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He’s acting like it’smewho walked out onhim.
“All right,” Ben says as he perches on one of the stools with his bass in his lap. “We’re going to be working on songs from the first three albums for the show, as well as some from the latest two. We want to lean on older songs to hit the crowd with that sense of nostalgia.”
I nod and look at the stand with the sheet music in front of me. “I remember most of the songs.”
But I’m still worried about screwing them up. It’s been so long since I played any of them.
“We’re going to be hitting the ground running,” Matt says as he flips his drumsticks high in the air. “We want to make this a memorable show. These are the fans who have supported us since the beginning. We want to sing the songs that they know the best.”
I grit my teeth and plaster on a fake smile. These are the fans who supported me. They’re the ones who were outraged to learn that I was leaving the band. They were the fans I lost because everyone in this room turned against me.
I still don’t know how to feel about that.
Even as I sit here with the three of them, I don’t know what to say. Matt and Ben called me after the meeting where I was let go. They apologized and said they’d had no real say in the matter. It was either kick me out of the band or they could lose it all. They had to play the game the record execs wanted.
Tyler is different, though. He always has been. I haven’t heard a word from him since the day I was kicked out.
He could have prepared me for what was coming that day. He could have stayed the night and told me in the morning. Instead, he chose to sleep with me and then screw me over.
I don’t know how I can sit in the same room with him and pretend that everything is fine. I’m going to do it because the money I’m getting from this is life-changing.
But being around him every single day is going to feel like tearing my heart into little strips before lighting it on fire.
“Why don’t we start with practicing ‘The Long Night’ before moving onto ‘Killer Heart’?” Ben asks as Tyler crosses the room to stand in front of the microphone. “After that, we can see where the music takes us.”
Tyler scoffs and drops one shoulder. “Doesn’t matter what we start with. She’s going to be rusty, and the songs aren’t going to sound like they should.”
“What you mean is that they aren’t going to be full of your improvised solos,” Matt says, his tone sharp. “With Cassie back, the crowd might actually be able to sing along with the songs without being confused when you decide that you need yet another moment in the spotlight.”
“For what it’s worth,” I say, reaching forward to turn the sheet music to ‘The Long Night.’ I glance over at Tyler to see his back to me. “I’m sure that I’m going to be rusty. It’s been a long time since I played in a band.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Ben tunes his bass, not bothering to acknowledge the look Tyler gives him. “We’re all a little rusty. We avoid most of the songs from the early days and focus on the newer stuff instead. We’ve all got some practicing to do.”
I take a deep breath as Matt starts to play. Ben comes in with the bass as I strum the first few chords. The edges of my vision blur with tears as Tyler starts to sing. I stuff down the emotion the best that I can.
This entire experience is bittersweet. These are the songs that I wrote with Tyler in college. It was back when we knew that we were going to be something but we didn’t know what yet.
When Ben and Matt joined the band, it felt like we had found something special. All the elements of Gilded Cage came together perfectly, and we were ready to move on together. We spent days writing and recording songs. We worked on harmonies and lyrics until our voices were raw.
And then they took all the songs we wrote together and the second family I found, and they tore it apart to make themselves more famous than we already were. They used me and then decided they no longer needed me.
At least, that’s what Tyler did.
He was all too eager to step up and take guitar when the White Hot executives wanted me gone.
I can be angry about that later. Right now, I need to focus on relearning the songs and blending back in with the band.
It’s just one show. I can get through one show.
A few hours later, my hands ache and my throat is raw. All I want is to go home and sink deep in a bubble bath. Maybe sleep for a thousand years before our next rehearsal in two days.
Being around Tyler for this long has drained all the energy out of me.
“You’re not leaving already, are you?” a pretty redhead asks from the front porch. The baby on her hip gurgles and waves her fat little fists. “I’m Kennedy. Ben’s wife. Although, I doubt that you all talked about anything other than music.”
If someone else had said that I would have thought that it was an insult. Kennedy says it with a smile and a hint of admiration. She sees her husband’s passion and she’s supportive of it.
I’m glad that Ben has someone like her in his life. He deserves to be happy.
