13. Senna
— ? —
Senna
Two weeks into producing Matteo, and I’ve remembered something I forgot I knew: I’m good at this.
Not just competent. Not just capable. Actually good, in the way that makes your whole body hum with purpose, in the way that makes you lose hours without noticing because the work is more interesting than time.
“Try it again,” I say, leaning forward in my chair. “But this time, don’t push on ‘held.’ Let it crack a little. Let it sound like it costs you something.”
Matteo nods behind the glass, adjusts his headphones, and starts the verse again. His voice fills the booth - warm and rough-edged and achingly young - and when he hits the line I’ve been working on with him for three days, I held the door but you walked past, something in it finally breaks open.
“Yes,” I breathe, even though he can’t hear me. “That’s it. That’s exactly it.”
He finishes the take and looks at me through the window, eyebrows raised. I give him a thumbs up, and his face splits into a grin that makes him look about twelve years old.
“Was that okay?” His voice comes through the talkback, eager and uncertain.
“That was better than okay. Come listen.”
He emerges from the booth and crowds next to me at the board, and I play back what we just captured. The song fills the small control room, and I watch his face as he hears himself - really hears what he’s capable of - for maybe the first time.
“Holy shit,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Is that what I sound like?”
“That’s what you sound like when you stop performing and start feeling.” I save the take and make a note in my session log. “We’ll do a few more passes, but that’s our foundation. Everything else builds from there.”
He turns to look at me, and there’s something in his expression that I can’t quite name. Gratitude, maybe. Or wonder.
“Elena was right about you,” he says. “She said you could hear things other people miss. I didn’t know what she meant until just now.”
“Elena exaggerates.”
“She really doesn’t.” He shakes his head, still looking at me like I’ve performed some kind of miracle. “I’ve worked with three other producers since I started doing this. None of them ever made me sound like that. None of them ever even tried.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing, just turn back to the board and pretend to be adjusting levels that don’t need adjusting.
The truth is, I know exactly what Matteo means.
I know what it feels like to work with someone who hears you, who pushes you toward the thing you’re trying to say instead of the thing they think you should be saying.
I used to imagine Rocco being that person for me, back when we first met, back when he told me I was the most interesting singer he’d ever encountered because I didn’t want the stage.
He never was, though. He meant to be. He probably thought he was. But somewhere along the way, his career got so loud that my voice disappeared entirely, and neither of us noticed until it was too late.
“Let’s take a break,” I tell Matteo. “Fifteen minutes. There’s coffee in the back.”
“You want some?”
“No, I’m okay. I need to check my phone.”
He heads toward the small kitchen area at the back of the studio, and I pull my phone out of my bag for the first time since this morning. There are several notifications waiting - emails from Elena, a text from my landlord about a maintenance issue, a missed call from a number I don’t recognize.
And a text from Rocco, sent three hours ago.
Rocco: I ended things with Fiorella. Told her I couldn’t keep working with her. I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I wanted you to know. I’m trying to be better. Even if you never want to see me again.
I stare at the message for a long moment, thumb hovering over the screen.
He ended it. He actually ended the collaboration that was supposed to save his career, the partnership that made him feel alive again, the thing he prioritized over our marriage for months. He did it because of me.
I should feel something about that. Vindication, maybe, or satisfaction, or the first fragile stirring of hope. But what I actually feel is a cold, hard knot of resentment that surprises me with its intensity.
Now he notices. Now he makes changes. Now, when I’m gone, when I’ve already filed for divorce, when I’ve started building a life that doesn’t include him - now he decides to see me.
Where was this version of Rocco six months ago? A year ago? Where was he when I offered to help with the music and he waved me off? Where was he when I stood in the back of his showcase watching my stolen song pour out of my sister’s mouth?
I set the phone face-down on the counter without responding and go back to work.
***
We’re three hours into the afternoon session when I hear voices in the hallway.
“ - told you, she’s with a client. You can’t just-”
“I’m not going to interrupt. I just want to see if she needs anything.”
My heart stops.
“Sir, I really can’t let you back there without-”
I’m on my feet before I’ve consciously decided to move, pushing through the control room door and into the narrow hallway that leads to the studio entrance. And there he is.
Rocco.
