Inspire (The Muse #1)(66)
Author: Cora Carmack

I’ve been miserable to be around lately. I’ve been wavering between writing and playing love songs and depressing heartbreak songs. But music was the place I could get closest to her, whether I was singing about the good or the bad she made me feel.

“I don’t know. There’s just a lot I don’t understand, and I have no idea what happens next.”

What if she’s gone for good this time? How long can I make excuses to drive through her neighborhood? How long can I drag up the pain and write about it before I forget how to push it back down when I’m done? Or worse … how long until I’m numb to it? Until it becomes harder to remember her altogether.

“Will you at least be at the gig tomorrow?” Bridget asks. “I get that playing rock songs isn’t exactly your vibe at the moment, but this one pays really well.”

It goes unspoken that it’s money she needs. Hell, we all need it. It’s not one of our usual jobs. We’re filling in for another band we know at one of the bigger bars in town. If we could get a permanent spot on their roster, it would be a good break for us.

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

When I go by Kalli’s house, her car is nowhere to be found. I knock on her door just in case, but no one answers. Not that I’m surprised. I stay for a while, scratching out lyrics on an empty page in one of my class spirals.

It’s always push and pull with you, push and pull

And it’s hard, baby, not to feel like I’m the fool

I’m fighting battles in a war I don’t understand

I’m losing speed, honey, here’s where I crash land

I just want to know you, honey. Let me know you.

There’s not a thing I wouldn’t go through.

I shake myself. Scared I’ll break myself

But I can’t shake you. I don’t want to.

I’m caught up, turned around

Inside out, and upside down

Just to know you, honey. All to know you.

I’ll spin a little faster. Dive a little deeper.

Crash a little harder, anything to keep her

Her taste is my drug, and her lips are my dealer.

I shake myself. Scared I’ll break myself

But I can’t shake you. I don’t want to.

I’m caught up, turned around

Inside out, and upside down

Just to know you, honey. Let me know you.

I don’t know how to win this war I’m losing

I’m swinging at air, babe, and come back bruising

I’m outnumbered in a fight against none

Planting my feet just to watch you run

I’m caught up, turned around

Inside out, and upside down

You’re the last thing I see as I hit the ground

Oh, I know you, honey. Too late to show you.

Eventually, I climb back into my car and leave. But I don’t think I can spend the night in my bed. Not with the memories that are there. I need a break from the fight. So I head to my mom’s place. It’s late, and both she and Gwen are already asleep by the time I come in.

I bypass the couch because it belongs to Kalli in my mind, too. Instead, I head for Gwen’s room. She’s taken Kalli’s absence almost as hard as I have. In the beginning, I told her that Kalli had just taken a trip. But the longer she was gone, the harder it was to tell that lie. When I finally broke down and told my sister that she was gone and might not be coming back, Gwen had cried uncontrollably. Harder even than losing dad. I don’t know if it’s because she’d grown to love Kalli too, or if it was just the toll of losing another person.

I nudge her door open, and she’s curled up into a tiny ball on one corner of her bed. I take a weary breath and kick off my shoes before climbing into bed beside her small frame. She wakes when the mattress jostles, and blinks up at me. But she doesn’t say anything, just rolls over and lays her head on my stomach instead of her pillow.

I rub her back until her breaths even out again, and I’m sure she’s asleep. Then I stuff my arm beneath her pillow, and let myself fall, too.

“You ready?” Rook thumps a hand against my back, and I shrug in reply. He sighs. “I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through. I don’t know shit about getting my heart broken. But I do get what it’s like to feel like all the things that are supposed to be good have rotted around you.”

Fuck. Rook never talks about his family. If he’s bringing that up, I really need to pull my head out of my ass. “I’ll survive,” I tell him, even though it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. I don’t know the timeline on a broken heart, and mine is well past broken. It’s been cracked and pummeled and ground down into dust, and all I’ve got left is the empty hollow where it used to be.

“Bridge and Owen ready?” I ask.

“Yeah. Bridge is decked out like some kind of erotic cat woman.” I laugh. Great. “Owen is in a bow tie.”

“So, relatively normal?”

“Exactly. It’s not too busy yet. The weather is keeping people from coming out, I think.”

Thunderstorms have been moving through the city for most of the day, and as a result the streets are wet and the sky has been dark since mid-afternoon. Maybe it will let up, and some more people will decide to go out for the night. Or maybe it won’t. I’m having trouble caring, even though I know this gig is a big deal for us.

“You feel okay with the set?” Rook asks.

Normally, I would have done that. But Rook said I wasn’t to be trusted with picking music that won’t make people want to dive headfirst off a building. So I let him take it this time. “Yeah, I looked through it last night. We should be good.”

“Well, I added a few extras on there to be safe. So, if you get to one, and there’s something you want to skip, just let us know.”

“Got it.”

“That song you sent me last night …”

“What about it?

“We could give it a try.”

I lift an eyebrow. “I thought depressing stuff was off limits.”

“The way you imagined it, I’m sure it was a downer. But there’s some grit to it. We could rough it up a bit. Get a little angry. Do it a little like that song we wrote in high school. What was that poetic title we gave it? Oh yeah, Fuck It All.”

I laugh. “That song was awful.”

“Hey speak for yourself. The words sucked, yeah.” I punch him in the arm. “But the music wasn’t bad. It could work.”

When I continue to stare at him skeptically, he sings a couple lines. His voice is gruffer than mine, deeper too.