It was my nightly routine.
I started the car and slowly pulled away from the curb, watching out the corner of my eye as my phone once again lit up. I smiled before reaching over and hitting ignore, one last time.
The text finally came. My signal that for tonight, this small attempted connection was over.
I didn’t need to read it. It was the same every time.
I’m here. Always.
“Hey, Elian,” Margie called out as I entered the shop the next morning. I gave her a smile. A lifting of my hand in a friendly wave. Giving her just enough but not much.
“Hey tiger. George has been asking where you were. Late night?” Tate asked, looking up from his workstation in the back studio. He had several pieces of Mahogany on his tabletop ready to be sanded and finished.
“Nah, nothing like that. Just overslept. You know how it goes,” I told him non-committedly. Unconcerned. Unbothered.
Tate looked ready to say more but I cut him off. I wasn’t in the mood for ten rounds of evading his adolescent curiosity.
“What does George want?”
Tate, easily distracted, returned to his work. “Someone was asking about the star guitar you made. George wanted to talk with you about it.”
My stomach flipped over and I felt a little nauseous.
I had agonized over that piece for weeks. Starting and stopping it a dozen times. It was my most impressive instrument to date. I had been extremely reluctant to part with it once it was finished. George had claimed it. Taken it. It didn’t belong to me anymore.
I had wanted to hurt George. Badly.
But in the end, I had handed the guitar over and let him hang it on the wall, putting a price tag on my soul.
None of these people understood what it cost me to make that guitar. They didn’t understand what that star did to me every time I saw it.
Layna saw it.
I remembered her reaction at seeing the nautical star on the headstock and I had felt momentarily paralyzed.
What did she know?
“I guess I should go find him.” I dropped my phone and bag on my table and walked out into the show room.
George was straightening the music books in the case and motioned me over.
“Everything okay? Margie said you were running late. That you were tired.” I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood.
Sharp, tangy copper filled my mouth and I swallowed. I slid my eyes towards Margie, who was helping a customer. Her purposeful innuendo was as obvious as it was pathetic.
Clearly our relationship, whatever it was, had reached the end of its usefulness.
“I’m fine,” I told my boss, making a note to talk to Margie later. I had to give myself time to put together the words I would say to let her down without making her hate me. An art I had become adept at over the years.
George crossed the room, and I followed him to the high-end guitars that lined the far wall. He flicked his fingers in the direction my star guitar. “Someone came in and purchased that guitar this morning. They paid over the asking price, which I thought was odd. But that means you’re getting a hefty commission.” George grinned, thinking his news would make me happy.
The need to punch him resurfaced with an angry vengeance.
“You sold it,” I remarked through clenched teeth. My eyes fixed on the carefully carved star. Tattooed on my brain. Branded on my heart.
Aching. Hurting. Burning.
I felt the tears. The pain.
It was all there. Never going away.
When would it go away?
“Never waste your tears, Elian. Keep them for when it counts.”
“Did you hear me?” George barked, annoyed by my lack of attention.
“What?” I asked, still staring at the star. My guitar. Made from my blood. Now gone forever.
“Once she picks it up I’ll cut you the check. One thousand clams for you to squander however you see fit. Babes. Blow. Whatever,” George chuckled, clasping me on the shoulder.
“She?” I asked, strangely lightheaded