and the stars will all come out

chapter seven! ☆

LANDRY WAS TWIDDLING THE PEN IN HER HANDS, DRINKING IN THE CRISP AIR OF THE QUIET DINER.

It was a peaceful Wednesday afternoon. She had her notebook open to the poem she'd started weeks ago, the one about hope, a desire to start over. With an hour to kill and a steaming mug of coffee beside her, she couldn't think of a better time to write.

She soon discovered it was awfully difficult, when she was thinking so deeply and her heart was pounding so hard, not to think of Dave.

And you dream about yourself
And you bleed and breathe the air
And it's on and on

Her pen was whacking loudly on the paper the longer she twirled it. What to say, what to say?

Landry closed her eyes, as gently as she could, trying to will her mind to think.

It took a few moments, but a memory swam to the front of the black expanse of her closed eyes: she saw the golden-orange sunset stretching over downtown Alexandria two weeks ago, brilliant over dreary buildings. Then, the tall and thick pine trees lining Dave's cabin. She saw litter scattered along dirt roads and crushed cigarettes in the grass and then, in a rousing turn into complete imagination, what life must've been like for Dave back in LA, with the palm trees and the sweaty parties and the flashing lights.

She frowned slightly as she saw Dave jumping around in a sweaty crowd of people: wasted, shining with sweat, holding a red solo cup and a cigarette high in the air as he was shouting the words at the top of his lungs. She could see how big the speakers were behind them, she could tell how ear-shattering the noise was without really hearing it, but it was a raucous freedom, everyone was stoned and no one cared.

The image changed: a quieter life, a shitty basement, an ashtray that constantly needed clearing.

Landry opened her eyes. She'd stopped twiddling the pen in her hand moments ago, but she hadn't written anything, and her mind was emptier than ever. She knew this frustrating feeling pretty well: opportunities to write didn't always mean words were actually being written.

Giving up, she closed her notebook grumpily. Fuck.

☆

ANOTHER EXCITING MILESTONE OF THE VIRGINIA PLAN WAS THAT DAVE HAD, MORE OR LESS, STARTED WRITING SONGS AT THE CABIN.

Well, if writing songs meant collapsing on the basement couch in the evenings, downing a Coors Light, smoking three cigarettes in a row, and furiously strumming his acoustic guitar while muttering gibberish to himself, then he was definitely writing songs. He knew he could force himself into recording a whole album in a week if he wanted to, he'd done it in the past, but his agility was still rusty. This was disappointing: inspiration hadn't immediately come back after the move to Virginia.

Well, to be frank, Dave wasn't sure what he was trying to write about anyway.

"Make my way back home," he mumble-sang to himself once more: he'd been playing the same string of chords for the past ten minutes, and had been stuck on this dumb line for at least twenty. "Make my way back home..."

If he wasn't careful, he'd end up sounding like John Denver. He'd had such strong feelings about regaining happiness and coming back home, he could surely funnel it into something, right?

He concentrated his gaze at the ceiling, more discouraged than ever. He sounded cheesy, and if he continued going on like this, this was going to take all night.

"Looking to the sky to save me," Dave sang weakly and slowly, strumming a random chord that sounded just as weak as his voice. "Looking for the...um..."