Forever Never

Chapter Six | Axes and Elles

Tyana

Finally I dropped Leroy off at his and Elle's place. He lingered in the car so I turned off the engine. "Wanna come up and talk to Axe?" he asked.

"Don't think she wants to even see me right now." I told him.

"I'm sure she does." he said tilting his head and I showed him my read but unanswered texts to her where I apologized. She also didn't answer my call earlier or my voice note.

"But thank you for coming with me. Didn't know I needed the company at the time." I thanked him sincerely.

"Of course." he smiled lightly. His gaze flickered between my eyes and downwards to my mouth, as did mine. Before I knew it our faces had inched closer to each other until we were inches apart. "I really wanna kiss you," he said so softly it sent a pleasant shiver across my body.

"I do too." I felt my hand rise slowly to the side of his face, desperate to put my lips to his. But my senses seemed to kick in just about. "But I can't do that to Elle."

"She doesn't care."

"You and me know two different Elles."

He grabbed my hand for the second time tonight and I didn't complain about either. "Alright." he said, giving it a gentle squeeze as he smiled at me again. "Have a good night, Ty."

I watched him step out and enter the building before kickstarting the engine and lingered on the sidewalk for a while. Eventually I drove home and went straight to my room where I dove into bed with my clothes still on.

The notebook caught my eye as I rolled over to place my phone on the nightstand. That book was basically a chamber where everything my brain ever produced was scribbled down into. Song lyrics, sketches, doodles, any ideas that came to me, even little reminders. I preferred it to the notes app in my phone. There was a feeling of writing on paper with colorful pens a phone just couldn't provide. Plus the smell of the ink was unmatched.

I put the charger into my phone and picked up the book. When I opened it up it turned itself over to the page I've most opened recently, my new song. It was a tribute to my dad, a love letter, apology and rant all in one. Starting nice and warm with all the good memories I had of him, the ones where he was good to me and my mama, before his alcohol addiction following his unemployment and his illness that eventually took him.

Onwards to a sorrowful tone where I apologized for abandoning him at his worst, for being selfish and not understanding enough. To a hostile tone where I told him I hated him, for the way he broke my mama, the ways he made her feel like she wasn't enough, the way he blamed her for everything that happened to him despite the fact that she was there for every second of the worst and best times.

Playing this song without crying at any part of it was simply impossible. Doing that with any song where I'd poured every fiber of me into was hard. Only thing missing from dad's song was a title. I had a few written down but none of them fit the bill. My favorite Professor told me you had to let that sort of thing come to you and not force it. So I wasn't worried.

I grabbed my guitar in the corner and sat on my desk chair, fiddling around mindlessly on the strings. My room had soundproof boards that prevented noise complaints. I found the urge to play music during the night and was most productive then, which is why I installed boards in the first place. I hated being an inconvenience.

Suddenly I was thinking back to mine and Leroy's conversation at the party. The part about capitalizing on my presence online. My music was a part of me I've been protective of throughout my life. Sharing that vulnerable side to me, especially with my own original songs, was not too ideal for me. Which some people would argue was what kept me from getting everything I ever wanted in life.

I glanced over my shoulder at my phone for a moment before picking it up and propping it on my desk with the camera running. My makeup was still intact and I looked presentable which was my to my relief. I tapped play before going back to running my finger along the strings, starting the intro to dad's song. If I was gonna take a dive I might as well make a mighty splash. My grandma always said that. The few shots that was still in my system from earlier tonight no doubt helped my confidence.

Closing my eyes I let my instincts take over, not so much thought as there was muscle memory and hours upon hours of playing this song every night. And as per I started crying midway through as the memories floated in my mind like a movie. Suddenly as I opened my eyes, it hit me; Bittersweet. Just like that I found my title.

***
A meowing and licking thing with paws woke me up the following morning by walking back and forth on top of me. I tiredly signaled for her to get off me so I could rise off the bed and give her what she wanted: food. She was asleep in her bed for once when I came home last night which was probably why the place was so quiet and peaceful.

Daise was the last remnant of a time that felt an eternity ago, back when my dad was full of joy and love. He got her for my twelfth birthday when she was almost a month old and helped me with everything. She was as big as my palm back then, maybe slightly bigger, and nothing was more adorable. Now she was nine and a grown woman, just like her mama.

I brewed myself coffee and waited for my toast while she munched peacefully in her spot in the kitchen as I checked my phone for anything new I might've missed while asleep. A couple of messages from Tim that eased my mind a bit knowing he was alright. One dm from Leroy caught my attention more than the fifty thousand others.

Nothin like starting the day off with a good ole fashion cry sesh

You did this to me 😭

I was confused as to what he was talking about until I clicked out of the chat, tapped on the heart icon and scrolled down on a seemingly endless list of notifications on my latest post: the song. The number of likes was the first thing that caught my eye when I went to my profile and clicked on it. My brain was blown away even more with the surprisingly normal and even insightful replies that had thousands of people sharing their honest opinions and the ways they related to the song. It was like one of those grief support groups I was recommended to go to and only went twice.

Of course the usual weird replies where there, this was Instagram after all, but they weren't the most visible. I had to sit down to process it all and completely forgot about my coffee and toast. Soon I went back to Leroy who was still active.

My bad 😭

See I ain't even lost anybody significant to me and that shit still hit hard

This a original song?

Yeah

Been working on it for weeks

Girl god blessed you with talent damn

In that moment I regretted not kissing his fine ass last night. I tried my best not to let his compliments flatter me too much but it was hard. Eventually I remembered my food was burning and hurried to get the pair of burnt slices of bread out of the toaster and poured myself the piping hot coffee.