Chapter 4
IS THIS ANOTHER COSMIC JOKE?
NATE
"?Increíble! Tu guitarra es como magia," one of the girls says, her eyes bright with that pre-show adrenaline that I've gotten used to over the past few months. The others crowd closer, all speaking at once in rapid Spanish that I can mostly follow now.
"Eres muy guapo," another one says boldly, stepping closer, her fingers trailing along my forearm. "?Qué planes tienes después del show?"
Eight months ago, I wouldn't have understood a word. Now I catch every syllable, including the obvious invitation in her voice. I set the amp down carefully and give her what I hope is a polite smile, taking a subtle step back.
"Gracias, pero tengo que irme a casa después. Tengo práctica temprano manana."
It's not entirely true—practice isn't until noon—but it's easier than explaining that I don't do whatever this is anymore. The disappointed looks on their faces make me feel like shit, but not as much shit as I'd feel tomorrow if I went down that road again.
Javier's voice echoes in my head: "Mijo, recovery isn't just about saying no to drugs and alcohol. It's about saying no to all the things that made you need them in the first place."
The old me would've already picked which one I was taking home. Would've been calculating how much I could drink before I couldn't play, how much coke I could do and still function. The old me lived in a constant state of negotiation with my own destruction.
This me—whoever the fuck this me is—has learned that some doors you can't just crack open a little. Some doors you have to keep welded shut. You can't numb one pain with another—the problem still remains, festering underneath whatever temporary fix you throw at it.
"Senoritas," a familiar voice cuts through the chatter, "you need to leave my guitarist alone for the next few hours. We have a show to play."
Luiza appears like a guardian angel in ripped jean shorts and a barely-there crop top, revealing most of her tattoos—the same artist who'd done half of mine during those late nights in Madrid when we'd stumbled into parlors, high on music and possibility.
Now I have my own collection decorating my arms, each one a marker of this new life I'm building.
She pushes through the small crowd with practiced ease, her dark hair wild from the pre-show energy. The girls scatter with disappointed sighs as she reaches for my hand.
"Come on," she says, interlacing our fingers with the casual intimacy of someone who's pulled me out of a dozen similar situations, "we need to get you ready."
She leads me backstage, which is really just a cramped room behind the bar that smells like cigarettes and spilled beer. My guitar case is leaning against the wall next to the sound equipment, and I can hear the crowd getting restless through the thin walls.
I grab the Les Paul guitar, the one Nick gifted me last summer and start checking the tuning, running through scales to warm up my fingers.
The familiar weight of it grounds me, like it always has.
Over the past eight months, I've found my love for music again in a way I never expected—pure, untainted by the chaos that used to surround it.
Luiza hands me my earpiece, and I fit it snugly, testing the connection.
That's when the nerves hit.
It's fucked up, really.
We've been playing to crowds three times this size for these past three months, sold-out venues across Spain, each venue getting bigger than the previous one. But somehow the smaller crowds always get to me more.
Maybe it's because you can see their faces, see the music pulsing through them. Maybe it's because there's nowhere to hide when it's intimate like this.
When Luiza first heard me playing on Javier's vineyard—me, a stranger she'd known for all of three minutes—she'd asked me to join her on this national tour and write with her. We connected musically in a way I didn’t think was possible, but it worked and now here we are.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, centering myself the way Javier taught me.
And like always, the thing that calms me is the memory of emerald green eyes.
The same eyes that have appeared in my dreams since I was a kid, that looked at me like I was worth something, like I mattered in a way no one else ever made me feel.
I picture the way sunlight would catch the gold flecks in them, the way they'd soften when she smiled. Even now, especially now, it calms me and my breathing returns to a steady pace.
They’re still all I can think about, even though I've got no right to think about those eyes anymore.
The crowd noise grows, and I know it's time.
Luiza squeezes my shoulder, her grip firm and reassuring. "Ready?"
"With you, always."
