the 1 | chaennie

16. Speak Now

'Speak now or forever hold your peace,' the words said by preachers at the end of wedding ceremonies all over the world, right before the vows. It's a last chance for protest, a moment that makes everyone's heart race, and a moment I've always been strangely fascinated by. So many fantasize about bursting into a church, saying what they'd kept inside for years like in the movies. In real life, it rarely happens.

Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, the most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more than that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.

I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say 'I love you.' When we should've said 'I'm sorry.' When we didn't stand up for ourselves or someone who needed help.

These songs are made up of words I didn't say when the moment was right in front of me. These songs are open letters. Each is written with a specific person in mind, telling them what I meant to tell them in person. To my first love who I never thought would be my first heartbreak. To my band. To a mean man I used to be afraid of. To someone who made my world very dark for a while. To a girl who stole something of mine. To someone I forgive for what they said.

Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone.

What you say might be too much for some people. Maybe it will come out all wrong and you'll stutter and you'll walk away embarrassed, wincing as you play it all back in your head. But I think the words you stop yourself from saying are the ones that will haunt you the longest.

So say it to them. Or say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it in a letter you'll never send or in a book millions might read someday. I think you deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying 'I could've, but it's too late now.'

There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you so clearly know what you need to say, you'll know it.

I don't think you should wait. I think you should speak now.

Love, Rosie

PS: To all the boys who inspired this album, you should've known.

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Speak Now was released on October 25th, 2010. It sold over a million copies in its first week. It debuted at number one of the Billboard 200 chart and received generally positive reviews from music critics. There were congratulations all around, and sighs of relief at PCY Records, everyone smiling with happiness at the success, and Chanyeol a little more insufferably condescending than usual as he plainly attributed its success to the fact that they'd spun the album as being centred mostly around boys. Of course, Rosie knew that in reality they were for Jennie, and knew that no matter how other people interpreted it, the album was successful because she'd written those songs about Jennie. Not anyone else.

But she let everyone make their assumptions, and she had her fun with them decoding the secret messages hidden in the lyrics, slipping in false leads and names that meant nothing, while she purposely misled people with her lyrics, writing about heartbreaks six months ago and brown eyes. Despite her fun, the lyrics were still painful though, each word holding an echo of memory with Jennie. It hurt even more when a bouquet of red roses turned up on her doorstep with a congratulation note off of Jennie. She knew they were one of Rosie's flowers, and there was no bitterness or resentment in the note about the songs that she'd written about Jennie.