44. Abducted By Synthwave
Abducted By Synthwave
Rafe
The next morning, I wake up smiling. Which should’ve been my first warning.
The light cuts through the blinds in those soft strips that make everything look gentler than it is.
I can still smell her on the shirt I crashed in.
I wasn’t ready to lose it, so I slept in it.
The kind of scent that makes the rest of the world feel like background noise.
Then real noise breaks me out of the daydream, someone starts hammering on my front door.
“Rafe! Get your ass up before I throw a cymbal through the fucking window!”
I groan, dragging myself up, hair a wreck. “Ronan? What are you—what time is it?”
He pushes the door open like he’s my parole officer. “Ten, and before you ask, yeah, you’re late. Fan collab day, the contest winners? Remember?”
I blink, brain catching up. “Oh, shit.”
He smirks, a mix of amusement and pity. “Stefan sent me because you weren’t answering your phone and I'm the only one that knows where you keep your spare key.”
Ronan’s already moving toward the kitchen. “Coffee’s still alive, I think. Move, Obelus. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
Shower. Jeans. Black tee. Eyeliner, smudged enough to hide four hours of sleep. The practiced ritual of pretending to be put together. By the time I sling my guitar case over my shoulder, I’ve almost convinced myself I’m fine.
The studio’s chaos when we get there, caffeine-fueled chatter, pastel-haired fans bouncing in excitement. The four women, a band, musicians in their own right, hide their shaky hands while trying very hard to look normal about standing ten feet from us.
Rithy’s leaning against the soundboard when I walk in, guitar slung over his chest. He looks at me and I can tell he's smirking even underneath the veil.
He wore it for the photo opportunities, for the mystique.
Everyone we work with has to sign an NDA and keep our faces hidden in photos.
He's well aware, he just likes it when the fans are a little in awe of him. When they get to see Haima, close up.
He loves to play the role of an outcast demigod.
Kicked to earth, ready to play, fuck and create chaos.
I used to envy it, how he wraps the world in his hands and turns life into a game, but now I'm starting to see cracks in his trickster armor.
He narrows his eyes on me when he catches me thinking, staring too long.
“Good of you to join us, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Nice to see you too,” I say. “You tune that thing or just pose with it?”
He flicks a string, lazily. “Wouldn’t want to outshine the star.”
I ignore the barb. “Let’s get started.”
We start and the bridge hits rough; Kiri shakes his head.
“You’re too clean on that second chord,” he says through the mic. “Needs more ache.”
“More ache,” I repeat, smirking. “That’s your note?”
He grins. “Yeah, ache harder.”
Rithy joins in. “Maybe he’s right. Harder, Obelus.”
Laughter erupts from the room, and from then, the day blurs.
Phones appear, flashes pop, Rithy shoves in next to me, the ladies giggling on the edges.
Someone hands me a phone. Someone else asks about signal routing.
Ten minutes. Twenty. Every time I reach for my phone, someone calls my name.
Another retake, another question. Some new photo opportunity followed by awkward conversation.
When we're done, I finally check the time, it's almost five.
I wince. “Shit.”
Rithy glances over. “What now?”
“Forgot to text someone. ”
Kiri looks up. “The new someone?”
I don’t answer.
Ronan lowers his sticks. “You could call her,” he says. “Or you could keep waiting so she assumes the worst.”
“Too late," I say, the light of my phone illuminating the posts already telling the story I didn't.
Rithy snorts, pulling his mask down. “When will the rest of you see it? She’s a waste of his time.” He turns to me, voice serious. “You’re not built for nine-to-five. You forget to eat, not just text. You bleed for this shit. Either she gets that, or she's a lost cause.”
Ronan looks at him curtly. “Ease the fuck up, or you looking for a matching set of eyes for your nose?”
Rithy’s expression doesn’t change, but his tone softens, carefully. “I’m just being honest. He deserves someone who won’t try to tame him. He's better wild.” Silence is king for a moment, holding the weight of his words.
“I'll handle it,” I mutter, harsher than I mean to.
