Chapter 11 Darian
darian
. . .
My hip rests against my counter, coffee cup in my hand. My mind is full of my sister’s voice; her words echo in my head: hiding isn’t a life strategy. And her parting advice: Some things are worth fighting for. Even if you’re not sure you’ll win.
Slowly, I take a sip of my coffee and immediately spit it out.
It tastes bitter this morning, or maybe that’s just the taste of realizing your sister is right about everything.
Not that I’d ever tell her she’s right. Her ego is already big enough.
She’s not wrong though because after my gig at The Blue Note, I came back to my apartment, locked the door and avoided life.
Not all was lost though. I did write some songs that I’ll never play for anyone.
So, yeah. My sister’s right and I need to change that.
Time to stop being a coward.
I grab my keys and head downstairs, nodding to Benny as he opens the shop for the day. The walk to The Songbird takes ten minutes, and I spend every one of them trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to say when I run into Rye.
But when I reach the venue, something’s wrong. The front window has a crack running diagonal across the glass, and there’s a pile of debris on the sidewalk that wasn’t there before. I can hear a lot of noise inside. Not music—construction sounds. Hammering. Someone swearing creatively.
I push through the door to find Jovie on a stepladder, attacking the wall behind the bar with a putty knife. Her purple hair is tied back with what looks like a shoelace, and she’s wearing jeans with more holes than fabric. Drywall dust coats everything within a six-foot radius.
“What happened?” I ask.
She glances down, surprised to see me. “A water pipe burst upstairs last night. Soaked through the floor and took out half this wall.” She gestures at the damage with her putty knife. “Insurance adjuster comes tomorrow, but we can’t wait that long. We’ve got shows this weekend.”
“Where’s Rye?”
“Dealing with the plumber upstairs.” Jovie scrapes off another chunk of damaged drywall, then pauses to study me. “You’re the musician who played here the other night, right? Darian?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jovie. We spoke on the phone the other day.” She wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
So she’s the one who gave me Rye’s number. I should buy her flowers or something as a thank you.
I study the wall. The water damage extends about four feet up from the floor, and the drywall has that soft, spongy texture that means it’s all got to come out. This isn’t a patch job—it’s a rebuild.
“You need help.”
“I need a miracle.” Another chunk of drywall hits the floor. “But help works too.”
I take off my sweatshirt. “Tools?”
“Toolbox behind the bar. Fair warning though—I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Good thing I do.” I grab a hammer and utility knife from the toolbox. “My dad was a contractor. I spent summers swinging hammers instead of playing Little League.”
Jovie climbs down from the ladder, wiping sweat from her forehead. “You sure? This is messy work.”
“I’m sure.”
Two hours disappear into demolition and repair. We strip out the damaged drywall, inspect the framing underneath, and measure for new sections. Jovie proves to be a quick learner with good instincts, and we fall into an easy working partnership.
It feels good to use my hands for something concrete. Something that produces visible results. There’s satisfaction in tearing out the broken parts and building something solid to replace them.
Jovie hands me screws when I need them and holds pieces steady while I attach them to the studs.
By the time we finish the first section, my shoulders ache in a way that feels earned.
Physical work has always been good therapy for emotional confusion.
There’s something about measuring twice and cutting once that puts the rest of life in perspective.
“You’re pretty handy for a musician,” Jovie observes, mixing joint compound in a bucket.
“Most musicians are handy. You have to be when you can’t afford to pay other people to fix your shit.”
“Good point.” She starts spreading the compound over the seams.
Footsteps echo from the staircase, followed by Rye’s voice calling down. “Jovie, the plumber wants to know if I want him to check the connections behind the bar while he’s here.”
“Tell him yes,” Jovie calls back. “And tell him we’ve got the wall situation handled.”
“What do you mean?” The footsteps get closer. “I thought you said—”
Rye appears at the bottom of the stairs and stops dead when she sees me. She’s wearing old jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Even covered in dust and looking frazzled, she’s beautiful.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Helping,” I say.
Her gaze moves from me to the half-repaired wall, then to Jovie, who suddenly becomes very interested in smoothing the joint compound. “I didn’t ask for help.”
“Your venue needed it. I was available.”
“That’s not—” She stops, running a hand through her hair. “You can’t just show up and fix things.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how this works.”
“How what works?”
Rye’s brows furrows. She opens her mouth to say something but then closes it quickly. Her expression changes from confusion to anger.
Jovie clears her throat. “I’m going to check on the plumber,” she announces, making herself scarce before either of us can protest.
Rye and I stare at each other across the construction debris. She looks tired in a way that goes deeper than one sleepless night, and I wonder how much of that is the water damage and how much is me.
Ego much, Mercer?
“You didn’t have to do this,” she says finally.
“I know.”
“I can handle my own problems.”
“I know that too, at least I’m assuming you can.”
“Then why—”
“What happened between us doesn’t go hand-in-hand, Rye?
I stopped by to see you and found this.” I spread my arm out, pointing to the mess.
“I have the skills to help, and me helping now means you can open tonight instead of waiting for a contractor to come in. This way, The Songbird makes money, and the performers don’t lose a gig.
And because I needed to do something that mattered.
I’m a little lost here in Nashville,” I ramble longer than I intended.
She stares at me for a long moment. Something shifts in her expression. Not acceptance, exactly, but maybe understanding.
“The wall looks good,” she says quietly.
“It’ll be better when it’s painted.”
“I was going to do that myself.”
“I figured.”
She moves closer, running her hand along the smooth joint compound. Her fingers are careful, testing the repair. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But this doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m not doing this to change anything, Rye.”
