Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
So many musicians inspired me. Lately, it’s been the very man in front of me and the band behind him.
I went from truly disliking their music to knowing and seeing Wilder, and just like the rest of the world, I was a goner. It’s funny how you can like something more by just adoring the people who create it.
I stomp over to the corner and unlatch the case, lifting the lid. Matt’s perfect, amazing, gorgeous, out-of-this-world, lovely guitar is nestled safely on a bed of red fuzzy lining. “You’re the only one I know who wanted to just be human in a world of gods,” I whisper, half seething, half pouring out my heart.
“The haters think it’s all fake. Once a performer, always a performer.”
“Yeah, well, fuck the haters,” I grouch.
He gasps in delight behind me. It’s probably the first forceful, somewhat negative thing he’s ever heard me say.
I pick the guitar up carefully, just about every bit of me screaming to put it back down. This is a bad idea. Even if Matt doesn’t find out, I’ll feel like a sneak. I touched something of his without asking. Some part of me knows he’d tell me it’s fine. Matt is a good man. I really like him as a person, and I know he likes me just fine. But this still feels wrong, even if I do have Wilder’s permission.
I shouldn’t need anyone’s permission because I don’t even want to do this in the first place.
Why does that sound like an argument I’m losing inside my own head? Argh. Grumph. All the frustrated brain sounds.
I slip the acoustic’s black strap over my shoulder. It hangs a little lower than I’d like, but there’s no way I’m adjusting it. I’m already pretty much committing a felony here. It’s perfectly in tune, but there’s also no way I’d check. Again. Touching, bad. Touching, very bad.
I’m about to panic and get this thing off, get it back in its case, and tell Wilder to throw the damn journal out, when his eyes start to glow. Not in a creepy, creature of the night way. They light up, immediately changing from dark to soft. It’s the most intimate way Wilder has ever looked at me. My breath vaporizes out of my lungs, and my chest feels like it’s going to crush in on itself. I can’t move. There’s no playing, but I’m also not putting the guitar back. I just stand here, transfixed by the depth of emotion flooding the room already.
Fuck.
This is exactly what I knew would happen.
Why the ever-loving shit hell damn am I doing it then?
I’m still making incredibly charged eye contact, and it’s not like I can take it back. The panic is immediate and real.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckkkkkk.
I spin away so Wilder can’t read a single dangerous emotion off my face. Before I can think about it, I’m playing.
I don’t need the journal in front of me. I have every song memorized.
Now I get why people do this.
I lose myself. I’m not here on a tour bus, there’s no one outside this door, I’m not playing a sort of borrowed guitar, the world isn’t falling apart once this tour ends, my job isn’t in question, and my life isn’t going to crumble because I might never see Wilder again, which is even more horrible than thinking about loving him forever and him never knowing.
Wilder isn’t even in this room with me.
I’m here alone. It’s just me and the music.
My music. My pain, my love, my emotion. It’s me feeling nothing and everything, and I’m entirely free to do that.
There’s no sense of time or place.
Until there is.
When I crash back into my body and into reality, I realize I’ve played through several songs. Several. When I didn’t even want to play one. They’re out in the world now. They’re no longer just mine. I’ve bottled up all my pain and frustration, my generosity, humanity, compassion, kindness, and unrequited love, and I’ve just laid them all bare for the one person in the entire world who never should have heard me do it.
The silence that fills the small room is crushingly uncomfortable.
I hastily remove the guitar strap like it’s a big warty toad trying to kiss me to turn me into its mate. Although, would that really be so bad? Toads are awesome.
I gently put the guitar back into its case and shut the lid. The little latches click into place easily. My panic feels more contained now that the guitar has been put back, like everything that just happened can be tucked away as easily.
I angle around so I can steal a glance at Wilder’s face.
He’s in awe.
There’s no other term for it. He catches me looking, and I have to turn around fully or risk one of those weird I see you, but I’m pretending I don’t see you maneuvers that would make me look even more guilty.