Chapter 53 Monk
FIFTY-THREE
Monk
After a long day working with Cutter, the artist I’m producing this album for, the last thing I should feel like doing is more music, but my brain has other ideas.
Thoughts about the Dessi score ran on a backtrack in my mind all day.
So here I am, exhausted, sitting at the piano in my apartment instead of collapsing on my bed the way I’d thought I would.
The piano faces a wall of glass, and the city glitters down below.
What’s Verity’s view right now?
When I wasn’t thinking about the score, I was thinking about her—about where we go from here.
There’s no chance I’m leaving her, but that fight we had…
it scared me. You think love conquers all, until you meet an “all” you never counted on and feel completely unprepared for.
Verity’s right. I don’t know enough about bipolar disorder to be sure she is entering a manic phase, but looking back, I know what it looked like when we were at Finley.
There are too many similarities to ignore.
I’m just not sure yet what to do about it.
And like most of the time when I’m not sure, I turn to what I’m most certain of: music.
“Shit.” I run my hands over my face and pull out my Dessi Blue music diary.
I lean my elbows on the closed lid of the piano and study my notes for the scene right before Dessi performs my original song “Walk Away.” I want the music bed under that scene to flow seamlessly into Neevah’s performance, but I’m not sure exactly what that transition sounds like yet.
For a moment, I take in the stunning city view, the grand piano, and sleek leather furniture set in the sunken floor, before lifting the lid to play the opening chords of “Walk Away.” The notes echo in the room, suspended and haunting.
The hairs on my arms stand at attention, and I play the chords again, hearing something new I hadn’t detected before.
Most of my work is digital now, but occasionally I’ll break out paper to write things down.
I flip to the back of the music diary, and unfold the paper I used to jot the lyrics when they first came to me.
I stare at them until they swim on the page, and my hands tremble with the need to channel all this emotion into the instrument that has been like a close friend since before I understood what friendship was.
Even though Neevah and I rehearsed this song for hours, when the sounds, the words, pour out of me, it’s like I’ve never heard them before.
We’ve been through it all, and nothing ever works
We keep on trying, don’t we? Even though it hurts
I’ve always said I’d never give up on you
You ask why I’m still here, why I’ve come ’round again
Guess I got a high tolerance for pain
Even though I’ve always said I’d never give up on you
We could have had it all, but now it’s all gone astray
I thought I’d keep on tryin’, tryin’ till my dying day
My heart’s torn up, my soul’s cashed out and I think it’s time
Tell me, is it time to walk away?
My hands hover over the keys, the vibrato of my heart rattling in my chest. I grab the diary and study the words I wrote in the margins to set the tone of the scene.
Loss. Grief. Abandonment. Heartbreak.
Each of those words feels familiar; like the lyrics, the notes were carved into my heart twelve years ago on one of the worst nights of my life. The night I lost Verity.
When I lost her the first time.
Am I really going to lose her again?
Twelve years I’ve lived not fully trusting my own heart because how could I have gotten it so wrong? We were young, but I knew she was it for me. I recognized that other half of myself in her. Not that we are the same, but that we belong together, beside each other.
Forever.
Now I know the truth of what happened all those years ago, and our future together felt within reach before our argument on Valentine’s Day.
I’m older, wiser, stronger, and—Verity said it herself—one stubborn motherfucker.
This is one time my hard head will come in handy because I refuse to accept losing Verity at the first sign of trouble.
How will I convince her she can trust me to stick around if when we fight, I leave?
If she is entering a manic cycle, I should be with her. Not here with damn Cutter.
Fuck this album. Fuck all of it.
I’ve achieved things beyond my wildest dreams, yet always beneath the accolades, the wealth and acclaim, something was missing.
She was missing.
I slam the piano lid down and stride back to my bedroom.
“The fuck you doing here then,” I mutter, wrenching my suitcase out of the closet. I didn’t bring much and barely had time to unpack, but I’m tossing my shit in this bag and will be on the next thing smoking back to LA.
Back to my girl.
She needs me, and I know she worries her diagnosis will be a burden, that one day it will be too much.
What she still doesn’t realize is how much I need her, but I’ll make that shit real clear.
My mind, derailed by the possibility I sabotaged a second chance with my first love, comes back online little by little.