Standing in the doorway with Elena’s assistant blocking his path, looking rumpled and tired and desperate in a way I’ve never seen him look before. His eyes find mine immediately, and something in his face shifts - hope, maybe, or fear, or both.
“Senna.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. I tried calling, but you didn’t answer, and I thought-” He stops, runs a hand through his hair. “I needed to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”
“How did you even know where I was?”
“Elena told me. I called her when you didn’t respond to my text.”
I’m going to kill Elena.
“You can’t be here.”
“I know. I know I have no right to show up at your work uninvited. But I’ve been sitting in that empty house since you left, thinking about everything I did wrong - including the morning after we finally connected again, when I promised things would be different and then left before breakfast because Fiorella had an idea.
I couldn’t-” His voice cracks. “I just needed to see you. Please. Five minutes.”
The assistant is looking between us, clearly unsure what to do. Behind me, I can hear Matteo’s voice calling from the control room: “Senna? Everything okay out there?”
“Everything’s fine,” I call back. “Give me a minute.”
I look at Rocco, at the man I married, at the stranger he became and the stranger he’s becoming again - someone new, someone I don’t recognize, someone who shows up at my workplace with shadows under his eyes and pleading in his voice.
“Five minutes,” I say. “Outside.”
***
The alley behind the studio is quiet, shaded by the building next door, smelling faintly of rain from earlier this morning. I lean against the brick wall and cross my arms, putting as much distance between us as the narrow space allows.
“Talk.”
“I don’t know where to start.” He’s standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, looking at me like I might disappear if he blinks. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to you for two weeks, and everything I come up with sounds like an excuse.”
“Then don’t make excuses.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to-” He takes a breath.
“You were right. About everything. I locked you out. I stopped asking. I let you become invisible in our own marriage, and I told myself it was because of the slump, because I was struggling, but that’s not - that’s not good enough. It was never good enough.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“I should have asked you to help with the music. I should have asked you a thousand times. You’re the most talented person I know, Senna, and I spent seven years treating you like a supporting character in my story instead of the co-author you always should have been.”
The words land somewhere in my chest, in the place where I’ve been carrying all the hurt, and I have to look away because I don’t trust my face right now.
“Why didn’t you?” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. “Ask me, I mean. Why didn’t you ever ask?”
“Because I was ashamed.” He says it simply, like it’s obvious.
“I was ashamed of the slump, ashamed of not being able to write, ashamed of watching myself fail when you were right there being brilliant and capable and - everything I couldn’t be.
Asking for your help would have meant admitting how bad it was. And I couldn’t.”
“So you let me think you didn’t want me.”
“I always wanted you. Every second of every day, I wanted you. I just didn’t know how to reach for you without falling apart.”
The silence stretches between us, filled with all the years we lost to his pride and my patience.
“You should go,” I say finally.
“Senna-”
“I have work to do. Matteo’s waiting.”
“Matteo.” He says the name carefully, like he’s testing how it feels in his mouth. “The singer you’re producing.”
“Yes.”
“Elena says he’s talented.”
“He is.”
“Elena says you’re incredible with him. That you’re doing exactly what she always knew you could do.”
I look at him then, really look, and I see something in his eyes that might be pride. Genuine, uncomplicated pride in something I’ve accomplished - something that has nothing to do with him.
It makes me want to cry.
“I have to go.”
“Can I-” He stops, starts again. “Can I listen? Just for a few minutes. I won’t say anything. I won’t get in the way. I just want to hear what you’re doing.”
The request catches me off guard. It’s so simple. So unlike anything he’s ever asked me before.
“No.”
His face falls, but he nods. “Okay. I understand.”
“But.” The word escapes before I can stop it. “You can leave a number with the assistant. If I need anything.”
It’s not forgiveness. It’s barely even an opening. But it’s something, and we both know it.
“Thank you.”
I push off the wall and head back toward the door, and I’m almost inside when his voice stops me.
“Senna?”
I turn.
“You’re going to be amazing. Whatever you make with him - it’s going to be amazing. Because it’s you. And you’ve always been the most talented person in any room.”
I don’t answer. I just go inside and close the door behind me, and I stand in the hallway for a long moment with my back against the wall and my heart beating too fast and his words echoing in my ears like a song I almost remember.