Ronan crosses his arms. “You remember how this goes.”
That goes exactly where it’s meant to, dead center of my chest. Emily used to tell me it wasn’t the chaos that ruined us, it was the silence after. The way I’d vanish into work and act like she’d still be there whenever I came up for air and now I’ve done it again.
I fire off a message:
hey, sorry, day got away from me.
stuck in the booth all afternoon, should’ve told you.
promise I wasn’t abducted by synthwave.
I wait for the typing bubble. Nothing.
you okay?
Still nothing. I try calling, straight to voicemail. By the third attempt, I’m pacing the hall, running a hand through my hair.
Rithy leans against the doorway, arms folded. “You live for this, the music. There’s nothing wrong with that. Stop ripping yourself apart for people who don't understand you. Your Mummy and Daddy issues are showing.”
“Appreciate the support.”
He smiles, in a strange, almost tender way. “It is, maybe you'll wake up and see that one day.”
Ronan stands, the stance I've seen so many times before, he's getting ready to pack up, sticks in hand. “Stop stalling, go already.”
He’s right so I grab my keys. Maybe it’s stupid, showing up at her place uninvited, but sitting here feels worse. Halfway there, I start drafting what I’ll say if she opens the door, something real, not rehearsed.
This is what I meant, Kasia. The chaos. I tell myself it’s part of the job, but it’s just me forgetting that time moves for other people too.
By the time I pull up outside her building, the sun’s gone. My pulse is steady in that dangerous, hopeful way. I text once more:
outside. don’t freak out.
no boombox but I’m not above it.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear. I exhale, leaning against the steering wheel, a laugh slipping out, tired, guilty, desperate all at once.
“Alright, ” I whisper to no one. “Message received. I'm trying to get it right this time.”
I sit there under the streetlight, engine off, hands resting on the wheel.
The light paints everything in that washed-out yellow that makes you feel like you’ve already done something wrong.
My head tilts back, eyes closed, breathing through the static in my chest. I’m not praying, I just don’t know what else to do.
The window above me stays dark, but I know she sees me.
I can feel it, the way I can sense a double take, some reflex born from years of trying to dodge being recognised more often than I ever sought it.
I think about driving off, pretending I never came.
But I can’t keep hiding behind silence and tours and bad timing.
Not this time, with her. Not again. I’ve run out of excuses, and honestly, I’m so fucking tired of them, of myself.
So I force the door open. The night air hits with a damp chill.
I knock once, wait. Twice, still nothing.
I try again, a little louder. The door opens a crack.
She’s there, hair pulled back, eyes clear and calm and I know I’m in trouble.
Still beautiful enough to make my heart stutter, devastating in her simplicity.
Her expression doesn’t move when she sees me.
Something heavier than anger sits there.
“Hey,” I start, forcing a smile that feels more like a reflex than a choice. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Go home, Rafe.”
The words stop me. Just—stop me.
“Kasia, just—”
“No.” Her voice is steady, final. “You don’t get to just show up and fix it with an apology and that face you use to get away with murder.”
That face? If it didn’t hurt so much, I’d laugh. Instead, I just swallow and nod a little. “It wasn’t—I didn’t mean to ignore you. The day—”
“The day got away from you,” she says for me, and that’s somehow worse, like I’m another repetition in a pattern she’s already exhausted by. I open my mouth, but she keeps going, and every word is another truth I don't want to admit.
“People drop everything for your schedule, but you’re not the only one being pulled in a dozen directions.
I have a thousand people asking for something every day.
From the minute I arrive until the minute I leave, someone’s calling my name.
If I can make time, so can you. You just didn’t, even though you said you would. ”
She’s right. Of course she’s right and I hate it. I’ve been using busy like armor.
“I don’t need perfection, Rafe. I just need effort. Communication. No games, hot then cold. I already had that bullshit in the past and I’m not about to repeat it, I don’t care who you are.”
“It was never a game—” But the rest dies in my throat.
Her words find every crack in me I thought I’d learned how to patch.
