Page 5 of Chasin’s Surrender

I plopped my ass down on the edge of an old wingback chair, curled my hand around the neck, and felt my soul settle.

This was what I needed.

Without thought, my fingers worked the fretboard, and on instinct, they found the chord shape. My eyes closed and my right hand plucked the strings, my left ring finger slid down to the third fret still holding a B. On the up strum it glided back up the second fret. From there, I was lost in the best song ever written.

And not for the first time, I thought that John Rzeznik was a genius. Then as I hummed along to a song I wished I’d written because I felt every word—every single one—in a place so deep and private it was mine and mine alone. Yet, I wished with everything inside of me there was someone I could share it with.

I got to the second verse, gave up humming, and started singing about a world that didn’t see me, a world that would never understand, and just like what happened with Chasin, everything was meant to be broken. Even if I wished with every cell in my body that he would’ve seen me, he didn’t. And just like Rzeznik’s lyrics, I didn’t need to fight the tears that weren’t coming.

I was used to this—this was my life.

No one saw me. Not even Bobby anymore, and she was not only my assistant but my best friend. She knew me before I was famous. She knew me when I was working two jobs, dead on my feet, trying to find my break.

But that was my fault.

On the surface everything was okay, she pretended right along with me that I hadn’t retreated so deep inside of myself, I was mostly gone. I sang, I wrote, I performed, but that was it. I was dead inside.

My parents had finally succeeded in killing the last twinkle of hope that there was something good out there for me. My parents were soul-sucking, money-hungry mooches. Drunken deadbeats who thought the world—meaning, first my father’s family, then me—owed them something.

My mom’s family had been dirt-poor, she’d married rich and thought she’d hit the jackpot with that, and she had. My grandparents were generous. Until my parents’ drinking got out of hand. They drank more and more, lost jobs, and turned into drunken, foul, nasty people, then my father’s family cut them off, and that meant I was cut off, too.

At ten, I didn’t know or care about money, all I knew was Granddad and Grandmom were gone. That was by my parents’ decree unless my grandparents paid for the privilege. No, that wasn’t right, Granddad could’ve saved me, but he didn’t.

So after all of that, my parents being the biggest assholes on the planet, and my granddad caring more about protecting himself than me, I had no family.

My uncle was cool enough to let me stay in his house, but that wasn’t because we were close, or he cared about me, it was simply because he didn’t care about the house. It had been left to him when my grandparents died. The house meant nothing to him and neither did I.

Family sucked.

Men sucked.

But in the end, I’d made it on my own.

I’d proved that I was better than the drunks who had raised me.

I worked hard, I was honest, and I was a good person.

And that was a little bit of all right in my book.

But still, no one saw me.

I finished the last line of the Goo Goo Dolls song, “Iris,” letting the final chord play, then I hung my head and stared at the worn floorboard under my bare feet and wondered why I wasn’t worthy.

I had more money than I could ever spend, my fans filled stadiums to hear me sing, I had people who would jump if I asked—not that I would because that was seriously yucky—but they’d jump and kiss my ass, and give me anything I wanted.

And not a single fucking one of them saw I was dying inside.

I just wanted someone to know who I was.

Me.

Genevieve.

I’d never have that. My money couldn’t buy it, my fame couldn’t get it for me, and since those were the only two things I had going for me, I was giving up. I was locking my need up tight where no one would ever know how lonely I was.

I slipped into Green Day’s, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” My mind blanked, my fingers moved, and my voice filled the house. Four minutes and twenty-three seconds later, my throat was raw when I set my baby back on her stand and slogged my way into the master and climbed into bed.

The sheets smelled like Chasin.