The details to execute this relationship rescue mission form a list in my head.
Book the flight.
Pack.
Call Cutter to cancel our studio time for the rest of the week. He’ll be furious, and I won’t blame him, but youngin’ is lucky I’m helping his wet-behind-the-ears ass. He’ll be alright.
Verity is my priority.
I’m rolling my suitcase into the living room, when the doorbell rings. Weird because our aggressive doorman guards the building’s lobby like he’s Gabriel at heaven’s gates. Only people I’ve preapproved on my list downstairs are allowed up without calling.
I peer through the keyhole and my heart slams against my ribs. I fumble like a newborn trying to get the door open.
“Hi,” Verity says, uncertainty creasing faint lines in her forehead. She clenches the hem of her sweatshirt in one fist like she might float away if she lets go.
My tongue feels clumsy and swollen in my mouth.
I slow blink like I’ve been drugged, and her standing on my doorstep is a hallucination.
When I come down, she’ll disappear, but Verity is still waiting expectantly at my door.
We stare at each other in the protracted silence.
I was ready to jump on the next plane to see her, but now the argument, the issues left unresolved when I flew here, revive the tension between us.
I’m not sure what to say, how to fix this, but I have enough presence of mind to open the door wider and invite her inside.
“Shit. Sorry,” I say. “Uh… come in.”
I close the door behind us when she crosses the threshold and turn to face her.
My logical mind is wondering what the hell she is doing in New York, but my instincts kick in and I don’t care.
I wrap my arms tightly around her before either of us can say another word.
She burrows into me, melts like the last words we exchanged in LA weren’t contentious.
Like she’s felt as anxious as I have since we went our separate ways.
“Sorry to barge in like this, all unannounced,” she mumbles into my shoulder.
“No, I’m sorry about how we left things, Vee.”
“So am I. You were right.” She blinks at the tears filling her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to be. I have been slipping. My sleep, mindful thinking, even my meds a few times—with everything going on, I wasn’t doing the things I know keep me stable. Sorry I got defensive and angry.”
At her words, I close my eyes and release a breath that feels like it’s been trapped in my lungs since Valentine’s Day.
“I shouldn’t have pressed you like that,” I say. “I just… I wasn’t there for you the last time, and I want to be now. I want to be in your life if you’re up, down, manic, depressed—I don’t care. I want a life with you.”
She wipes a stream of tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t think I could expect that, that I could ask that of you. Of anyone.”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you I’ll stay if you let me.” I tuck her head into my shoulder. “Please let me, Vee.”
Her curls brush my chin when she nods, and voice thick with tears, she finally says, “Okay.”
We stand like that for a few moments. I’m reacquainting myself with the feel of her; with how perfect it is when we have each other this way.
Her gaze goes from me to the suitcase parked in the middle of my living room. “Were you leaving or—”
“I was going back to LA.” I bring her hand to my lips. “Back to you.”
“I can’t believe that,” she says, a small smile chasing away vestiges of the strain on her face. “We almost missed each other.”
“What are you doing here? I mean, I’m glad you’re here, since it obviously saves me a trip,” I say, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “But are you okay?”
“Tessa’s in the hospital.”
“Is she okay?”
“She is now, yeah. Or she will be. It’s a long story.”
“Come sit.” I link our fingers and tug her by the hand, sitting down on the couch beside her. “Tell me.”
She recounts the terror of Tessa’s close call and her plan to remain here in New York with her while she recovers.
“I’m staying for Tessa, yes,” Verity says.
“But it will also be good for me. I realized things were slipping, but that hypomania sometimes feels… well, like I said, it’s good until it goes bad.
I’ve been so terrified I would never write anything great again, and then all of a sudden, I have all this energy and creativity and the world is a fucking rainbow and I ride into every room on a unicorn. ”
Despite the distress clear on her face, I chuckle at her description, which gains a half smile from Verity.
“Even now, it’s like I’m vibrating.” She closes her eyes and bites her lip.
“Like I can feel the blood singing through my veins. And I see the story I need to tell everywhere I look. Writing went from getting blood out of a rock to plucking low-hanging fruit right off a tree. The story feels like it’s plastered to the walls inside my brain. ”