Chapter 14 Echoes
Echoes
Brandon
The alley shimmers with rain, lit faintly by the glow of the tearoom windows opposite. Trapped beneath the striped canopy awning, my gaze flicks sideways to Lily-Anne. She’s breathless, cheeks flushed, hair clinging damp to her cheeks. And her hand…it’s warm in mine, palm soft, fingers delicate.
What on earth am I doing?
I drop her hand at once—more abruptly than I mean to.
Her smile falters the moment I let go.
Words of apology form on my lips, but I don’t utter them. How can I possibly explain?
“Lovely English summer we’re having!” she shouts over the roar, hugging herself.
I seize on the deflection gratefully, letting sarcasm pitch my voice. “It’s a stereotype.”
“I can see that!”
“Aren’t you glad you’re not in Sydney?”
“So glad—it’s meant to be sunny all week there, you know.”
“How dreadful.”
“The worst.” She laughs, dispelling some of the tension charging the air.
A cold draught cuts through the alley, and I wish I had a jacket to offer her.
As the minutes pass, water spilling from the awning and splashing back from the pavement onto our feet, Lily-Anne inches closer, hugging herself.
We’re shoulder to shoulder, pressed close enough that our damp sleeves touch.
“You’re shivering,” I murmur, turning slightly towards her.
She forces a smile, teeth chattering. “Y-yeah. I’ve always been a sook when it comes to the cold.”
“A what?”
“You know. A c-c-cold frog.”
I press my lips to hide my smile. More Aussie slang I don’t understand.
Even here in the shadows, her face is highlighted by lamplight, her cheeks flushed pink.
My hands lift instinctively—to draw her in, provide body heat—but I stop short, my fingers barely whispering against her shoulder before hovering uselessly in the air between us.
She peers at me in confusion through rain-speckled lashes.
For a heartbeat, the world stills.
I glance at her lips briefly, then avert my gaze.
No. There are lines I cannot cross. Not without making her situation uncomfortable.
She’s just been through a breakup, the wake of it fresh enough that the edges look raw.
Yet I’m caught in her gaze, my foolish mind suddenly contemplating tiny, impossible gestures.
Like the way my thumb could sweep along her jawline, brushing away the crystal-like droplets clinging there.
Or the slow tuck of a rain-soaked strand behind her ear.
The way my gaze would inevitably fall, just like it is now, to her lips—wet, rosy, parted in surprise.
Alarm bells ring in the back of my mind, but I cannot look away, my head tilting a fraction closer.
I freeze.
I’m too old for her. What would Jeremy think of me, to look at his younger daughter this way, when he trusted me?
Lily-Anne’s eyes drift partially shut, her lips parting slightly as she tips her chin up a fraction.
She doesn’t move closer. Nor does she pull away.
And I want to.
Time stands still. The only sound is the hammering rain and the blood rushing in my ears.
And then another sound threads through the storm: Nova’s voice, unsummoned and unwelcome, cutting through me like a knife.
“Hold me like a pretty ribbon, soft in your hands.”
It’s Nova’s voice. But she’s not just in my head. The sound comes from…
I force a step back, heart pounding in my chest, the space between Lily-Anne and me cold and necessary. My head darts left and right down the alleyway, searching, half-expecting to see Nova’s ghost, or a puff of cigarette smoke, or a defiant smirk belied by wounded eyes.
But she’s not there, imagined or otherwise.
Yet the music playing is real, the deep bass thrumming in my chest with every beat.
Did I imagine it? Her voice, smouldering and fragile?
Lily-Anne stares at me in concern. “Brandon? What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” I croak, releasing a sigh as my head knocks back against the brick. “I thought I heard something.”
How absurd, to think I could hear a dead woman’s voice in the rain.
I turn back to Lily-Anne, who’s regarding me worriedly. How much of a spectacle have I made of myself? Should I attempt an explanation?
“I’m sorry,” I manage, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“That’s okay,” she begins, then she frowns, head tilting as though listening past the rain. “Hold on. Is that…Ribbons? By Nova?”
Yes. It calls to me, clear as a siren’s call, wrapping itself around me like a net I can’t break free of.
“Hold me like a pretty ribbon, soft in your hands.Tie me like you tie me when you want me—please, want me.Knot me in your pocket like my heart—please, don’t free me.I’m solid like a diamond, but so soft to your commands.”
I feel sharp relief to know Lily-Anne can hear it too, but the feeling doesn’t last. The throbbing bass hijacks the rhythm, twisting the song that was once tender into something cheap.
Fury ignites my veins.
I step into the downpour and stride towards the alley’s mouth. I know exactly whose walls this desecration is pounding through.
