Chapter 20
TWENTY
ASH
Of course. Berta didn’t mean to accidentally bring that up, but I’ve been in her chair venting about that whole situation before. She tattooed over the impulsive art I’d gotten in that six-month fever dream that led up to the worst night of my life.
But I was hoping that Jada wouldn’t see what was underneath my attempts to play it off.
I sigh. Her big, brown eyes behind the frames of her glasses are open and sincere. She doesn’t have much of a filter, but she’s not mean. And I don’t think she’d accept me dodging her question.
We reach the elevator and get in with a few other people. Jada accepts my silence until we get off on our floor.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I tap our key card against the lock and open the door for her. Once the door clicks shut, I take a deep breath and say, “It’s a super long story, so I can just give you the gist of it.”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
She sits on the edge of the bed, which makes her dress inch up her thighs a little bit. I lean against the doorframe instead of sitting next to her like I want to.
“Calabasas really was the night my heart got shattered, but I didn’t tell you the full truth. It wasn’t just some early twenties BS like I said,” I say. “I had one relationship. It ended kind of badly. It put me off relationships.”
Jada sits, lightly biting the inside of her bottom lip as she waits for me to continue. I haven’t earnestly spoken about this night…ever, really. Not while mostly sober.
Usually I’d stop here, but I feel like I owe it to Jada to be honest.
“Alexis—the woman I fell for—had me believing that I was everything to her, and that we were it, forever. I was young enough to think that whatever we had was the exception to the rule. I wasn’t going to end up like my parents, stuck with someone who I put up with because we were too far in to get out.
“But we speed-ran through those feelings in the span of six months. Or I guess she did, because when I saw her with another guy one night at a party in Calabasas, she acted like I was insane for having feelings for her. Like I was crazy to think we had anything, or that I would be the kind of person who she—or anyone else—would want to be with long term. Or be in love with at all.”
I swallow the knot in my throat and try to stay still as Jada takes it all in.
She nods slowly. For a brief second, I worry I’ve laid it out too much, and that I’m going to get the platitudes that I’ve heard all my life when shit I’m dealing with is heavy—just a damn, that sucks or something.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes soft. “It must have been pretty bad. You didn’t deserve to have your heart broken and she was awful to you. But she wasn’t right. At all. You’re worthy of love.”
The knot in my throat comes back, bigger than before. I want it to go away, even though her words are more healing than anything anyone else has said about my situation. It’s not going to magically change me overnight, but it’s a start.
Maybe I should have talked about this to someone years ago.
“It’s what eventually launched our band, though,” I eventually say.
“I took all those feelings and shoved them into songs. Dylan helped, pouring his misery from his own heartbreak into them, too. We went from some group that played small venues and self-recorded albums to something bigger than what I ever dreamed of. Now I’m not even getting the royalties I’m owed for it. ”
Jada is still staring at me, biting her plush bottom lip.
Unfortunately, my heart flips in my chest just looking at her.
She’s so different than Alexis in every way, but something about her internal spark and all her passion is drawing me to her in a way that’s uncomfortably familiar to the six months I just described.
I need a distraction.
“Want to watch a dumb movie?” Jada asks, like she’s read my mind. “Or maybe we can go back out once I change.”
“Let’s go back out,” I say automatically. Being next to her on a bed is distracting in a bad way.
“Karaoke bar!” She brightens and stands back up. “Gimme like, five minutes.”
“Wait, karaoke?” I ask.
“Hell yes. What better distraction than singing in a group of strangers and possibly embarrassing yourself?” She slides past me and shoos me away.
She gets dressed in the jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers that she was wearing before, her smile bright when she opens the door.
“I’m not against it. But I’m not a big singer.” I can sing, though.
“You were literally in a band,” she says once we hit the streets. “How can you not be a big singer?”
“Because I played the bass?” I say.
“You never sang backup?” she asks. “You’re used to performing, at least.”
“I sang backup when threatened. And the bass player was always in the back.” That was the best part—I got the thrill of performing without being the main focus for the full song.
“Caro needed to be the center of attention every single second, so I rarely ever got the full blast of attention from the crowd.”