We walk out together, and the room erupts. Luiza has this energy that's impossible to fake—she commands attention without demanding it, draws people in without trying. It's why she's where she is, why every label in Europe is trying to sign her.
"Buenas noches, Barcelona!" she calls out, throwing her arms wide, and the crowd roars back.
"I have to tell you, I love the big crowds, the festivals, the massive stages. But these intimate shows?" She pauses, letting her gaze sweep across the faces before us. "These will forever be my favorite."
She looks back at me, and I know what's coming. We've done this song every night for six weeks, but somehow it never gets easier.
"This next song was written by my right hand man over here," she continues, gesturing toward me with genuine affection, "about what it means to try to move on when your heart belongs somewhere—or to someone—else. And if you wouldn’t mind, we’d love to open with it, ?Qué piensan, mis amores?"
The crowd goes mad, they always do.
You’d think I’d be used to people singing my songs back to me by now. But it feels new, every time. The opening chords come naturally now, muscle memory taking over where my brain wants to freeze.
The melody is simple, haunting, and when Luiza starts singing the words I wrote in a hotel room in Valencia at three in the morning, I have to focus on my fingerpicking to keep from getting lost in them.
Some people let it go,
Some people just move on,
But how do you start anew,
When your heart’s already gone?
I’m trying to build tomorrow,
From the fragments that remain,
But every road I walk down
Leads me back again.
The rest of the set flows like water. Luiza's voice weaves through my guitar lines like they were made for each other, and for almost two hours, I forget about everything except the music.
This is the only time my brain actually shuts up, the only time the constant noise of recovery and regret and what-if fades into something manageable.
When we finish the last song, there's no one left seated. Luiza grabs my hand, pulling me forward so the crowd can get a good look at us.
The applause washes over us, and I remember why I do this. Not for the attention or the girls or the party afterwards, but for this—the moment when music connects people, when strangers become part of something bigger than themselves.
Backstage, Luiza is buzzing with post-show energy, already planning, pacing the small space like a caged animal.
"Last leg of the Spanish tour, and that was fucking incredible! You were incredible. How can you not love this feeling?" She says, stripping off her sweaty shirt not minding the fact that she’s walking around half naked.
Still I look away as she grabs a fresh one from her bag.
"We have to celebrate!"
"Actually, I think I'm gonna head home," I tell her, already packing up my guitar. "Early morning tomorrow."
"Bullshit." She spins around to face me, hands on her hips.
"You don't have any plans tomorrow, and I know you'll just go home and be sad or read or whatever it is you do in that monastery you call a life."
She's not wrong, so I can't help but laugh.
I'll probably go back to the small apartment we're sharing with the two other musicians—Eric, the bassist, and Miguel, the drummer—read until I can't keep my eyes open, then lie awake thinking about everything I'm trying not to think about.
"Please?" She gives me those puppy dog eyes that probably get her whatever she wants from most people, clasping her hands together in mock prayer.
"One drink. One hour. We just finished our first nationwide fucking tour, Nate! How many times do you get to say that?"
And because she's been nothing but good to me these past few months, I agree.
The club she chooses is boujie as fuck. The bass line from the sound system vibrates through the floor, up through your feet and into your chest, while strobes of neon pink and electric blue slice through the darkness.
Bodies move like liquid in the spaces between light, and the air is thick with sweat, expensive perfume, and the sweet haze of whatever people are smoking in the darker corners. It's dark, crowded, music so loud you can feel it in your chest.
But sober, it's different.
Everything is too bright, too close, too much. When you're drunk or high, the press of bodies feels intimate, warm.
Stone cold sober, it feels claustrophobic.
I nurse a Coke at the bar, the glass slick with condensation in my palm, and watch Luiza work the room. She's magnetic in a way that seems effortless but probably isn't.
People gravitate toward her, want to be near her energy, and I remember what that was like. When I was using, I had some of that too—the dangerous charm, the unpredictability that drew people in.
