Beginning of the end

Part 26 [May 8 '22]

Waking up felt like living in a blur.

Carla was wrong.

Carla was right about everything.

Carla was wrong.

She never said it. Blake remembered everything. She woke up thinking it was all a blur. A dream. A very bad dream. Wrong.

Introverts enjoyed solitude. Extroverts enjoyed company. Was there someone who enjoyed being quietly in the company of many people? A person that recharged merely on the buzz of unknown conversation. Blake was pretty sure she was that person. She could use a crowd right about now.

She remembered the cotton candy sweetness of walking with him in the woods years ago. Walking away from a retro showing of Ghostbusters over the lake. July. A first date full of naïve promise. It was so silly to think that a boy promising to slay the bears for her would mean it when he said he'd build her a cabin in the woods someday. It was all so silly, and naïve back then. Silly to think that she would catch a break as an indifferent grocery store cashier writing emotional indie pop. It was so silly... and then the years had passed.

The years passed from a silly little thing to a woman. A woman with a daughter, and a record deal, and a fiancé. She'd signed for the music deal, and soon she would sign for their marriage. Once upon a time, the Pink Slip guitarist had made a deal with his then girlfriend. He was not really concerned with marriage. A sweet young man with no direct emotions toward "settling down."

"If you can sign a record deal, you can sign a marriage contract."

"I guess."

"Fair?"

"Fair."

"Deal."

"... did you just ask me to agree that if we ever get signed we're engaged?"

"Oh, sweetie. No," Drew claimed that Miranda had sounded very much like a Venus Fly trap. He could not describe it. Pretty as a flower, serious as a murder. Blake had written a song about it.

Black and white drip down soft green petals

Your thorns speak the story

Touch her. Whisper. Touch me. Pause.

Give in. Her plentiful victims.

Murder you never read, she wrote you into her story.

You play a part, hold the knife, bleed the most.

How to draw the line?

Sign your name in blood. Promise, never will I ever

Defy.

Refuse.

Resist...

Never will I ever...

The draft was harder than the verses. Drew said Carla should front the backing vocals. It sounded better from a girl. Blake laughed. Did it? They played it time and again and settled on a revised version. Easy despite the motif. Drew finished his explanation about Miranda. She was not, in fact, saying that if they got signed they were engaged. Randi was informing Drew that if he got signed, he was then obligated to propose. She made no preemptive agreements that she would accept. He still had to impress her.

It was all so funny. Drew was engaged to Randi. Carla and Kaleb were at least living together now, despite a lack of ring. Blake wondered if Carla would be satisfied that way for long. Neither of them seemed to be in a rush with so much going on in their lives. Jamie was seeing a woman that he insisted was real but had never introduced to them. Some jokes were made that she was all in his head, but Blake believed him. Jamie would never have turned down flirtatious fans if he had no one in his corner. Then there was Blake.