Karaoke bars are a dime a dozen here, so I let her pick one. Since the hotel is off the main strip, the spot isn’t as heinously touristy. There’s a stage in one corner, where someone is singing a country song vaguely in tune. It’s not too busy.
Jada finds the tablet where people can pick songs and scrolls through the options.
“Okay, your turn.” She steps aside and points to the screen.
“I’m not getting out of this place without singing a song, am I?” I ask.
“Nope.”
I choose a song I know the lyrics of and grab us another round of drinks. Jada bops along to the song the next person starts singing, sipping her drink.
“Do you miss performing?” she asks. She has to lean close to me to be heard and she smells way too good. “Even if you were in the back?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Well, kind of. I haven’t really wanted to play or practice or anything since the band fell apart. But when we were doing well, it was amazing. I was able to get into a zone I can’t get into anywhere else.”
She nods. “I can see that. I love going to concerts, even if I don’t get to go all that often.”
I miss going to concerts, too. I miss music, period.
It was always my escape. Even when my dad was shitting on me for liking it—he doesn’t like music, being completely tone deaf—it was the thing I could do where I felt right.
I could focus on getting a chord progression or pick out a song by ear.
When I got into high school and beyond, it was a place where I could make friends.
I just wish it wasn’t so complicated now. Every piece of music I listen to or play has a connection with a moment in my life, and a lot of those moments are ones I want to shove into a vault for now.
Jada cheers for the person who finishes their song with a long note. The next person steps up and she lightly smacks me with the back of her hand.
“I love this song. I should have chosen it,” she says.
It doesn’t matter, though—she sings her heart out along with the person on stage and with the rest of the crowd. And with the next person and the next person. Her energy is infectious, and I start to lose myself in it, too.
It feels good. Almost uncomplicated, aside from the fact that it’s making me like her even more.
“Next up is Jada!” the person running the mic says.
Jada hands me her drink and jogs up the steps. She doesn’t have an ounce of self-consciousness, and when she starts to sing, I can see why.
She has a great voice. Not professionally perfect but strong. The whole crowd brightens up the way they do when someone can really sing.
She gets into it the longer the song, an old R&B classic, goes on. She even gets a standing ovation when she finishes. I hear her laugh as she takes a bow and hops off the stage.
“You could have told me you could sing before I embarrass myself up there,” I say in her ear.
She shrugs. “Embarrassment is a state of mind. Your turn.”
I take the mic next and get up on stage. I always have a little stage fright, as often as I’ve performed, and even this little stage incites it in me. But when the music starts, I go for it and ignore my fears.
Once I’m into it enough, I dare to look down at the crowd.
Jada’s smile is so big and bright that I can’t help but smile back at her.
That feeling I used to get doing a show starts creeping back in.
The connection with the crowd, all of us in sync.
My voice feels tired and out of practice, but I sing hard anyway.
When the song ends, everyone cheers and a few guys clap me on the shoulder as I step off the stage.
“You’re a fucking great singer, Ash,” she says once I pass the mic back. “You could have fronted the band.”
“Thanks, but you’re overestimating my abilities,” I say, my face heating up. I’m used to people saying that my singing isn’t strong enough or picking it to shreds. But that’s the music industry talking.
“I’m so not.” She slams the last of her drink. They’re watered down as hell, so I’m not surprised she went through hers so fast. “Let’s do more!”
She grabs me by the hand and drags me to the tablet again. Her enthusiasm and the high of performing in a space where I don’t have to prove shit to anyone makes me want to keep going. I choose a song I like by the Beatles that most people in the crowd should also know the words to.
Then, I spot one of Cinematicas’ most popular songs, Uphill.
It’s one of the less miserable ones off that album, which I wrote when I thought I was coming out of the hole of depression that the night in Calabasas kicked off.
I’m pretty sure I have the demo I recorded with Dylan somewhere in my storage.
It’s the one song where I prefer my vocals to Caro’s.
I tap it before I can overthink anymore.
We perform our other songs, and eventually, Uphill comes on. Jada looks at me, wide-eyed, when the title pops up on the screen.
“You chose this?” she asks.
“Yeah. Fuck it, why not?” I say.