And he should be ashamed.
The rain is icy on my skin, but it does nothing to cool me. It might as well be blood sluicing over me, red as the memories it conjures.
Red wine.
Red lipstick.
Red bathwater streaked from slit wrists.
That wasn’t how Nova died—an overdose took her a year later—but this is how I always picture her now, with wrists incarnadine, never to be washed free.
Yet, it’s not her hands that bear the stain.
I cross the cobbled courtyard, fury propelling me towards Willoughby’s Café. I halt outside, fists clenched to stop them trembling. Through the fogged windows, neon lights flash purple and blue, crowded bodies dancing without a care.
Lily-Anne appears beside me, staring through the glass at the silhouetted dancers.
“Oh. I got coffee here yesterday,” she mentions, her tone careful. “Well, the coffee got me. I spilt it on my dress.”
She’s trying to draw me out without prying. But I don’t know where to begin.
“I met the owner,” she adds. “Willoughby.”
I tense. “Did you?”
I almost forgot he calls himself that. It wouldn’t do for people to simply think he was ‘Jack’.
“Yeah. He seemed nice.” She studies me, frowning, before her gaze flicks back to the window. “It looks more like a nightclub now.”
“It does.” Thanks to Jack, it tries to be everything at once, from live bands and talent shows to DJs. Always chasing whatever noise he hopes will draw a crowd—or a talent scout. It’s left the place with no voice of its own, just an endless churn of whatever’s trending.
Which is his business.
But how could he do this to Natalie? Play a loud pop remix of her most intimate song? Its carefully wrought verse is distorted beyond recognition, her voice drawn out, on and on in an endless wail, all for the sake of a bass drop that takes too long to hit.
When it does, I shut my eyes.
Her early albums were moody and hypnotic, shaped by old jazz, bruised blues, and dark soul. Confessional songs drenched in sorrow that still held a glimmer of light. Just like Ribbons.
But this isn’t it. The melody is hacked apart, her voice sped up and twisted into something she never meant it to be, her heartache dressed in a party beat.
Much as I want to excuse the man, to tell myself it’s just some faceless DJ who’s been hired for the night, I finally spot him through the window, centre stage: Jack Willoughby.
His silhouette is unmistakable, dark curls bouncing as he bobs his head along to the beat, one hand clamped to the oversized headset at his ears.
My blood curdles.
Lily-Anne shifts beside me, and I realise she’s been waiting for me to speak. “Brandon… should I not have come here yesterday?”
“It’s fine,” I say automatically. “It’s just—” I swallow. “The song reminded me of someone I used to work with.”
Her gaze flicks back to the window, to the dancers, to Jack’s silhouette behind the decks.
I sense the moment it clicks. She gives a soft gasp, turning wide, searching eyes on me.
Her voice drops to a whisper. “Nova… You represented her. Was she—was she the woman you lost? Natalie?”
I manage a nod. “Yes. She was one of my first clients. I discovered her. Managed her. Later, we dated.” I hesitate, then I add quietly, “I loved her.”
She doesn’t speak, and I continue. “Things ended when she moved on to a bigger label in the US—and to another man.”
“That must have been devastating.”
“Well, the split was for the best. We weren’t seeing eye to eye anymore.” I pause. “But a year later, she took her own life. It made me question everything. Whether there was something I could have done to prevent it.”
The heat slowly drains from me, a cold numbness pressing in as rain lashes my neck.
Lily-Anne takes my arm gently, sending a current through me. “Come on—let’s get out of the rain.”
I let her lead me away, grateful for her easy kindness.
There are venues still open, but she must sense I need something calmer, because she guides me to the centre of the courtyard, beneath a large oak tree.
We huddle near the trunk, standing on slippery roots.
Droplets land heavily from the leafy branches above.
“Do you want to talk about Natalie?” she asks. “About what she was like?”
No one has ever asked me that before. About Nova, yes, but never about Natalie. How to describe a person in an anecdote?
“She was talented, of course. Chaotic and stubborn. I felt responsible for keeping her steady. But then…when I found her in our hotel bathroom…in the tub…” My throat locks, forcing the rest back.
Lily-Anne’s unsurprised expression tells me she already knows. I keep forgetting that these visceral moments I shared with Natalie belong to the rest of the world too.
“That wasn't the night she died,” I continue, “but it was the night she pushed me away. I got her to the hospital, vowed to take better care of her. But when she came home, I realised she didn’t want that. She wanted to reach for the stars. More fame, bigger stages. And me…” I scoff.
“I wanted her to slow down and consolidate. So, she left.”