Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
To: DeadStrings
Subject: Fear?
I’m not talking about being scared of the boogie man or some horror movie that’s more gore than suspense. Nope. I refer to the fear of losing someone you haven’t told you love. The fear of saying too much and watching them leave. Of saying nothing and wondering if that’s what made them go.
The fear that feeling this much makes you fragile in a world that tells you to toughen up and move on. The one that creeps, settles in your chest, and waits for you to notice. And when you finally do, it’s already running the show and creating an anxiety you can’t control.
Been thinking about fear lately.
Not the obvious we all experience while watching a movie. I mean the quieter versions.
The fear of losing someone you haven’t told you love yet.
The fear of saying it and having it thrown back in your face because you mean nothing. Nothing.
The fear of saying too much.
Of not saying enough.
Of feeling too deeply in a world that tells you to get over it and keep moving.
I made a list.
Working title: “Songs for When You’re Afraid to Speak, to Love, or to Stay.”
“Everybody Hurts” —R.E.M.
This one almost feels illegal to play when you’re actually hurting. It’s too on-the-nose. But it never lies. It meets you where you are and just . . . stays there. No pressure to be okay yet.
“Song to the Siren” —This Mortal Coil
This is what falling in love sounds like when you’re convinced it’s going to ruin you.
It’s so fragile, it barely exists.
Like love itself.
“Wild Horses” —The Rolling Stones
Because sometimes love isn’t loud or fast. It’s slow, painful, and full of restraint. This song aches the way fear does—quietly, and for a long time.
“The Sound of Silence” —Simon & Garfunkel
The fear of speaking, of being heard wrong—or worse, not heard at all. This one wraps silence in velvet and makes you feel every stitch.
“A Case of You” —Joni Mitchell
This one scares me the most. Because it’s love stripped of all the fairytales. Love that stays even when it’s wrecked you.
And I don’t know if I’m brave enough for that.
You don’t have to make a list.
But tell me—do you ever feel it too?
The fear of living with your heart wide open?
DeadStrings: Hey there, I was wondering if I would hear from you today. Fear? Yeah. I’ve been scared shitless but . . .
I’ve never lived with my heart wide open. Not once. Not even close. And, yeah, I think that’s probably the saddest part of all of this.
That someone like me—someone who lives and dies by the sound of distortion and the scrape of guitar strings—has no idea how to exist without some kind of filter, muting everything (be that alcohol or drugs).
I’ve lived turning emotions into something I could control.
And that’s one of the reasons why I’m a fucking mess.
Because once, there was someone who didn’t let me keep the distortion turned up.
She turned the volume all the way down, forced me to sit in the silence, and in that silence, I heard things I didn’t want to know existed inside me.
She scared the shit out of me.
Not because she was cruel. Or reckless. Or toxic. She wasn’t any of those cliché things we try to throw at people when they make us feel too much. She was . . . observant, honest. Brutally, unapologetically alive.
She loved with all her heart, and being loved by her was inexplicably perfect—so perfect that I sometimes felt unworthy.
She had this look—this enormous, soul-fucking stare that didn’t just glance across a room or catch your expression like a breeze.
No. She’d lock eyes with you and suddenly, you weren’t in your body anymore.
You were laid out and dissected, your moods mapped like constellations, your lies crumbling at the corners of your mouth before you could even test how believable they sounded.
Let’s not talk about her, though.
Because talking about her feels a lot like walking barefoot through glass and pretending it’s a goddamn Sunday stroll. And still—I keep bringing her up, don’t I?
I always believed she’d be my ruin. Not because she asked to be. Not because she threatened to be. But because everything about her made me feel like I was just two wrong words away from unraveling completely.
She wanted everything without even asking. It was never in the desperate way most people beg for affection, but in this devastating way that said: I see what you’re hiding, and I want it anyway. I’ll love you just as you are.
That—that—was terrifying. Because when you’ve spent your whole life learning how to keep people at arm’s length, someone who simply reaches for your throat and demands nothing more than honesty is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I think the truth is . . . I wasn’t scared of her.
I was afraid of what I became in her presence.
Of how her eyes burned through my defense mechanisms like they were made of tissue paper.
Of how she made me want things I’d buried so deep I’d forgotten they were mine to want.
I’m not talking about picket fences or wedding rings or some picture-perfect bullshit.
I’m talking about the raw need to be known—every dark edge, every desperate thought, every twisted fantasy whispered in the dark.
She made me crave being fucking seen. And I hated it.
She didn’t take from me like a thief. She didn’t break me down with demands or ultimatums. She just existed. And in that existence, she peeled me apart piece by piece until I barely recognized myself.
I’d look in the mirror and wonder how the hell one person could walk in, whisper my name, and suddenly the man I was meant to be was gone—replaced by someone who wanted to kneel at her feet and confess things I didn’t even know I needed to say out loud.
She didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. She just looked at me, and I gave. My body. My secrets. My fucking soul—she still owns it along with my heart.
I know how it sounds. Melodramatic. Like some overproduced B-side track with too many crescendos and not enough rhythm.
But this was what I had with her . . . it wasn’t just about love, and it sure as hell wasn’t about sex—though, fuck, there were nights when I’d wake up so hard and aching it felt like my bones were begging for her.
This, what we shared, was something else. Something primal. She’d look at me, and I’d become unmade—like her gaze had fingers, and they were already under my shirt, trailing down my stomach, undoing the button on my jeans with nothing more than a breath and a dare.
It was never just about touching her. It was about what happened to me the moment I wanted to. The way my pulse would crash against my skin like a storm. The way my hands would itch to grab her hips and yank her in so tight I’d feel her fucking heartbeat against mine.
The way I’d imagine her mouth on me and lose time—lose sense—lose every thread of restraint I’d ever worked so goddamn hard to build.
She made me ache for things no one believes exist, but she had them—she offered them. I took it, and in return, I gave her everything.
That’s the fucked-up part.
She didn’t demand it, yet I gave every piece. Every fragment. Every lyric that never made it to paper.
And maybe that’s why everything now feels offbeat and broken. Like the music’s still playing, but the tune is wrong. Like I’m writing songs with no riffs, no chorus, just verses made of what-ifs and regrets that taste too much like her skin.
Song?
“Black” —Pearl Jam.
Always.
Because some people aren’t just a chapter in your life.
They’re the throughline, the goddamn prelude to everything, the interlude you can’t skip. The empty space between verses where the real story lives.
Where everything that matters most gets lost . . . and refuses to stay buried.