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Walking around him, I grab his drum sticks from the pouch, and bring them over to him.
“The first song. We’ll start with that. Think you can make something of it?”
Waylon rolls his eyes, and hands me back my guitar, exchanging it for the sticks. “Please.”
“For someone who likes to deny they’re a savant, you sure are fucking cocky,” I say.
His lip curves up as he sits behind his drums. “Because it drives you batshit.”
Not waiting for a response, he points a stick at Shawn. “Just start playing.
Shawn nods, and kicks off the first song, as Waylon wiggles around, getting comfortable. “Are you just gonna gush over us like a groupie, or are you gonna fucking join us?”
“Funny,” I say, bringing the guitar up, and easily melding in with Shawn’s playing. I wasn’t lying before when I said I know in response to Waylon saying I got better. More confident too…
Mastering the guitar has pretty much consumed me these last three months.
And Shawn’s actually a pretty good fucking teacher. Or we just click. Who knows?
Waylon nods, and starts tapping out a beat.
And I imagine it—what this would sound like with an electric guitar instead.
A bass mixed in.
Keyboard…
Shaking my head, I play harder, with more intensity and grit, not holding back. The days of numb, bruised fingers are mostly forgotten; the sensitive skin replaced by thick callouses.
Humming, I let the music work its way through my body. Pulsing in my temples…my chest. It floods my veins, like I’m a conduit—music in, music out.
Lyrics I’d been working on, tweaking and piecing together into the later hours for months now, work their way up my throat.
I’ve always known I could sing.
I guess in a way, like Waylon and his magical ear, it’s just something I don’t really think about or brag about, because…where would it get me?
I just always figured mastering a single instrument would open more doors.
I never actually expected to be a performer for a living. It’s not realistic. It’s why I was going to major in education, and minor in music theory.
But then everything changed.
My voice is low and raspy at first, growing stronger as I become more confident as I sing about siren songs and voids with claws; lost love and a nameless hunger.
And what happens between the three of us in this moment…
It can only be defined as magic.
No, it’s not perfect. Far from it.
We’ve got crap acoustics. No speakers or amps or mics. Nothing.
We’re raw and exposed, stripped down to the bare bones, with nothing but what’s inside us to rely on. Nothing but these withered hearts in our chest that refuse to quit. They pound and they pound—war drums beating out from the very depths of us, crying out as we charge into this nameless battle.
Everything we’ve been through…
Every gaping, rotted wound…