She nods and heads back upstairs without another word, leaving me alone with the sound of Jovie and the plumber debating pipe pressure somewhere overhead.
I spend another hour finishing the drywall work, then clean up the tools and sweep construction dust into neat piles. The repair will need to dry overnight before it can be painted, but the structure is solid. It’ll hold.
My phone rings as I’m washing drywall dust off my hands in the venue’s tiny bathroom. Unknown Nashville number.
“Darian Mercer.”
“Darian, this is Bishop Hart. I produce here in town—worked with some folks you might know. Levi Austin, Sarah McKinnon, that new kid everyone’s talking about, Cole something.”
I recognize the name. Bishop’s got a reputation for finding artists before they blow up, for having an ear that can spot potential three albums out. “What can I do for you, Bishop?”
“More like what I can do for you. I was at The Blue Note the other night and caught your set. That song you played, “Almost There,” that's the kind of writing that stops conversations.”
“Almost There” is a song I’ve tinkered with for a bit, but the gaps filled in easily after sleeping with Rye.
“I appreciate that.”
“Appreciate it enough to come into the studio? I’ve got some ideas about how to develop that sound, maybe build an EP around it.”
My first instinct is to say yes. This is the opportunity I moved to Nashville to find—a producer with real connections offering to work with my material. But something makes me hesitate.
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. But don’t think too long. Songs like that have a shelf life, and yours is just ripe.” He gives me his contact information. “Call me when you’re ready to get serious.”
After he hangs up, I stand in the venue bathroom staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. Drywall dust in my hair, satisfaction in my eyes, and the possibility of everything I thought I wanted sitting in my phone.
But wanting something and being ready for it are different things. And right now, with Rye upstairs pretending I don’t exist and this place feeling more real than any recording studio ever could, I’m not sure what ready even means.
On my way out of the bathroom, something near the trash can catches my eye. Crumpled sheets of notebook paper, torn into pieces. Rye’s handwriting is visible on some of the fragments.
I shouldn’t.
I know I shouldn’t. But my hands move before my brain can stop them, gathering up the pieces and smoothing them out on the bar.
It’s a song. Or the attempt at one. The handwriting gets more frustrated as it goes, words crossed out, entire lines scratched through with angry strokes. But beneath the frustration, I can see the bones of something beautiful.
Don’t know how to let you close
without losing who I am
Don’t know how to need someone
and still remain my own damn woman
The fragments don’t form a complete picture, but they paint enough of one. This is her side of whatever’s happening between us. The internal battle between wanting connection and protecting independence.
I should put the pieces back in the trash. Should respect her privacy and her choice to throw this away.
Instead, I fold them carefully and slip them into my pocket.
By the time I get back to my apartment, evening has settled over downtown Nashville. I eat leftover Chinese food and try to write, but my mind keeps cycling between Bishop’s offer and the torn lyrics in my pocket.
Both represent opportunities. Bishop’s is the professional one—the chance to turn music into a career, to build something lasting from songs that matter. The lyrics are something else entirely. A window into Rye’s internal world that she didn’t mean for me to see.
Around midnight, I give up on productivity and grab my guitar. Not the electric—the Martin. Something about tonight calls for acoustic honesty.
The streets are quiet as I walk through downtown Nashville. Most venues are still open, music spilling from doorways. I find a piano bar called Murphy’s two blocks from my apartment, the kind of place where musicians go to play after their official gigs end.
I order a beer and wait for the current player to finish his set. When he nods at me, I take his place at the upright piano in the corner. It’s old and slightly out of tune, but it works.
The first few notes draw some attention from the small crowd, so I play softer. Just fingertips on keys, letting muscle memory guide my hands through chord progressions.
After a few minutes, the melody emerges. Something new, built on the foundation of Rye’s discarded lyrics. I don’t use her words—that would be theft—but I let the emotion behind them guide the harmonic structure.
This is how songs happen sometimes. Not through effort or intention, but through the intersection of melody and moment. Through sitting with an instrument when you’re too tired to lie to yourself about what you’re feeling.
The song builds itself slowly. Verses about the space between wanting and having, choruses that acknowledge the fear that keeps people apart. It’s not about Rye specifically, but about the universal struggle between connection and self-preservation.
The melody finds its ending in a series of descending notes that resolve into quiet acceptance. The kind of peace that comes from playing truth, even when truth is complicated.
I hold the final chord until it fades, and then call it a night. I leave a tip for the bartender and walk home through streets that feel different somehow. More familiar.
I don't know if the wall repair will change anything between us. Don't know if I'll call Bishop back tomorrow or wait another week.
But I know this: I made music instead of running from problems. I did something useful instead of hiding in self-pity. I honored the complicated truth of caring about someone who doesn’t know how to be cared about.
And for now, that’s enough.
Back in my apartment, I pull out the pieces of Rye’s torn lyrics and spread them across my kitchen table. I don’t try to piece them together—that would be invasive. But I study the handwriting, the word choices, the emotional landscape they reveal.
She’s struggling with the same questions I am. How to want someone without losing yourself. How to trust someone when trust has cost you everything before.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up and make coffee and decide whether to call Bishop Hart. I’ll play guitar and maybe write new songs and try to figure out what comes next.
But tonight, I’ll fall asleep knowing that somewhere in this city, another songwriter is fighting the same battles I am. And even if we can’t figure out how to fight them together, at least we’re not fighting them alone.
The torn lyrics go in the drawer beside my bed. Not because I plan to use them, but because throwing them away felt wrong.
Some things deserve to be kept, even when they’re broken.