Chapter 26
Quentin spent the entire day in the studio, missing lunch, then dinner, and working into the night. But the next morning when he returned, planning to tweak the song, he completely deleted the file and started over.
It was too safe. And he hadn’t dug deep enough, hadn’t bared his soul enough.
Hadn’t come close to exposing the truth.
He knew Raine would see right through it to the core—but he’d been writing exactly the way he’d told Raine not to in the beginning. He was holding back, afraid of exposing what lay beneath the surface.
Raine deserved more than that.
That night, he recorded an acoustic guitar—and then sang the words.
I couldn’t blame you for leaving
Because I’d already walked another road.
The moment when you needed me most
I left you standing in the spotlight all alone.
I’ve seen inside your precious soul
And know what others have maybe never seen.
That’s why my knife cut so deep
Because I wasn’t there when you needed me.
I’m begging you to give me one more chance.
From this day forward,
I’ll be by your side.
Not gonna be like before.
You won’t have to hide.
To the stretches of the universe
I’ll never be able to fix yesterday,
But I’ll be there for you today,
Tomorrow, any time you need.
I know we may have more rocky times ahead
But we can face them together, me and you.
I realize love isn’t ownership but being there
And that is my biggest promise to you; you’re no fool.
I’ll spend every waking moment making it up to you, and
We’ll have good times too, better than before.
I want to wipe away all those tears you’ve cried,
Because I was why you walked out that door.
From this day forward,
I’ll be by your side.
Not gonna be like before.
You won’t have to hide.
To the stretches of the universe
I’ll never be able to fix yesterday,
But I’ll be there for you today,
Tomorrow, any time you need.
It could have been better…but he wasn’t going to let perfectionism paralyze him anymore.
As he listened to the recording, he knew he would never show it to her or sing it for her, because he wasn’t going to make her feel like she had to give him a chance. He’d already blown it, but it felt better to get it all out.
And writing that song inspired him to do something even more important, something that might actually mean something to her: he was going to put together the final track for her album.
The label was still waiting and had perhaps given up…
but he and Raine had been working on one last song that they couldn’t make work.
He was going to figure it out if it killed him.
Pulling up the session files, he archived the earlier, safer versions—and then he played her voice from their very last recording session. It was a song that had potential, but the ideas were too scattered and they hadn’t been able to get the music to work.
But he knew he could make this into a hit for her.
Closing his eyes, he listened to her raw voice coming through his headphones.
There was a little girl; she had a dream
Of being a princess on a field of green
But as she grew, the dream became more
No rescue in an ivory tower beside a stormy shore.
She picked up a guitar and wrote down all her fears
And people listening let those words fill up all their ears.
On the recording, Raine’s spoken voice cut through.
“No, that’s fucking stupid.” Then there was quietness, no doubt when Quentin was talking to her from the control booth.
He could see the memory in his mind, of her holding her notebook in her right hand and a pencil in the left, making notations—and then, seconds later, she started again.
She picked up a guitar and wrote down all her fears
Through the rage, through the pain, and through all the tears.
People told her they loved her, that her words helped them through their pain,
And before you knew it, big men stepped in and created an icon named Raine.
“Goddammit. So lame,” she breathed.
Although his voice wasn’t on the recording, Quentin remembered telling her, “No, it’s good. Just keep going. We’ll cut out the stuff that doesn’t work later. It’ll be fine.”
But she’d been frustrated. She took a big drink of water and then said, “Okay. I’m gonna stop worrying about the rhyme and just start from the top.”
And she did—her voice achingly sweet, cracking at times, raw, sometimes thin and reedy, strained, with breaths…but it was good shit.
When I was a little girl, I had little girl dreams.
“I’m going to be a princess.” “I want to be a ballerina.”
“I want to be on the big screen.”
But other kids are cruel and make fun of what makes you you
And I stuffed those dreams deep down inside, kept them safe from the world.
My mom loved me but she had her own shit to deal with.
