Fourth time through the song, he switched to “Closer,” then to “In the A.M.,” then to “Deified.” By the time he’d run through those a couple of times, his biceps were burning, his hands throbbing. And still he didn’t stop.
Instead, he switched on the recorder he always kept next to his drum kit and started wailing away, playing the beat that had been in his head since he’d seen Poppy waiting for him in her doorway last night, arms open and face welcoming. The melody had started then, in the back of his head, and by the time he’d had her up against the wall it had been a towering crescendo of drumbeats that he couldn’t ignore even if he’d wanted to.
Which he hadn’t. It had been too long since music had burned inside him like that.
He played the song through the way he heard it, keeping a fast thirty-two-beat rhythm on the hi-hat while he worked the snare, the bass, and the floor tom in alternating rhythms. It sounded good, really good, and as he banged out a long, elaborate fill on the toms and crash cymbals, he knew he was onto something.
Though all he was doing was laying down the beat, he could hear the song in his head so clearly. Jared coming in with a quiet but pure guitar presence while Quinn took front and center with his keyboards. Bass—whoever the fuck that turned out to be—would hang back with Wyatt, playing low to underscore. And Ryder…fuck, Ryder’s voice would own this song. He would destroy it. Just the thought sent excitement rioting through him.
Usually, Wyatt and Quinn were the music guys, while Ryder and Jared did most of the lyrics. Every once in a while, though, a song would come to him fully formed, like “Seventeen Again” had, an early version of the lyrics tearing through his head even as he pounded away at the drums.
This song was like that, the words running through his brain like a rain-swollen river, pouring out of him as fast and powerfully as the music had. Even knowing they weren’t perfect, he sang them aloud, let the recorder get every syllable.
When it was over, he ran through the song over and over again while everything was still fresh in his mind. Playing and singing, singing and playing, until his shirt was drenched in sweat and his arms felt like they were going to fall off.
And still he played. Still he wailed away at the drums like the demons of hell were after him. Or worse, like the sins of his past had finally caught up to him after all the years he’d run and all the drugs he’d used to keep them at bay.
And maybe they had. Maybe they had.
Since he couldn’t do anything about it, he played instead.
Long after sweat rolled into his eyes and poured down his face.
Long after his shoulders and biceps and pecs cramped up.
Long, long after blisters formed between his fingers.
He played and played and played, like these drums were the only thing standing between him and hell. And like getting this one song right was his only chance at salvation.
At one point, the blister on his right index finger cracked open and started to bleed. He grabbed one of the clean towels he always kept next to the kit, tore a strip off it, and kept playing. When his left index finger followed suit a couple of minutes later, he did the same thing. And then he played through that, too.
The pain was there, his nerve endings sending agonized alerts to his brain, but he ignored them. Compartmentalized them. Put them in a part of his brain he didn’t need to access to play, and then concentrated on the music. On the beat. Right now, it was the only thing that mattered.
The knuckles at the top of his already injured hand went next, busting through the skin and scattering drops of blood on the pure white drum heads with each hit of the stick on the skin. But because he couldn’t do anything about these wounds, he ignored them. Just like he ignored the burn in his middle fingers as the skin and flesh slowly, agonizingly got worn away.
Hours passed, and still he played like his life—and his soul—depended on it. He didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t stop, not when the music just kept coming, just kept pouring through him like it used to in the old days. Like it hadn’t done in way too long. And now that he’d found it again, there was no way he was giving up on it, no way he was just getting up and walking away from it because it made him hurt. Because it made him bleed.
This pain was nothing, less than nothing. Not compared to everything that had come before it. And not compared to what he hoped, prayed, would come after it.
The longer he played, the worse the bleeding got, and he either wiped it away or ignored it as it spattered the hi-hat, the snare, the toms. But then—just as he was working out a huge, ascending drum riff for the end of the new song, it happened. The skin at the edge of his hand, right below his pinkie fingers, gave way, and blood went from splattering to gushing over the drum heads.
Fuck.