I want to tell her she’s the only calm thing I’ve ever found in the noise.
That I’m trying. That it’s never been about effort, it’s about fear.
Because she sees through every barrier I use to keep myself together.
But none of that would sound like enough.
“Wednesday’s cancelled,” she says finally. “I gave in because you were charming and seemed sincere, but if you can’t even text or keep a promise, you can clearly survive without me.”
There’s nothing left to defend. Just her standing there, waiting to see if I’ll fuck this up too. So I nod, slowly. “Alright,” I say. “I’ll wait.”
I mean it, even if it kills me. She closes the door before I can say anything else. I stay there for a while, staring at the wood grain, at the thin line of light under the frame, anything that proves she’s still there. My reflection in the peephole looks wrecked.
When I finally turn away, the night feels colder than when I arrived.
Everything I want to say stays stuck somewhere between my teeth and my chest. Halfway down the steps, I look back.
There’s a faint shadow at the curtain, her silhouette, still there.
She had to watch me leave and I had to look back at her.
Just like Orpheus, I think to myself. It would be nothing to most, but to me, it’s everything.
It's hope. I shove my hands into my pockets, breathe out hard through my nose.
I’ll wait, Kasia. But I won’t do it quietly.
By the time I get back to the car, the air’s colder. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’ve been coasting on charm and momentum, counting on the idea that people forgive anything from someone they still want. I stare at the phone for a long moment before I type.
you looked like pure devastation. when you were putting me through it.
I deserved every word and I’m going to make the time.
starting now.
I hit send and let the message sit there glowing on the screen like something alive before I drive.
The city passes in flashes of light and reflection, streetlamps bleeding through the rain, shop signs flickering past. My mind keeps replaying her voice, the set of her shoulders, the steadiness in her eyes when she told me no.
She was the first person in a long time who didn’t take my apology and smooth it over.
For some reason it makes me smile, baffled but a little impressed.
By the time I reach home, I’m shaking, not from cold but from whatever has been lodged in my mind, finally breaking loose.
I drop the keys on the counter, hoodie still damp, shoes still on, and walk straight to the piano.
The first few notes are aimless, just sound in a soundless room, until it starts to shape itself.
Miami. Her laugh in the sun. The taste of peach soju still ghosting the back of my throat.
The cascade of her dress. The fabric moved, stirred at every breath, every small turn, as if it couldn’t help but obey her.
I remember thinking how easily it might slip from her skin, how natural it would be to move together like that, to let our bodies say everything we couldn't. I told her she looked like Persephone come to life, not fragile, but radiant and dangerous. The thought alone pulls at me, my body remembering before my mind can stop it. I adjust, clear my throat, try to focus on another memory to control myself, calm what threatens to bloom into a hardening urge I can’t ignore.
But when I close my eyes, I’m back there again.
All of it floods me, every image, every pulse of my blood and body.
I play anyway, I let it carry me until the melody finds her, bright at first, then aching, something between worship and confession.
I record it before I can talk myself out of it.
Just the opening minute, soft keys, a few scattered chords, that thread of her still clinging to my voice.
It’s not perfect, but it’s honest. I send the clip with a short message:
don’t know if this counts as effort yet
but it’s what I had to give tonight.
miami. you.
I hit send before I can edit it into something safer.
After that, the adrenaline runs out. I go still.
The room feels too big, the bed too empty.
I pick up my phone again, thumb hovering over the camera.
For a second, I think about sending something bold, probably stupid, my body still warm from the ways I'd imagined her. I contemplate a snap of skin, stubble, a reminder of what made her look twice. But it feels wrong, a way to distract instead of penance. So I pull the blanket up instead and snap the photo. I frame my eyes, my hair a mess against the pillow. The kind of picture you only send when you’ve got nothing left to hide behind.
you spend all day looking at eyes what do you see in mine?
I’ll keep talking until you ask me to stop. the words I should have given you
I'll send them all
I stare at the message for a long time before pressing send. Then I set the phone down, pull the blanket tighter, and let the silence do what it always does, settle like a consequence I finally earned.