~ 12 ~ #2
“Ah, yeah.” Lily paused before saying it again perfectly word for word. She sounded clear and honest. Her voice was so smooth. It was a heady mix for me and I couldn’t help but sample it. She was a good sport and said it twice.
When she finished, I poured us each some more wine, and I looked at her. “Do you think you might be currently undergoing a metamorphosis?”
“What does that mean?”
“A transformation.”
“A very slow one, maybe?”
“Give it time. What you’re going through is huge. And if you ever need someone to talk to about it, you know I’m here.”
Lily smiled, warmly. “I’ll keep that in mind. So, tell me, have you ever had your identity shocked to the core? Apart from your sexuality I’m guessing, which we haven’t discussed yet. How do you identify and when did you know?”
“Queer. Sapphic. I love women. I’ve always known, I feel.” I nodded. “And you?”
“Lesbian. Late teens. Sporty tomboy before that. You know. The pipeline.”
I laughed, loudly, tipping my head back a bit. She gazed at my neck, hungrily. She better not add vampire to her list. “But you’re too pretty to be a lesbian,” I said mockingly, paraphrasing the shit we heard all the time.
Lily laughed.
“In terms of having my identity shocked to the core, I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD.”
Lily frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. There are a lot of upsides to it.”
“Sorry. Of course,” Lily corrected, quickly. “I don’t know much about it except that more and more people seem to be realising they have it and are getting diagnosed with it these days.”
“And autism, too. It’s all been underdiagnosed for too long. Especially in girls and women. Sometimes I think I might have AuDHD which is basically a mix of the two. Our understanding of neurodivergence is evolving so for now I’m mostly going with neurospicy.”
Lily leaned forward. “What’s it like living with it?”
“I struggle with hyperfocus and then not being able to focus on anything. I struggle with timekeeping. Organisation. My brain never really switches off. I manage it all so that hopefully no one will notice, but it comes at a cost to me. It’s hard to describe.”
“It sounds hard.”
“It’s okay. It’s made me understand myself better.
I think my ADHD is part of the reason why I love music and making it.
It feels like my brain is wired for it. Obviously not everyone with ADHD is musical, no two people are the same, but there is a correlation with creativity and pattern recognition in neurodivergent people.
For me, I think it’s why I love dance music so much.
A lot of people say they can’t stand the heavy and loud doof doof doof electronic music but for me, I swear I find it calming.
It stimulates me in a predictable way. Actually, I think it regulates me.
Sometimes I’ll play the same track on repeat for ages.
I find the rhythm of it soothing, like it grabs my scattered brain and sets it into a steady pace with a direction.
That’s what I need. It helps me focus. And when I mix music together when I DJ, I now know why my brain just gets making sense of the chaos. ”
Lily was quiet. Perhaps I was oversharing again. “I love how self-aware you are,” she said, thoughtfully.
We sat there smiling at each other. Lunch was over. It was getting chilly. I didn’t want her to leave. “Do you want to go inside and stay for dinner?” I bit my bottom lip. If she said no, I would be crushed. Embarrassed. Disappointed.
Instead, she smiled, or sort of smirked in that knowing and sexy way she did.
Maybe she only ever smiled at me like that.
It wasn’t her trademark iconic smile that had made her a multi-millionaire being the face of major brands on top of being a successful footballer. No. That smile was just for me.
“I would love to stay for dinner, Rona.”
***
We were in the living room now in that awkward time between lunch and dinner.
Lily was standing up at my bookcases poring through my books and records.
If I weren’t so attracted to her and keen for her to know me, I might have found it invasive.
It certainly was an assessment. Alignment in tastes in music and literature was as huge as approval from friends in my book.
Hopefully I’d pass, on both accounts, and I would get to meet her friends one day and elevate this into us being girlfriends.
Lily sat next to me on the sofa and stretched her arms along the top of it by either side of her, still gazing towards my stuff. Her hand was right next to my shoulder. I wanted her to put her arm around me.
“What are you thinking,” I asked.
Her voice was gentle when she spoke. “I’m in awe of your world, to be honest. I’d love to sit here all day and make my way through all of your books and records. I’m wondering what it’s like inside your brain. I hope that is not too cheesy.”
