’m playing.
I don’t need the journal in front of me. I have every song memorized.
Now I get why people do this.
I lose myself. I’m not here on a tour bus, there’s no one outside this door, I’m not playing a sort of borrowed guitar, the world isn’t falling apart once this tour ends, my job isn’t in question, and my life isn’t going to crumble because I might never see Wilder again, which is even more horrible than thinking about loving him forever and him never knowing.
Wilder isn’t even in this room with me.
I’m here alone. It’s just me and the music.
My music. My pain, my love, my emotion. It’s me feeling nothing and everything, and I’m entirely free to do that.
There’s no sense of time or place.
Until there is.
When I crash back into my body and into reality, I realize I’ve played through several songs.
Several. When I didn’t even want to play one.
They’re out in the world now. They’re no longer just mine.
I’ve bottled up all my pain and frustration, my generosity, humanity, compassion, kindness, and unrequited love, and I’ve just laid them all bare for the one person in the entire world who never should have heard me do it.
The silence that fills the small room is crushingly uncomfortable.
I hastily remove the guitar strap like it’s a big warty toad trying to kiss me to turn me into its mate. Although, would that really be so bad? Toads are awesome.
I gently put the guitar back into its case and shut the lid. The little latches click into place easily. My panic feels more contained now that the guitar has been put back, like everything that just happened can be tucked away as easily.
I angle around so I can steal a glance at Wilder’s face.
He’s in awe.
There’s no other term for it. He catches me looking, and I have to turn around fully or risk one of those weird I see you, but I’m pretending I don’t see you maneuvers that would make me look even more guilty.
I argue with myself that Wilder doesn’t know those songs were written about him.
He doesn’t know everything about me. They could easily have been for someone else.
Some of them are so abstract that they could be about anything.
He’s never written songs solely about his life either.
His most successful ones are generalized, so they could be meaningful to anyone who has ever experienced loss or true connection before.
Wilder opens his mouth to say something, but I put up a hand. “You should try to rest.” I walk over to tuck the covers around him even though they’re already perfectly in place. I slide the journal out of his hand and put it on the nightstand.
“This is going to sound so crazy,” he mumbles, his tone gravelly, like he’s taking a huge risk.
Him. Wilder. With me. “But would you… um, lie on the bed behind me? My grandma used to do that for me when I couldn’t sleep.
It really helped.” He flushes, but it’s a nice change against his too pale complexion.
My heart tumbles over itself.
I gave him my songs. My journal. My past and future, my blood and bone, my everything.
I made myself vulnerable when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
This isn’t an exchange where he feels obligated to do the same, but it is a new level of trust we now share.
He trusts me enough to have me at his back when he needs someone.
That’s how I end up curled around him with one palm pressed against his back between his shoulder blades, his warmth soaking into my hand and suffusing my whole body while the bus hums steadily on.
It’s how I stay that way long after I know he’s asleep, guarding him, listening to the sounds of his breath, and memorizing every detail while my brain spirals out of control.
I’m still freaking out, but at the same time, that expression is a small balm to my fractured insides.
I don’t feel like I’ve left anything undone.
If I have to move on, maybe I can do that.
It’s coming. I know it is. My body can vacate this space, but my heart will always stay with this man.
It’s so wrong to be this close to him, but at the same time, it’s so right.
It’s just this one night.
Because he needs someone.
Not because I need him just as badly.