She never really had a childhood herself.
And my dream wasn’t to follow in her footsteps:
Working two jobs, finding love when I could, struggling to pay the man.
Didn’t help that my dad wasn’t around.
All I knew was he was six feet underground,
And I was usually alone, by myself.
Few friends, one or two teachers who gave a shit
But I had to grow up fast.
I didn’t grow up fast enough, though,
Because when I started putting pen to paper and
Singing my songs and playing my music
And putting it online to share with the world,
The world came at me hard.
I hadn’t known what to expect, hadn’t known that so many people
Would want a piece of me.
When they figured out my words could be flipped into cash,
Along came a wolf disguised as a guide dog.
“I can make her famous, make her rich beyond her wildest dreams.”
And when he said, “Just sign here,” she did
Because then she could go on with her life
While believing I had my own.
But I was new to that world. Contracts were written in Greek,
And I was led by the hand into a foreign land,
And when I was told blue was green, I believed.
Oh, I believed.
And nobody cared because the people liked my songs
And paid cold hard cash to listen, to see, to feel.
And it was easy for the wolf to see me as his mate,
To make me feel like I wanted it too.
And I thought that was what it was all about
Until I figured it out
And kicked him out.
But the man knows his shit and is the reason I’m still around
Despite being my own worst enemy
So I have to keep him near even though he makes my skin crawl.
And I have to beg my masters to let me keep creating art
But I’m tired of blowing the industry.
This is my one last chance to make it,
But I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up
And I’ll fade into oblivion…and become my mother anyway.
No, no, no…this time, I will learn from my mistakes.
This time, I will fix everything I break.
Like a phoenix, I will rise from the ashes.
I will right all the wrongs so I can sing my songs.
And thank all the people who followed me all along
And believed in me.
I’m sorry…but I’m human, and I’ll do my best to speak the truth,
No matter what comes.
Raine’s spoken voice broke through the recording again. “No. This isn’t working. This is fucked.”
Quentin remembered telling her something like, “No, we’ve got some good stuff to work with.”
But she’d insisted on starting over—and there was another hour of starts and stops…and Quentin knew now that he could work with it to craft a song worthy of Raine.
It didn’t hurt that, later that day, she’d played a few tunes on the keyboard using the piano setting—and she’d wound up coming up with an acoustic guitar track that Quentin knew could be the tune.
There was a song here. The problem was that Raine hadn’t been trusting herself. And the music they’d been playing while she’d recorded her voice had forced her to be too rigid, the tempo too demanding.
All he had to do was remove some things…
and he knew he could unveil the song that had been missing.
He was going to take one piano track, slow it down, and then take her words—including the breaths, the pauses, the places where her voice was thin or cracking due to emotion—and craft the song they hadn’t been able to see before.
There would be imperfections there…shaky breaths, lines that weren’t exactly clean—but that was the beauty of it.
Fortunately, she’d used the same basic tune throughout the recording—and her voice combined with the one guitar track blended with her voice like a puzzle piece fitting in its place.
The song wouldn’t be perfect…but it would be Raine through and through—and that was the best part of it all.
He listened to it several times, resisting the urge to touch it again, until he was satisfied.
Then, before he changed his mind, he sent it to her via email, copying it to the label, and said, “This is the final track we’d been working on. It’s finished.”
It would be up to them if they wanted to use it on the album. It would be up to Raine if she wanted to rehearse this final version and sing it on tour. But at least she’d have that choice.
After clicking send, he listened to the track again and then decided he was going to show up during her tour. He needed her to know he cared.
He loved her and had been too fucking weak to show it. But that was what he had to do—he had to show up—even if she rejected him. He owed her that much.
After emailing the label again, it wasn’t long before he got what he’d asked for: a list of her tour dates and locations…and he made arrangements to be at her final show in Los Angeles at The Greek Theater in April.
Not to ask for a single thing…but to prove to himself he could be there.