I lose focus, staring at the Hilden’s bare maple tree.
Alex just gets by unscathed after what he’s done? Just continues living right next door? What will I do if I have to see him and he knows I know?
My hand shakes and I put the notebook and pen down on the coffee table and cuddle with Stevie until Stokes comes back down the stairs.
“You need anything before they get here?” he asks.
“Yeah, actually, I want to know which song you think I should pick to sing.” I hand him the notebook and he sits in the armchair and opens it. “Something that goes with the current lineup. Those are my favourites in that book, so anything you choose works for me.”
He flips the pages and we sit in a comfortable silence with the odd page flip, Stevie curled up on her bed, until a car pulls up out front and all three other band members step out.
“Remember, nothing about last night,” I say.
He nods and I stand, walking to the door. I don’t have the energy to talk about it with anyone. I want to have tonight, one night that I can perform. A night that I’ve dreamt of since I was a little girl. A night my father hoped would never come, and now I wonder if it was more about the environment than my abilities. The groping around drunks. He saw how it was for him, and he probably knew it would be worse for me.
I hadn’t disappointed him while he was alive. I steered away from music, met a businessman who wanted to take care of me, helped Mom out at the dental office, and saved enough to pay my own way through college. He was proud of me—but it wasn’t the real me.
I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m on stage, and I’ve never felt more at home than when I write my music. If my dad saw that, he didn’t care, or it hadn’t mattered as much as stability had.
I open the door and Cline holds a six-pack of beer under his arm.
“Cline, it’s barely noon,” I say as he walks in.
“It’s almost four,” he says.
I’ve lost track of time, sitting with Stokes and Stevie, my new safe place.
“Five o’clock somewhere.” Royal carries Lucie’s keyboard past me into the living room and she follows him with a plate wrapped in tinfoil.
“You guys ready to learn a new song?” Stokes asks as Stevie circles their feet.
“Who wants coffee? Or water?” I ask.
“I’ll have a water,” Lucie says. “Gotta stay hydrated before tonight. It’s gonna be epic!”
Cline passes Royal a beer and they crack them open.
“I brought Mika’s peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies,” Lucie says. “Mika was disappointed you weren’t coming over.”
“Will Mika be at the show tonight?” Royal asks.
She nods with a smile. “Remember, she’s the Stanley Hotel twin to my Stanley Hotel twin.”
I walk to the kitchen and pour water from the filter into a glass and coffee into a mug and let Stevie out in the back yard before I bring them their drinks.
As I wait for Stevie, I imagine Alex using his key to let himself in the house… but the key is for the front door. Did he use it on the front and leave through the back suddenly and just forget to close it? Or did he leave it open on purpose, to scare me, and throw me off his tracks because their spare key is for the front door?
I let Stevie in, and she follows me down the long hallway. As I enter the room, Cline smiles.
“Cline found the one,” Stokes says, and Lucie nods.
I bite my lip and take a deep breath. “What’s it called?”
If it has a name, it’s one of mine, but if not, it’s Pascha’s. If they pick hers again, what will I do? Should I take it as a sign that nothing I write is good enough? Should I stop trying to share my songs?
Or do I just accept the fact that my songs aren’t right for them—but they mean everything to me. Is that enough?
“Scope—” Stokes says. “Scopaesthesia?”
Mine. It’s mine and I wish it weren’t the one they picked.
“I wrote that one last night,” I mutter.
When I was scared, before my fears were confirmed and I was terrified out of my mind. They want me to sing it in front of the crowd tonight and I can barely get up the courage to discuss what’s been happening with me to anyone but Stokes and the Hildens, and I shouldn’t have told them—I bet he did feed off it.
“It’s great,” Lucie says. “Perfect for our show. We’d put it right in the middle, after the couple breaks up for the first time.”
“And you’d sing it solo,” Cline says.
“Just me?”
Stokes looks up from reading the notebook, his eyes wide. “If you’re comfortable with it. We can choose another song if you’re not. Maybe we should choose another one—”
“Nah,” Royal says. “It’s perfect. It’s got Halloween vibes written all over it.”
I wanted to sing something about my father. About loss and pain.
But this is pain. This is loss—loss of my privacy and peace. Maybe loss of my right mind. And the pain… it goes deeper than mine. It’s what happened to my dad, too…
“I’ll do it.”
“Great.” Lucie picks up a cookie. “I’ve got a tune in my mind, but will you sing it as I go here? How you had it in your head while you were writing?” She takes a bite of the cookie and releases an “mmm”.
When I wrote it, I was so full of fear, I barely remember the process.
“You really don’t have to,” Stokes says.
“What?” Royal frowns. “You said it was your only stipulation for joining the band, Lyn. Now you don’t want to?” He turns to Stokes. “And you don’t want
