Chapter Forty-Eight
Ryden
Four and a Half Years Ago
She was right.
Of course she was right.
My Dove was always right.
It didn’t make the pain hurt any less.
It didn’t make the reality go away.
It only broke the fragments of glass separating me from the euphoric, blind state I’d been living in for the last fifteen months.
Drags and Smoke hailed number one since its release forty-six days ago, and I couldn’t enjoy a lick of success.
Only the taste of salt on a rim of a shot glass, and the burn of powder in my nose.
It became habitual… this routine of mine.
She sold my song to Avenue, our mutual label – she’d been shagging Pierce, isolating me slowly behind my back, took all the credit – all the credit for a song that didn’t apply to her, a piece of my heart now shared with the world that she owned –
And Avenue dropped me.
A contract, written in blood by the vultures who made me, me.
Scarlett was right.
I had an iron chain wrapped around my neck –
And I couldn’t cut it loose.
That was until my faded ass walked into a random music store in a corner back alley, neon lights flashing:
TIMB’S TUNES
There was a man in there, sitting on one of those retro barstools – kind of like the ones at Cobalt Blues way back when – and he looked…
Happy?
Was that the word for a man who wore a smile?
My mother wore a smile…
They were never real.
Emory smiled.
Until she didn’t.
I loved Yasmine.
She never did.
I smiled.
When my Dove smiled.
But we rarely smiled anymore.
We rarely laughed anymore.
She was always busy. I was always gone.
What did a smile really look –
“Hey, kid.” The Happy Man said. He had bracelets all over his wrists. Whacky. Cool. “You alright in the head?”
I laughed out loud. “Nope. What guitars we’ve got?”
“You know where you are?”
A fatter, weirder looking man with a shirt that looked spraypainted by mustard wabbled closer. “That’s the kid! Tav, the kid with the song I kept singing –”
He hummed Drags and Smoke.
My blood boiled.
“Turn that shit off,” I waved, moving towards a red Fender. Never would I ever cheat on Harley, no. But I could stare at the pretty girls hanging off the line.
Always red guitars.
Always red curls.
Always red doves.
“HA! He wants me to turn my mouth off, Tavy! What a sport!” Fat Man followed me (why was he following me?) and pointed to the Fender. “This one will run you ‘bout eh, uh, thirteen-fifty? Say that’s right, Tav?”
But Happy Man didn’t say anything, just stared at me with hawk eyes. Tav, Fat Man said? Was it Tav?
“You lost a bet with Avenue Records, I read about you.” Tav leaned back against one of the wood beams. There were posters of Van Halen stamped up and down like pock marks.
Reminded me of my old room.
Reminded me of mom.
“No bet,” I muttered, swiping up some sheet music. It yellowed at the corners. “The label dropped me.”
“Yasmine Ryve –”
“Don’t say her fucking name,” I spat, throwing down the papers.
Who the fuck did I become? Vandalizing a store, acting like a wasted fool in front of strangers?
I guess I did that every day. Just not on stage, no. On stage I was free.
On stage I was san eagle.
“Listen, I’m fucking beat and I just need to…” I glanced up at the red Fender. “Can I give her a round?”
No questions asked, Fat Man swiped a step stool from beneath a drum set and took down the guitar. “Good choice,” he’d said to me, pointing at the soundproof booth by the acoustics.
I nodded in thanks and made my way over, sat on a side stool and fit the Fender in my hands. She wasn’t tough like Harley, no battle wounds or scrapes. She was shiny, new, stiff.
Like Yasmine.
Not like Scarlett.
I pulled out my purple Dove pick (she was always in my pocket) and played her all the same. Cause what kind of crazy fuck was I comparing the women in my life to guitars?
Snap the fuck out of it, Spectre.
So I did.
And I played.
And played.
Until I forgot where I was, why I was there.
Pain, right.
Yeah.
That was always the reason.
***
It was well into the night.
The store was dim already.
Did they close? Where was Fat Man? Where was –
“You’re talented, boy, you know.”
Happy Man. He was still here. Behind the wall.
Right. Right. I didn’t close the door.
“My tracks have autotune, like, they were polished.” Why the fuck was I downplaying myself?
Why the fuck did I hate myself?
“Nah,” he stepped into the booth. “You’ve got raw skill. Who taught you to play?”
I swallowed, thinking about the secret lessons my mom had paid from under Corban’s nose. A music teacher down the block, Ricky Rodney. Told me my hands were made for playing, a phantom gift.
He died of cancer nine months after I started.
All the good things always got taken from me.
“Mostly self taught.” I put the Fender aside. “Tutorials go a long way now if you want to learn –”
“I don’t want no lessons, kid, I’m here to give you another shot.”
I raised a brow. “Another shot? I’m on top of the fucking world right now.”
He looked me up and down, a pool of pity swimming in his eyes. A knot twisted in my stomach.
I wanted to swat his fucking face.
“Right,” he nodded. “Well, lemme at least give you this.” He held out a cream business card. Numbers, names, XYZ, yeah, yeah – and in gold script in the centre:
Arc & Sheild Records
“Band manager?” I read.
He stepped back, all cowboy leather and rugged charm. That was the damn truth. And maybe he was being honest.
Maybe I could trust again.
Scarlett would know what to do.
Scarlett had a radar for things like this.
So when I went home that night, found her in one of my old tees with a vengeance for Yasmine in her eyes, I sat her down and said, “This isn’t the end.”
“I already called for journalists with the New Yorker, Times and the Journal. They know about the cheating with Pierce. I’m going to bury that fucking girl in a pile of her own –”
“Dove.” I handed over Tav’s card.
“Arc & Shield Records?” She swiped out her laptop, fingers flying over the keys as she researched Tav and the label. “Huh. Wicked Night and Dopamine Healy, not bad. Still early on but a they’re gaining traction,” she scrolled on, “he seems…”
“Solid?” I said, leaning closer to her, inhaling the scent of vanilla and cinnamon hearts. “Have you been eating…”
“Shut up,” she waved.
I kissed her forehead, smiling at the thought of her loving the candy she once hated. The candy I gave her.
The candy I could afford.
I’d buy her the whole world if I could.
And she’d still eat cinnamon hearts.
“I’ll call up a few of the managing heads tomorrow, let me do some research before we jump the gun on anything.” She shooed me away. “There’s food in the kitchen, are you… okay, Ryden?”
I couldn’t explain it.
Like lightning or something zapped me ramrod straight.
It was that feeling of… belonging.
Knowing you were right where you needed to be. Knowing the course was mapped out right in front of you, the sun was finally clearing.
I took a sip of water from the glass on the console, looking down at my Dove. All legs, red hair tied in a bun, toothpaste stained into my old Metallica tee.
It was the alcohol making me feel like this. It had to be. The overwhelming urge to kiss her. To claim what was mine.
Something bubbled inside me.
Something changed.
Was this a sign from God? Tav? Arc & Shield?
It wasn’t Scarlett, no.
God gave her to me a long time ago.
“I’m all good, Dove,” I smiled. “If this is legit, we’ve got music to make and hearts to steal.”
She stared at me with hope, not pity. I needed that.
I needed her.
“That we do,” she replied, leaning back into the couch. “So what’s next, then? Start over? Burn the dead?”
I nodded, lips curling up at the thought of the phoenix.
Emory. Scarlett.
Me.
Rise from the ashes.
“What’s next?” I whispered in a silent promise. “We paint the town red.”