When I sang, none of it mattered.
I was not an emotional person. I hadn’t cried since I was thirteen. Not really. I made a promise to myself then when my life had been awash in tears that I wouldn’t be one of those people. The kind of person who would cry uncontrollably when something bad happened, but two days later be walking around like nothing had changed. Crying was for moments of such drastic pain that you had to let it out, had to shed the dead skin on your soul so that you could breathe. I still had my life, so I refused to cry over stupid shit like boyfriends and parents. I was good at turning off the pain. The only time I let it out was when I sang.
When the strings on my guitar vibrated and notes rose from my lungs, I felt the good and the bad, the hope and the devastation. I felt it all.
Sometimes in the morning, I am petrified, and can’t move
Awake but cannot open my eyes.
I sang about the weight of expectation and toxic relationships and lost innocence. I sang about the way depression can curl over your head like a wave, pulling you under so far that you don’t know which way is up and where to go to breathe.
The song unspooled something inside of me and deflated all the pressures of the day. This was what my parents didn’t get. They wanted me to give this up, get a job, and a steady paycheck. Mom said she’d never be able to really relax until her baby girl was all taken care of, which to her meant a husband and a job and a bun in the oven. But then it would be me who was never relaxed.
They wanted me to be the perfect daughter Alex was supposed to have been. But I wasn’t Alex. I’d tried to be that for them . . . tried to fill the void she left behind. I spent four years of high school playing the good girl, the popular girl, but it was never real. I always screwed something up, and then they would look at me like I hadn’t just disappointed them, I’d somehow disgraced Alex too by failing to live up to her memory.
Just living with them had been like suffocating, like all the air had been sucked from the house leaving only grief behind.
I got so twisted and wound up and smothered by life.
Music unraveled me.
It kept me sane then, and it keeps me sane now.
After that song we moved on to one by the Smiths, another by Laura Marling, and one by Metric. We covered everything from Radiohead to the Beatles, and then moved on to our original songs. Some were Spencer’s, but most were mine. The songs were all different, but they were all honest. When we finished the first run-through, we took a quick break. I headed to the bathroom because I needed a second.
I always needed a second to get the last of the emotion out, to bring the walls back up. Spencer got it. We’d known each other long enough that he gave me the space, but Mace was still learning. He followed me into the bathroom and pressed me up against the sink, his chest against my back.
His lips found my neck, and he moaned. He rocked his hips into me.
“God, you’re so hot when you sing. Let’s end practice early and go back to your place. Then I can make you sing on your bed, on the table, against the wall.”
All my emotions were still too close to the surface. The weight of him against my back felt crushing, and his hands on my wrists were like shackles. I met my own gaze in the mirror, and my eyes were wide and panicked. More than that, they were vulnerable . . . breakable. They were everything I never wanted to be. I squeezed my eyes shut and something in me snapped. I pushed my elbow into his middle, turned, and shoved him backward. He wasn’t expecting it, and he stumbled back and slammed into one of the stall doors. The noise echoed through the bathroom, and Mace yelled, “What the fuck, Max?”
I stood there blinking, my mouth hanging open. I knew I should be sorry, but I wasn’t. I was breathing and in control and that was what mattered. Mace stood and brushed off his pants. His mouth was a thin blade, and his eyes were bullets. “Well?” he yelled, and I battled off a flinch.
I couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t explain why. Damn, if he knew me even half as well as Spence, he would know to stay the hell away. My breath still came strong, like I was catching up. I said, “You can’t come over. My parents are still in town.” I didn’t say that technically they were at a hotel. I just needed space for the night.
“So you fucking push me? What’s your deal today?”
The same deal as every day. Singing just opens me up, and I can’t hide it as well.
“Mace, I’m sorry.” Sorry that I was so fucked-up I couldn’t have a simple conversation. “I just . . . I need a couple minutes to myself. Do you mind?”
He shook his head, bewildered, and said, “Sure, take the whole damn day. I’m out.”
“Mace, I—”