Chapter 59
Miles
Tuesday
It’s a bright, sunny day in New York. This morning, I had another pre-movie meeting with my agent and the filmmakers.
Everything went great, they’re happy with my demos, and the early musical sketches fit their vision.
The producer sounded excited about the drafts and eager to listen to more.
I have one more week to present the next melodic ideas.
If they like it, they’ll hire me, and we’ll start working on the real pieces for the movie. It’s exciting.
Yet, still, a quiet ache hums beneath my ribs.
It’s like a faint sense of loss has settled inside me. I accepted that it will take me some time to heal that void.
I walked around Central Park and got back home around 7 p.m. Asher is cheerfully cluttering up our kitchen, assembling some dinner that smells so good it makes up for all the dirty dishes he will later ask me to help him wash by hand because our dishwasher broke down a few days ago.
I sit at the kitchen counter, he forbids me to go near the stove, the oven, or the mixer.
We talk about the private conservatory where he teaches.
Asher is an instructor to some of the most talented young musicians in New York City.
He truly cheers for them and cares about every single dreamer that crosses his path.
He enjoys telling me about them, and we both imagine their future career steps together.
When dinner is ready, we move to the couch, and the conversation moves to the topic: Ella.
I received a text from her two weeks ago.
She updated me on how everything went with Miss Amara’s house being cleared out and the donations with the CIC.
She didn’t reply to my response, and I shall respect that.
When her name first popped up on my phone screen, I felt a brief surge of happiness, knowing she was still out there, not lost to me.
And yet, I’m left with the sting of knowing I have lost her.
“So, is that what you thought would happen?” Asher asks, carrying on our dialogue.
“I thought…” I don’t know what I thought. “Who knows…”
Asher listens to me attentively, even when my unfinished sentences make no sense.
I feel bad that he has to hear me moaning and get lost in my feelings and words.
But when I arrived in New York a few weeks ago and tried to hide it all from him, he lectured me about friendship codes.
Something I guess he made up at that moment, very convincingly, as if he had written it somewhere before.
“She’s the love of your life,” Asher says, and I’m paralyzed by the naked, real words. “I never doubted your lyrics were about a real girl. She’s the girl from the old black notebook, isn’t she?”
Now these words have me confused.
“You read my songs?” I ask quietly. “The ones about her?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, bro. I grabbed your black notebook at the studio while I was looking for that song we wrote at the bar, a few months ago. But I opened a random page of that notebook and found some other songs I didn’t recognize. Now I figure it was all about her. I’m sorry I read it.”
“That’s ok, man.” I lean deeper into the couch. “I haven’t read them in forever.”
“Well, maybe you could,” he rests his feet on our little coffee table. “Get some of that inspiration back. Remember why you wrote it in the first place.”
I chuckle. “I was only seventeen,” I remind him.
“Yeah,” he smiles as he gets up and high-fives my shoulder. “Sometimes a guy just knows.”