I sat there struggling to process what she’d said, too excited by what I had heard.
She lowered her hand so that it rested on my shoulder and turned her body towards me.
My heart pounded in my chest. I did everything in my power to not throw myself at her. “You’re more than welcome to sit here all day and work your way through anything you want.”
Lily started stroking my upper arm.
Each caress had me melting into her.
“My brain is a bit like that painting.” I pointed at a multi-coloured abstract splattering of brush strokes hanging on the wall.
“Lively.”
“Sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed that painting is the only thing that makes sense to me.”
Lily tilted her head towards me, as if trying to understand me. “Could I hear some of your personal music? You said you’d let me hear that song you were working on in Greece. But it’s okay if you’d rather not. I just wanted to ask.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to play it cool. “But there’s a ton here. We could be here a while.”
“The more the better.”
“I should warn you, there’s stuff on it about my ex.”
“I’m okay with that. What matters to me is that it’s about you and how you felt during a pivotal moment in your life. I just want to know you better and I think this is where you put part of yourself.”
I stood, leaving behind her glorious caresses, and loaded up my best unreleased personal music. This collection was my most private. I hadn’t shared it with anyone else and didn’t intend to.
But Lily was different.
She made me want to risk being seen for a second, so that she might understand me better. Maybe it would help open her up too, so that I might understand her a bit better as well.
We listened in silence, me sitting cross-legged on the floor, Lily sitting forward on the sofa, elbows on her knees, hands clasped in front of her.
She nodded to the beat at the more energetic songs, sometimes smiling, other times looking quite pained.
I felt like she was fully absorbing it. My lyrics were quite blunt at times and didn’t hold back, mostly because they were never meant for anyone else’s ears.
It was my soul crying out for answers in the dark.
It was confessional. It was dramatic, yes, but that’s how I’d felt when I’d penned and produced them.
My mind had worked so fast my hands struggled to keep up. Writing them had been cathartic.
The song with the waves from Greece came on.
I let Lily know. The production was sparse to allow for my vocals to take centre stage, with little more than the waves in the background.
I could never sing this song live. It was too confessional and raw.
Too vulnerable. Especially the lines, you say I’m too much and I believe it and I always knew you were going to leave me.
The song had a haunted quality and even listening to it now gave me that empty and hollow feeling again.
Some songs helped me get it all out; some songs like this still hurt.
The playlist came to an end and I switched it off, feeling more naked than when we were on the boat in Greece together.
“I don’t know what to say. That was incredible.” Lily puffed out her cheeks. “I already want to listen to it all again. I know you know this, but my God, Rona, you are so talented.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“I’m not being kind. It’s the truth. Your songs are so beautiful. They made me feel emotional, like, your songs touched me.”
Lily wasn’t judging me for the lyrics. It was comforting to feel held like this. “That’s wonderful, thanks.”
“Do you have a name for the song with the Greek waves?”
“I was thinking of calling it an Ode to Sappho.”
“After her poem, An Ode to Aphrodite, the goddess of Love?”
“Yep. That’s so cool you know that.”
“I read about it while we were in Greece.”
“Nice. I took inspiration from her request to Aphrodite to ease her pain of being rejected by the one she loves. It’s kind of what the song is about, too.”
“And you don’t want to put your music out yourself?”
“No. I might give a few songs to different artists, depending on if they would fit them.”
“They sound so good. Surely it’s a waste to give them to someone else?”
“I played one or two of the dancey ones at the close of the festival in Lesvos. That’s about as far as I’ll take it.”
Lily gave me a long hard look, like I was crazy to be like this, but that she also understood I felt strongly about it.
“I get it. I do. It just feels like a shame, that’s all.”
“Thanks. Yeah, no one remembers who produced a song except for the music industry itself. I realised I was happy enough with respect from my peers, I could leave the fame and celebrity, and intrusion.”
“I like the way you see things. It’s refreshing.”
“I’m pretty neurodivergent.”
“Neurospicy?” Lily smiled.
“That’s right.” I laughed. “Most people find me a bit much or a bit odd. Intense, I think.”
“I don’t know everything about you yet, but I already know that I like you for who you are.”
I swallowed, remembering how well she’d got to know me while fucking me in Greece.
“Can you put your songs on again and sit with me?”