Timbre: The Internship

One Paige at a time

Note: Let me introduce you to Paige, all even chapters (unless stated) will be written from Paige’s POV. The rest are Justin’s.

 

“Where is that noise coming from?” Sounding groggy from too much sobbing and over thinking last night.

I look at my phone but no one was calling. Maybe I should check my other phone, the untraceable one. Now where in this blizzard of a mess is it? It became literally “untraceable”.

“Pick it up Paige, get it together and don’t think about that lying, cheating, two faced maniac… Just look for that stupid phone. Now I’m consoling myself? Way to g--”  Finally I found the untraceable piece of junk. I answered the call without looking since it was programmed to receive calls from one number only.

“Hello.  What’s the matter? “

“Oh yeah, good morning to you too. I’m sorry I had a rough night. So why’d you call?”

“Hmmm.  So you heard about that huh? Yes, I’m not returning next semester.” After confirming, a tsunami of questions reached the shore that is my right ear..

“No, no.. I was NOT failing, I was actually very good, kind of stood out.”

“Also, no…nobody was bullying me, what am I a fourth grader?”

“I’m not pregnant! Didn’t we talk about this already?” What is this? Mid terms? I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.

“What the hell are you talking about? I do not have a brain tumor! “

“Shhh.Shhh. Listen…Listen to me.” Breathe in… Breathe out…You can do this Paige.

 “It’s just that, if am not gonna start doing this now, then it’ll be too late.”

“No, I’m not being stupid. I am never stupid. I’ve thought this through. Please don’t get mad.”

“This is the gutsiest I’ve ever been. Can’t you just be happy for me?”  There was an abrupt silence on his side of the line, I have to say something to just break the awkwardness.

“But I’m really sorry you had to find out from the dean. It must have been embarrassing. “

I close my eyes and I take another deep breath before blurting out another bomb.

“Uhm, and one more thing…Gerry, the wedding’s off. Theo and I broke up.”

 I know a tsunami will swarm again, but I have to speak once and for all.

“What I meant with “ the wedding’s off” is that my boyfriend for 5 years cheated on me with my best friend, in the house where we were supposed to live in after our wedding which we have been planning for 3 months now, on the bed where we were supposed to….” I gnash my teeth at the thought, trying to hold back unsolicited tears.

“I don’t even wanna talk about it.” I can feel that he is shocked. He knew Theo, or at least he thought he did. It was the same for me.

Then he initiated conversation enders (which was very rare), I’m gonna see him Saturday anyways.

“Okay, thank you. Yep. I’ll be okay.  See you Saturday. Bye”

Last thing I want to include in that conversation was the status of my violated love life, but if I didn’t--I’d be trapped in a mobile deposition and I would again agree to settle.

The person who pays for law school, for the condo I’m living in while attending the finest law school in the country, for the car that I’m driving, found out that I quit law school.

One year before graduating.

With offers from well-known law firms here in New York. Stupid right?

That’s just the tip of the career sinking iceberg though. What really tipped him off was that…

I quit law school to be a songwriter. Yes, from the vast ocean to the creek.

I know it sounds impractical, stupid and insane, and you want to choke me like Homer does to Bart.

But believe me, it’s a curse. It’s my curse.

Let me explain.

My mom was a gifted musician, she taught me how to play the piano, the guitar, the cello, the flute,etc. I was able to play more than 6 instruments before I turned 13. So yes Sherlock, I got it from her.

But song writing?  Nobody taught me how to do it. I can’t even remember how I started doing it.

I just somehow did it.

I lived my life doing it, involuntarily.

When my pet fish died, I made a song. When I first went to the beach, I made one as well. My first crush, when mom first left me with grandma, when grandma died, when grandma’s dog Swimmer got lost, my first crush, my first kiss, when mom was first taken to the hospital, when we found out about her cancer, when I saw mom suffering during chemo, when we were holding hands looking at the sunset, until I realized it was just me who was holding her hand – there’s a song.

No matter how important or petty, if it hit me, it hit me.

Don’t get me wrong, it was my lifelong dream to become a lawyer, I’ve sacrificed a decent amount of my being just to pave my way to law school. But I know with every inch of my humanity that if I don’t do this, I will be depriving myself of the life I was born to live, of the deed I was made to do. It was like a mission I keep on avoiding but a whale swallowed me and now, I am where I should be.

This is my curse.

I am left with no choice but to embrace it, live my life one freakin’ life page at a time, hoping that I wouldn’t feel cursed anymore.

But now, I have to write a song for Theo, maybe I'll entitle it "Body Found by the River".