Imani was just supposed to make sure that the lost dog got home safely, come back, and pretend like the mere thought of the owner with doe eyes and an armful of tattoos didn't make her question her entire belief system. Sounds simple enough...right...
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(tw: mention of self harm)
A week passes by in the blink of an eye.
With my fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee and the silence of the morning wrapped around the kitchen, I think about last night; the blanket of serenity that always weaves itself over us when we go back on schedule.
Sean had been quiet—quieter than usual—the entire week. He's never been a man of many words, speaking only when required or when directly addressed (partly the reason why I had been so intimidated by him when I had first joined the band). We've now known him long enough to not take his impassivity personally, but this time, the hush in his presence had felt different. Subdued.
His pain had been glaringly obvious ever since Juni yelled at him, but as much as the four of us wanted to reach out, we know better than to bother him when he wants to keep to himself. Especially when he isn't feeling like himself.
But last night as Layla had been scrolling through new modeling gigs on her laptop, Juni's head in her lap as their sharp eyes assess their Academy students' choreography playing on the phone held directly over their head (only to have it fall and smack their nose a few minutes after, obviously), things had felt normal. Especially with Ved sitting quietly beside me in the corner, watching me as I practiced the guitar for our performance at the bar this weekend.
And Sean had finally come out of his room. Guitar in hand. Eyes less tired. Music sheet held between his lips. He'd made his way straight to the two of us and sat down beside him without a word, and the entire room had released a silent breath of relief.
Except now that the worry for my friends has washed itself out, there's space for nervousness. Hot, burning anxiety for our performance at one of the biggest bars in the city. Barely four days from now.
We'd performed there half a month ago, and apparently the regulars had demanded a comeback. I hadn't really thought much of how that day was supposed to go—we had gone with a simple Mr. Brightside cover to begin, not much different from the original, really—but after one extra cover on public demand that later turned into two, then three, and then four, I had realized in the middle of an instrumental solo, sweat dripping down my temple, eyes staring straight into Layla's as her hands ceaselessly worked the drums, identical grins on our faces, that these people liked us.
They liked us enough to order more drinks just so they could stay longer. Liked us enough to scream and clap and cheer and sing along. And most importantly, they liked us enough to want us back.
Which does nothing to quell the panic rising all the way from the bottom of my stomach to my chest; one single little thought about how a single chord struck wrong could make things go wrong for all five of us spreading like a drop of black dye in a bowl of water inside my head.
It's a sick realization, albeit a regular one, that all of my fears and insecurities from all of the years in my life that I spent trying to make people stay, are now compressed and packed into one thing—the fear of disappointing.
