Chapter 12
LEAH
On the day of the second catalog review, I had my two students change the band name on the course registration form to their individual names.
Maya had written the lyrics and main melody; Jonah had handled the guitar part and bridge.
The performance could belong to the band—the author field records only the people who actually did the work.
After class, I closed the piano lid and picked up the checklist Evan had sent ahead. Outside the window, a light rain had started to fall.
The first recording we were scheduled to hear that day came from the night we signed our first record contract.
Asher was already at the archive studio.
He sat in the same spot as last time, with only Evan’s prepared materials and an untouched cup of water in front of him.
No contract, no gifts, no new song waiting for me to preview.
I set my folder on the table and reset the timer to ninety minutes.
“We can begin,” I said.
Evan slid an old CD into the player. The first few seconds were the sound of a glass meeting a kitchen counter, followed by the soft pop of a cork.
The apartment we rented back then had only one real chair; we recorded all our home demos on the bedroom floor.
The record contract had been spread across a secondhand dining table, a bottle of the cheapest sparkling wine half-finished beside it.
The young Asher on the recording laughed until he could barely breathe. “They want Asher Vale.”
“I can see that.” My voice was laughing too. “Your name is bigger than the contract title.”
“Just for now. Let them learn who I am first—once my career is established, I’ll tell everyone what you did.”
My recorded voice went quiet for a beat. “Not just saying in interviews that I support you.”
“Not that. I want them to know who wrote the songs, to know there were two of us from the start. It’s just that right now, they’re only willing to push one name.”
“Only until things are established.”
“Only until then.”
Then came the sound of me asking him to record that promise too. The young Asher laughed and said I didn’t trust him. I answered that it was precisely because I trusted him that I wanted to put the promise on record.
The recording didn’t stop there. We quickly moved on to playing the demo we’d finished that day, and at one point we argued for two minutes over a rhyme. But Evan pressed pause first, and the room was left with nothing but the sound of rain against the roof.
Asher’s hand rested on the table, his knuckles white from the pressure. “I said it.”
“The recording confirms it,” Evan said.
Asher looked at me, his lips moving slightly. He reached for the cup that had sat untouched the whole time; his fingertips knocked against the side, and the paper cup gave a soft tap against the table. He didn’t touch it again—just drew his hand back to his knee.
I turned to the next page of the checklist. The timer was still counting down, and the next line listed the opening track from the first album. What went on the record that day was the fact that the promise had existed. There was no column for “I’m sorry.”
The young me on that recording laughed with such certainty—I’d even remembered to make him record the promise.
That laugh pressed against my chest, and breathing in hurt.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t asked clearly, or that I hadn’t kept evidence.
I simply believed that the person who had answered me to my face would hold to his answer.
The person I was that night genuinely believed that putting my name behind his for a while and giving it up forever were two different things.
“Go on,” I said. My throat was still tight when I spoke.
The review that followed played only enough of each clip to establish the source.
The evidence pointed repeatedly to the same conclusion: my words and core melodies, Asher’s guitar, the structural work and localized revisions—each had a clear origin.
Asher raised no objections. Evan logged them separately into the correction record.
“I’ve cross-referenced the evidence from last time and today against the full archive,” he said. “The findings no longer concern only those three tracks, and they don’t concern only ‘Still Burning.’”
He pushed a summary sheet to the center of the table.
Twelve titles covered nearly every song Asher performed most often on tour.
For four, the earliest recordings had me singing them from beginning to end; three retained complete lyric manuscripts; the remaining version chains could still trace the origin of the core melodies.
Asher’s genuine guitar work, structural contributions, and localized songwriting were preserved as well.
The conclusion was not to rewrite thirteen years as another person’s solo story—it was that at least twelve core works required fact-based correction of songwriting credits and royalty splits.
Twelve songs were not a mistake at a single launch event, nor could the problem be solved by removing Sabrina’s name from one song.
They formed the foundation of Asher’s first album, his first tour, his first award nomination, and every subsequent piece of coverage that called him an independent songwriting genius.
Asher read through the full sheet with his head down. “All of them fall within the scope of correction.”
Evan did not treat this as a decision. “The factual scope is determined by the evidence. How it’s handled publicly requires separate documentation and execution.”
“I understand.”
The timer had twenty-one minutes left. I took the handover instructions my lawyer had prepared from my folder and slid them across to Asher.
“All unreleased sole-authored works, private notebooks, and original demos come under my control,” I said. “Including any copies in the archive not yet identified. You and your team retain no release, adaptation, or first-option rights.”
Asher read through it page by page. The final clause of the document stated clearly that the handover was not conditioned on the outcome of the divorce, any future meetings, or collaboration on any new work.
“Can Evan continue to hold neutral review backups as needed for the review?” he asked.
“Only until the fact list is complete, and only with access I approve.”
He picked up the pen and signed the handover instructions. He set no conditions in exchange, asked for no extra minutes of conversation, and didn’t hold the pen on the page waiting for a word of acknowledgment. Evan filed it on the spot, and the original came back to me.
“The remaining details can be handled in writing.” I put the documents away. “The next major review will be scheduled according to the final list of key works.”
Evan nodded and placed copies of the twelve-title summary sheet into two separate folders. Asher’s copy sat on the table; he didn’t pick it up right away.
“There’s one thing that needs to be said clearly now.
” Evan looked at him. “If only ‘Still Burning’ is corrected, the public will read it as a single misstep in a comeback campaign. Correcting all twelve changes how the public understands who you’ve been for the past thirteen years.
People will know you’re an exceptional singer, guitarist, and arranger—but not the independent songwriting genius they’ve always believed in. ”
Asher finally picked up the list.
The sheet with its twelve song titles rustled faintly in his hands. Not one line allowed him to fold the truth back into a single song.