AllFreeNovel
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The very thought of us talking to each other about feelings is probably as horrific to him as it is to me. I shake my head emphatically and his burly shoulders slump in relief.
“Music’s the best way to work through these sorts of things. And I’m not saying I’m taking you off the dinner slot.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “No one out there is singing like you when you’re fired up. You know that. I know that. Just…try to wake the crowd up a little next time.”
“I understand.”
I understand, but there’s not much to do about it. I just can’t perform like I used to—I’m not anywhere close to the person I used to be. I can’t grin and prance around onstage when it feels like my chest’s been ripped open. Gods, sometimes when I breathe I can feel every single one of my ribs. It’s like someone cracked me open and put me together wrong.
The other night, alone in bed, I’d tried to sing one of my happier songs. It sounded like someone dying.
“Excellent.” Ghildumal stretches as he stands and pats me on the back. “I know you artists are the temperamental sort. Just…switch up the temperament a bit.”
His lips part in what he must think is a smile, and I direct my own sad facsimile of a grin back towards him before he leaves.
I barely have enough time to sink into my chair before Rhovier is slamming the door behind her with a foreboding look on her face.
“What the fuck is going on with you?”
She doesn’t say it unkindly. She just looks baffled, and who could blame her? I have everything I ever wanted, right?
So what the fuck is wrong with me?
“And hello to you, too.”
“Oh, now’s the time for jokes? Not when you’re onstage?”
I want to tell her that my entire life is a joke. It’s hilarious. Here’s the story of a guy who got everything he ever wanted and more, but—and here’s the fun twist—all he ever wanted was a girl who disappeared before he could tell her that.
Now there’s one I should tell onstage.
“I spoke with Ghildumal. I’m working on it.”
“Yeah, I heard your little chat.” She whips her head around to a zagfer when he hands her a glass of wine. “Seriously? I asked for a refill five minutes ago. He’s gone now. Gods, can anyone in this shithole actually do their fucking jobs?”
“I’ll take it.” She’s already giving me a headache. The zagfer’s hand trembles as he hands me the wine, and it spills on my pants. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for spilling someone else’s wine all over you? Maybe that’s why you’re doing so awful. You don’t know how to discipline them.”
“They’re leather. Who gives a fuck, Rho?” I flick a bead of wine from my pants towards her just to make her scowl. “This is all on me. I’m the one fucking up. Don’t take it out on them just because you can.”
“Maybe another human,” she spits out the word like it tastes rancid. “The girl before was skilled, at least. We could train another.”
“No.”
It’s bad enough dealing with an empty dressing room. I can’t handle some sad attempt at a replacement. I’ll go mad.
Rhovier, with her engrained disdain of humans, thankfully doesn’t press the point. A human-free dressing room is her ideal work environment.
“I mean, you’ve been exploring your voice with slower songs, and it’s been great. But lately…”
No one has any idea that three days ago was the two year anniversary of Sienna’s disappearance. Not Rho, or the owner, or even Thenzi. Of course they wouldn’t. Most elves pay less attention to humans than to the zagfer milling about underfoot.
They think I’m bored or burnt out. Thenzi suspects I’ve fallen in and out of love, but with another elf. A married woman, he suspects. Maybe a fan that didn’t work out. He’s never put two and two together, even after I almost boarded a ship to search for her.
Why is the thought of me and her together so impossible to believe? It hadn’t seemed so complicated when we were together. It was natural. Jumping apart when my sister had walked in or pretending she was nothing more than an employee while I was onstage—that had felt less natural than kissing her.
“I haven’t been exploring my voice.” I look at Rho for a moment like she’s my sister, not my manager. I just need one person to understand. “Rho, I can’t sing anything else.”
My hand keeps fiddling with my pocket, tracing circles over the object I slipped inside them before I left this morning.
