Page 38 of Every Shattered Note
She lets out a slow groan.“Define rough.”
“That sound you just made was a good start.”
She picks up a napkin, folds it, and then refolds it, like the crisp corners might somehow coax the rest of her life into place.
“It’s just ...a lot.Everything feels like it’s happening at once, and none of it’s going according to plan.I know I should be used to that by now, but I still want things to work.Need them to.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I say softly.“Being the one who holds the whole thing together.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, and for a moment, something tightens in her expression—pain, maybe.Frustration.A kind of quiet defeat disguised beneath lipstick and good posture.
“I don’t know how to stop,” she says quietly.
I get that.Too well.
“Stopping feels like failure,” I tell her.“Like the second you let go, everything collapses—and it’ll be your fault.”
Her eyes widen, just a fraction.“You get it.”
I nod.“More than I’d like to admit.”
The silence that follows isn’t awkward.It should be—we barely know each other, and I’m sitting here peeling back layers like it’s your typical Tuesday night.But it’s not uncomfortable.It’s something else.
Close.
Like we’re on the edge of something neither of us meant to find but don’t want to walk away from yet.
“You ever feel like you built your life for other people?”she asks.“Like every decision you made was just so someone else wouldn’t be disappointed?”
“Totally get that feeling,” I say.“I made a whole career out of it.”
She looks at me like she wants to ask.Maybe she doesn’t know how.It’s probably killing her to learn if this Rafe guy has a last name or why he had all that equipment today.I heard something about a philharmonic dropout or something.
One day soon, I have to tell her, right?Not sure when.She’ll probably ...I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out and maybe that’s the one thing that scares me a lot.
“Why here?”she asks instead, glancing around at the stained ceiling tiles and buzzing lights.
I shrug.“It’s comfortable.My grandfather used to bring me here a lot.”
She nods slowly.“I could use more of that.Comfort.”
Our food arrives, and for a while, we just eat.
She listens as I talk about my grandfather, who was a musician and taught me everything I know.The instruments he could play.The ones he bought just so I could learn them too.
Then she tells me about her family.About how her mother left, and she spent most of her childhood trying to keep everything from falling apart because her dad had already checked out.Probably the reason her mom disappeared in the first place.
She gets it.The abandonment.
The need to be enough for people who never told you what that looked like.
The ache of trying so hard and never knowing if you were ever close to being that person they needed.
Learning about her feels different.Like something real.Something I’ve never really done before—not like this.Not when no one’s watching.Not when no one’s asking me to perform.
It almost feels like a first date, I think.
Not that I’d know what that’s supposed to feel like.When I was young, everything blurred together—late nights, bad decisions, faces I barely remembered.After fame hit, any “date” I had was pre-arranged and came with press releases and photo ops, scheduled like PR appointments meant to convince the world I was a decent man.A headline.A myth people could still root for.
