He scoffed. “It wasn’t mine. Found out way before she even gave birth.”
Love’s eyes grew wide like she hit a wall she hadn’t seen coming. Her face dimmed with disbelief. She looked as if confusion was something that weighed heavy on her, then she exhaled. The tears fell freely from her face as the silence grew between them.
Zay put his head down and quickly wiped a tear that threatened to spill from his eyes. His lips pressed into a thin line, then parted again like he might speak, but nothing came out. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
He finally tilted his head up at her, and suddenly, he no longer saw the grown woman that was controlled and poised that he had grown to know over the past few months. Now, he only saw that same teenage girl that had once been his entire world. The girl that had carried a piece of him without him for all these years without him ever knowing.
He didn’t yell again. He just stepped back.
“I need to go.”
She nodded, and tears slipped quietly down her cheek. “Okay.”
He gave her one final look, hurt and heavy, then walked away.
Love stood in the hallway, alone again.
This time, she let herself break.
AllMineFinalFINAL.MP3
Zay hadn’t leftthe studio for three days straight.
He took the next flight back to Los Angeles the same night he arrived at the soundstage. He figured that he had more than enough material to complete the score of the project, and he no longer needed to sit to hear any more table reads. That, and he wasn’t prepared to hear any more surprises. His heart couldn’t possibly take another. He poured out everything to Kam on the flight, talking non-stop, shouting, crying, and pausing between sentences the whole way home. Kam didn’t judge; he just sat and took it all in. When they landed, he gave Zay a long hug, one thata big brother would give to his younger sibling in a crisis, and they parted ways.
When he finally made it home, the sun rose and set without asking his permission for the next few days. Meals went uneaten, texts went unanswered. He sat hunched over the piano, hoodie pulled low, headphones stretched tight over his ears as he looped the same melody over and over, chasing something he couldn’t quite name—only could feel deep in his soul.
This wasn’t about finishing a track anymore.
This was about her.
About the baby he never held. The birthday parties he never knew to show up for. The silence that grew between him and Princess like vines on a house that used to feel like home.
He didn’t cry anymore; he let the keys do it.
They wept under his hands, soft at first then thunderous, like grief that poured into sound. He stacked harmonies like prayers and layered strings so thick that they pressed on his chest. His voice cracked on the mic more than once, and for once, he didn’t re-record it. He wanted the pain to live there, to breathe there.
This was still the same song that he started when he was just seventeen, but it was just a loop and a line back then, something about forever not being long enough.
Now, it had verses. Now, it had truth.
Every lyric poured from him like it had been waiting in his bloodstream all along. He sang about a girl with a crooked smile who changed his whole world in a Detroit summer. About walking away too fast. About what he would’ve done if he’d known he left more than just her behind.
He rapped it like it was the only way he could say sorry.
By the time he played it back, 3:42 a.m. on the third night, he sat still in the dark and stared at the blinking green light, listening to the final note fade.
It was finally done, but it didn’t feel like an ending. It felt more like something beginning.
The door creaked open behind him, and Kam stepped in, quiet but not sneaky. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed but didn’t bother saying hello.
Zay heard him but didn’t turn to greet him. He just hit play again.
Kam stepped in, closed the door behind him, and stood in place. He didn’t speak until the final chorus passed. His head tilted slightly as the last harmony broke over the beat like a wave.
“Damn,” he whispered. “That’s a hit.”
Zay didn’t move. He didn’t answer nor look back. He hit the spacebar and looped the track again, once more.
