her ocean eyez

chapter 16

I took a deep breath, looking down at my sneakers. They were beaten up and dirty, but they had the crease right below my toes that I loved so much because they always bent exactly right when I was jumping on stage. I never got nervous before a show. Something about it was so freeing, such a release after all the anticipation.

The moments right before a show are always the most surreal-- when you can hear the crowd, but it's slightly removed and all the people you had surrounded yourself with the whole day are suddenly elsewhere, having been pushed off to different corners of the venue or the sides of the stage. And it's just you, just you and your mic on an 'x'. The stage was before me and the lights were flashing, the rumble of the crowd loud as ever, but steadily growing in volume. I shook my head and let my body follow, hopping on my feet a bit, trying to physically shake out the adrenaline.

Billie and I had talked about it before, the moments on stage when you look down at all the faces looking up at you. Looking solely at you and no one else because you are all they came to see. It's a type of power no one should ever feel, and yet it's our job to do so. To stand up above everyone, elevated on a stage, a fence between us and them, security between us and them, and put on a show. Sing our silly songs that we had written in our beds or in our cars and listen as they sing them back to us. Sing our lyrics of heartbreak and love, of lust and grievance. The things we used to write in our journals or on scrap napkins that at one point we were embarrassed to share.

And the crowd always knows the words. And again, Billie and I had talked about this as well. Talked about how at one point our songs stop being ours. They become theirs, we keep them for a little while. We write them and rework them and sing them and produce them, and finally release them. To which they become the audiences'. They take our songs and make them what they are now. They make them personal, something that speaks to exactly what they're going through, but it's different from the person next to them and the person next to that person.

"You ever wish we would get to keep them?" She asked, tossing a stone in the air and catching it again. We were walking on the beach in mid-May, almost a month after Coachella and a few weeks before her tour started at the end of the month. "The songs, I mean"

"Yeah, I knew what you meant." I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets, thinking. "I guess the songs I would want to keep are the songs I never put out."

"That's true." She pondered my words, playing with the stone still. "Sometimes I'm sad they're not mine anymore. It's rare though." I looked at her, her feet sinking in the sand as we walked. "Generally I'm stoked the fans get to take it and make it their own, but I suppose it makes me scared to put out the personal shit."

"How so?"

"If it's so personal to me and then it suddenly becomes the least personal thing about me, I don't know...that's hard to cope with I guess."

"Yeah," I started, thinking about how to respond. "But I think it makes it all the more special to them."

I thought about that conversation that had happened nearly two months ago, as I stood off stage, awaiting my cue to start the biggest tour of my career so far. It made me smile, to know my last thoughts before heading on stage were of Billie. I hoped her thoughts reflected mine as I knew she stood in Morrison, Colorado, most likely already on stage and well into her show. Hoped she had thought of me right before she took the stage and felt my heart flutter at the reminder that I would get to talk to her after the show.

"And cue in three...two...one," The voice rang out in my earpiece, and with that I was running out on stage, onto the lifted tower on stage left. The cheers were colossal and as I stood up above the sea of people flooding the Observatory in San Diego, a venue I had seen so many shows at growing up. I made a note to tell Billie how surreal it had felt. Possibly more so than Coachella.

The beat hit and I launched into my first song of the set, jumping as the crowd followed.

"And dude-" I was shouting with excitement, the phone held inches from my face as I rolled around on the hotel bed, the post-show joy bubbling over. "The girl that I told you about earlier, in the weird vest at the barricade, she was going so fucking crazy for that song, I was so hyped."

She chuckled, "Was she the one from the second song, or the one with the sign?"

"The one from the second song."

"Okay, okay, the same one with the glasses?"

"No, no, the one.." I sighed, flopping on my back. "Ugh, I wish you could've been there." I pulled the phone away from my face so she could see more of me. "It'd be easier to explain." I pouted.

She smiled, "I know, me too." She rolled over so she was on her stomach and propped her head up on her hand. Her hair was the post-show messy that I loved and her face clean, clearly ready for bed. She was in a black tee that had a rip on the collar and I recognized it as the one she wore our last night together. "I'm glad it was everything you wanted it to be."

"It was." The excitement from explaining the details of my show had dissipated and I was left with the ache of wishing she was there next to me instead of states apart and staring at me through a phone. I looked down, picking at the bottom of my phone case, feeling sheepish. "I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"How's the mountain air?"

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

I laughed. "You're so high up over there in Colorado."

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Oh yeah, it's pretty crisp."

"Nothing like Kansas though."

"Oh my god," She cut me off and I couldn't help the smirk that appeared on my face. "You're ridiculous. It's Miss-"

"Missouri. I know." The night before she had spent about half an hour berating me for not knowing Kansas City was, in fact, not in Kansas. A pretty honest mistake I thought, but apparently not so for Billie. Kansas City was the next stop on her tour. I was headed north to Seattle. I felt desperate to be near her, empty at the fact that we were moving in opposite directions. We wouldn't be near each other until New York, two weeks away. We had already exhausted the conversation of distance and so I chose not to mention it. There was silence as I thought of what to say next. Not because I had anything to say, really, but because I didn't want her to go. I looked at her. "How is it?"

She knew what I was referring to. "It's okay."

I gave her a look. "How is it actually?"

She shifted, the phone audio muffling a bit until she was on her back holding the phone close to her. "Hard." She stated.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." There wasn't much for her to say and I knew it. "These help though. Our talks." She gestured to the phone.

"I'm sorry I can't be there."

"Not your fault."

"I know." I felt helpless. "I feel helpless."

"You're not. Talking about our shows and our days helps a lot." She smiled and it made me blush a little, despite the grounding topic of our conversation. "It helps to have someone to process this shit with."

I understood completely. "Yeah," I blew out, "This shit is crazy."

"God," She chuckled, once again erasing the seriousness from before. "We say that so much."

"I love you." And I loved saying it.

"I love you too, so so so so much." She put on her goofy voice, "Soooo much."

I giggled, "Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Always."

The phone clicked and I was met with the silence of my hotel room and the blankness of my home screen. The hollow feeling was something I hoped I wouldn't get used to and I tried instead to focus on the way her voice had sounded when she told me she loved me.

I fell asleep pretending I'd wake up to her.