Page 30 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
To lyrics about loss. Hers are about losing love but they’re so fitting to where my thoughts are after my dream. They make me feel less alone. Almost as if she understands.
And I fall back asleep to the sound of her voice and the comfort she oddly brings.
I play the same set of chords over and over, making minute adjustments with each strum to see which one works best with my lyrics.
“We drive into the dark.
Crash into the wall.
How do we find our way back from this endless free fall?”
I write down notes as I go on my three pads in front of me: one for the music, one for the lyrics, and one for anything else that comes into my mind that doesn’t work for this song but might work for another.
I move my fingers on the neck of the guitar and start to sing again. Just as the first line passes my lips, it dies off when I look up to see Grady standing and watching me from the doorway.
Did I forget to shut it?
“Hey.” His voice is quiet, his smile is soft, and there is sadness in his eyes when they meet mine. Or maybe it’s exhaustion. I can’t tell.
“Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were home or I would have shut the door. Did I wake you?”
“No, you’re fine. I got home a while ago. I had some stuff to take care of after my shift.” He takes a step into my room, and once he’s in the light, I can see how tired he is. It’s in his posture. His expression. He’s spent.
My mind whirls back to the little boy from the other day at the farmers’ market. Was that where he was? Why is he so secretive about it?
“He’s had a rough go of it lately.” I hear my brother’s words and bite my tongue to keep from outright asking him about the child and overstepping my boundaries.
“Did you have a good shift? Hopefully, it was uneventful.”
He shakes his head as if he’s mulling over the answer. “A house fire that burned itself out before we got there. Some medical assist calls. Nothing much.”
His words are simple enough, dismissive even, but there is something that has me taking note. “Everything okay?”
His expression—part confusion, part conflict, part uncertainty—tugs on every part of me that wants to fix whatever is wrong. “Yeah. Just . . . I went to the gym for a while to deal with it. Came home. Fell asleep exhausted, but now I can’t sleep at all.” He steps farther into the room, and I set the guitar down. “Don’t stop because of me.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something comforting about listening to you sing as you work through lyrics. I can’t really hear through the door, but I know you’re singing,” he explains, throwing me for a loop and making me suddenly self-conscious. “You have an incredible voice. Why aren’t you the one who sings?”
He moves to sit on the bed beside me, and for some reason, it causes the nerves to jitter inside me. “Because I don’t like the limelight. The attention.”
“Don’t like it or don’t want it?” He pokes my leg to prompt me to lift my head and meet his eyes.
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
“Not hardly. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It isn’t your thing. If you don’t want it, it’s because you know you’re good enough to sing but you don’t believe in yourself
enough to take the chance.” He lifts his eyebrows as if to ask me which one I fit into.
I stare at him for a moment as I mull over my answer, hating that he’s probably right about all of it, and I don’t want to admit it. “I’ve always been a songwriter. Not a performer . . . so that’s all I know how to do.”
The thought of being on stage makes me want to break out in hives. The staring eyes. The criticism. The constant feelings of inadequacy.
“Hmm,” he says, making my back straighten. “I think you know how to do both quite well. Aren’t singer-songwriters all the rage these days?”
“If that’s your thing.” I try to be vague so he’ll drop the topic. Just the thought of throwing myself out there to be torn down by fans makes my stomach churn.
“Can I sit and watch you work for a while?” The rejection is on my tongue immediately. No one has ever watched me work, except for Jett, but the words die when I see the look in his eyes. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be alone right now.
