Chapter Forty-Seven
Ryden
“We’re alone, in this town,
Of heavenly red, constant dread…”
Arc & Sheild Records: ‘Paint the Town, Dove’
Composition By: Ryden Spectre
What the fuck is going on.
“And you just do shit, you do shit all the time, Ryden! You can’t keep your hands to yourself and you make me want to –”
How the hell did we get here.
“ – and Paisley, I mean, what the hell were you even thinking? You didn’t even want to work with her but I’ve been right here just waiting for you to ask –”
What is she even talking about right now.
“Dove –” I wrapped her in my arms, because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? She was spiralling –
So I stopped my thoughts.
Stop your thoughts. Stop your thoughts.
Take a breath. One, two. She needs you.
My Dove, needs me.
“Don’t touch me!” She yelled, but she still held on, arms digging into the back of my skin, grabbing onto my shirt.
Face buried in my chest.
Soaked with tears.
Ryden Spectre, the abuser. Really.
How the hell could I not have checked? How the hell did I not know? Paisley was right. I did have my phone.
I never looked. Not once.
And goddamn did I ever feel free.
“I don’t care about what they said, Dove,” I whispered into her hair. “I only care about you right now.”
She raised those beautiful, brown eyes, reddened with exhaustion. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
She felt my neck. No chain. “Where is it?”
I smiled, thinking about our time over the holiday when I flushed it down the toilet at Frevo. “Gone.”
“Since when?”
Sometimes a person’s addiction is another person. I pulled her closer. “Does it matter?”
She frowned, as if realizing we were close and it was the most disgusting thing in the world.
I’ve tasted you, I wanted to say.
I love you, I’ve said.
Finally. I took a breath.
Finally.
“Don’t run away, Scarlett,” I whispered. “I know what you’re doing.”
She remained silent, a tense dove in my hold.
“You’re pushing me away, but I’m right here.” I brushed a lock of red from her face. “I know this isn’t us, but maybe it always was” – I scanned her face – “maybe it just took us forever to find out.”
“I don’t…” she stuttered. “I don’t know how to act around you anymore. I don’t know what we are, what I am to you.”
“You are who you’ve always been,” I rested my forehead to hers. “My Dove.”
“I’m your manager,” she said. “I’m your best friend.”
“You’re everything.”
“This is fast.”
“Not fast enough,” I replied, pulling her back to face me. “I will go at your own pace, I will wait until your red turns to grey but I won’t pretend anymore, Dove.”
All the harsh lines in her face faded, the softness I knew existed beneath her skin barely peeking through.
But it was there.
She’s always been there, waiting, for a moment like this.
I wanted to be the one to give it to her.
I didn’t care about this shit anymore.
Everything felt incomplete, like a compromise given to me if I ran through all the requirements.
She was my chosen rule.
My purpose was song, she was my music.
She was in everything.
It wasn’t fast, it was slow. All the best things are.
Melodies, harmonies, lyrics… art.
Art takes time. Art is patient.
I have been.
I can’t be anymore.
“I need to know you feel something inside, something worth pursuing,” I pleaded, my knees hitting the ground.
Who was I if not a beggar for my Dove?
“Lay it on the line, break if you have to but don’t break me.” I grabbed both her hands. “I know you have no idea what the fuck to do, I don’t either. I know we work for each other, figuratively and literally – ”
She laughed. I kissed her fingers.
“This is so fucked up. But this is us. An explosion. An impossible fucking feat. So tell me, please just tell me,” I said, “if there’s a chance to repair my heart.”
She blinked, a lone tear sliding down her cheek. Slowly, she knelt down in front of me, grabbed my face in both hands and said, “You make things quiet.”
I couldn’t hold back a laugh, a strangled sob caught in my throat at the sight of her. “Well maybe that’s what our story’s about, Dove. Finding normalcy in chaos.”
“Ryden…”
“Let me love you, fuck,” I cupped the back of her neck. “If it’s not you it’s no one, so let me love you.”
Stealing the breath from my lungs, she pressed her lips to mine and sucked out all the pain, the anger, the regret and guilt and shame –
She threw it in the fire.
Her fire.
And it burned oh so sweet, like lava cascading over decaying soil.
She cleansed and mended and healed.
With her, things would still. Like wind frozen in time, she was the movement, the edge – the fury.
We were fucked up.
We were terrified.
But we were strong.
Together, my Dove and I were impenetrable.
It took me a while to realize that, the lengths I’d gone to isolate myself, the current she swam through to avoid companionship.
We found it in each other. Fuck us for figuring it out so late in life.
But we weren’t dying. We were living.
Now, as I kissed my beautiful Dove, I knew the feeling of freedom.
It’s always been there, around us, invisible. Slowly circling like an –
I smiled against her lips, drew her closer.
Like an eagle.
The door broke free and so did we as Tav, Mal, Morty and uh… Paisley and what’s-his-fuck burst in.
“Oh hell,” Tav turned around, whipping a hand over his eyes. “Make up not make out, fuck, Mallory –”
“What did I do?” She questioned, busying herself on her phone.
Morty nodded in my direction. Just like Dean when I asked him about Polly over the holidays.
“She’s good for you,” I’d said.
“Better than most,” he replied. “So is Scarlett.”
I was about to protest when he shot me a knowing glance. “It’s about time.”
And that was that.
A head nod, a slap on the shoulder.
Like Scar and I were the most obvious pair in the world.
And only now did we finally realize the truth.
“I am NOT coupling up with him nor am I singing with him,” Paisley muttered, slapping Mr. Bug Man (yeah, I’ll call him that) on the chest.
Petty popstars. “You don’t have to,” I supplied, grabbing Scarlett by the hand.
“Ryden, what are you –”
“It’ll be a duet of sorts, just not with you.”
Paisley’s eyes remained bored while my crew, my management, my family… their gazes widened in surprise.
Scarlett gripped my hand. “What are you talking about?”
But I didn’t address her.
I demanded what I wanted.
About time, no?
Yeah, Ryden Spectre… about time.
“Dove,” I turned to her. “What did I get you for Christmas?”
She swallowed, eyes softening. “The guitar pick, the one Derek broke… you had a new one made.”
I did. I promised I would. “And what did I tell you all those years ago, back at Slater?”
A tear formed in the corner of her eye.
Suddenly, it was just me and her. Against the world.
Like it always was.
“Dove,” I whispered, wiping the loose tear travelling down her face. “What did I tell you?”
Her voice was gentle, like a kiss against warm skin. She remembered.
She remembered what I forgot.
But I’d never forget my wishes. Not when they came to her.
“You told me,” she whispered, “that maybe one day… we could be rock stars together.”