Now I feel like I'm watching life through bulletproof glass.
"Dance with me," Luiza says, appearing at my elbow and grabbing my hand before I can protest, her fingers still buzzing with performance adrenaline.
The dance floor is a sweaty pool of bodies moving to electronic music that has no soul, all pounding beats and synthetic melodies. But Luiza moves like the music is made for her, and despite myself, I get caught up in it.
She presses close, her hands on my shoulders, and for a moment I let myself pretend this is normal. That I'm a normal twenty-one-year-old guy in a club dancing.
"I need to ask you something," she says, her mouth close to my ear so I can hear her over the music, her breath warm against my neck.
"What?"
"Will you help me write my next album?"
I pull back to look at her, studying her face in the shifting colored light. "Luiza—"
"Hear me out." She grabs both my hands, squeezing them.
"The label wants me to start working on new material as soon as this tour wraps. And after tonight, after hearing people go crazy for the songs you wrote, I want to write with you. Really write, not just perform your stuff. What do you think?"
Another album means another tour.
And at the rate Luiza's gaining stardom, it wouldn't surprise me if she started booking global tours summer after summer. Which means leaving Spain, leaving the life I've built here and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that just yet.
But it also means music.
Real music, the kind that matters.
Truth is, I haven't thought about what would happen after this tour finished. I like my life in Malaga—it’s easy, peaceful.
Working during the day on the vineyard with Javier, writing music in my spare time and playing these gigs with Luiza gave me peace of mind.
But could that be it for life?
"Yeah," I hear myself saying. "Let me think about it."
Her face explodes into joy, and she throws her arms around me, kissing my cheek over and over like an excited kid. And I let her, because she’s done and given me so much these past few months.
"You won't regret this," she says, still in my arms, bouncing slightly on her toes. "We're going to make something beautiful."
With her pressed against me, her perfume mixing with the sweat and smoke of the club, I look across the dance floor at the crowd of people living their lives, making their mistakes, falling in love and breaking hearts.
Then my heart stops beating.
Or at least it feels like it does.
The room keeps moving—music thudding, bodies swaying, lights strobbing—but I don’t. I’m frozen inside myself, caught in the exact second where reality forgets to keep going.
Because what are the fucking chances of Lenora Wells being in Spain.
In Barcelona.
In this exact nightclub.
On this exact night.
There’s no way this is real.
For a split second, I’m convinced I’m dreaming.
Or hallucinating.
Or that someone slipped something into my drink strong enough to crack my brain wide open and let my ghosts walk free.
Then I see her breathe.
She’s standing near the bar, black dress clinging to her like it was made for this moment alone, like the universe dressed her carefully just to ruin me.
The lights catch in her hair, slide over her shoulders, and for a second everything around her blurs, like the world knows she’s the only thing that matters.
She’s staring straight at me.
Those eyes—the same ones that have lived in every song I’ve written for the past eight months, the same ones I tried to drown out with noise and distance and bad decisions—are real.
Present.
Locked onto mine.
She looks older. Sharper somehow. Like she’s grown into herself.
And still—fuck—still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The floor drops out from under me.
My hands go slack. My balance goes with them. I have to grab the edge of the table beside me just to stay upright, like gravity remembered me all at once and decided to be cruel.
This isn’t a dream.
She’s not a memory or a lyric or a phantom I dragged across an ocean.
She’s here.
Lenora Wells.
In Barcelona.
Looking at me like time stopped too—and she felt it.
Looking at me like she's seeing a ghost.
And maybe she is.
Maybe that's all I am now—a ghost of the guy who loved her, the same guy that fucked up everything because he couldn't figure out how to live with the pain of being alive.
Luiza is still talking, still celebrating, but her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.
All I can see is Nora.
The universe has a twisted sense of humor.
Just when I thought I was building something resembling a life, just when I thought I might actually be okay, it drops her back into my world like a fucking meteorite.