A mother's love

Chapter 28

Michaela had taken Brian up to her room, an alien environment to him in which he could only hope he didn't do anything to embarrass himself.

"Cool room," he said, unable to think of any adjectives other than 'cool' when in her presence.

"Thanks," Michaela replied nonchalantly.

The walls of her dimly lit room were covered with posters of rock bands that for the most part hid the pink paint underneath. The furniture in her room consisted of her bed, a desk, and an old, beaten down recliner. In the corner of her room two guitars stood on metal stands, an electric and an acoustic. The electric, Brian could tell just from looking at it, was nowhere near as good as the Gibson that she'd been playing in the store.

"Have you had these long?" Brian asked her.

"Those are the only ones I've ever had; my dad bought the acoustic for me when I was twelve and my mom bought me the electric when I was fifteen, but only after I kicked and screamed for it for months; you want me to quickly play something for you while we wait?"

"Sure," Brian answered tentatively.

"Hand me the acoustic," Michaela said, sitting cross legged on the bed, dressed in full black as she had been when they'd met, "I wrote this a couple of months ago, it's about a guy and a girl that are in a relationship that isn't working but that they can't bring themselves to end, it's called Wound."

Not feeling comfortable enough to sit in her recliner or on her desk chair, Brian remained standing and watched her start to play, every bit as enthralled by her as he had been when he'd first seen her playing in the Wal-Mart. The lyrics of the song, which she sang at a decibel level only slightly above that of a whisper, told the story of a dysfunctional relationship from the perspective of the girl, describing the anguish it was causing her to be trapped in a relationship she wanted nothing more than to be able to extricate herself from. The chorus, which went:

You keep rubbing salt in the wound

I'm tired of being hurt by you

I wanna be set free

I'm begging you to just let go of me

She played in a lower chord on the guitar and sang in a raspier voice. Although she was only singing for him to kill time while they waited to be called for dinner, Michaela was taking her performance seriously, noticing that Brian grew more impressed by her. She was a real musician; music was all she lived for and there was nothing that would ever change that. Brian was envious of her talent and admired her dedication.

After listening to her performance of an actual song Brian was at an even greater loss for how to relate to her. With great trepidation he said "That was amazing" when she was finished and was spared from any embarrassment by Michaela's reply of "Thanks, that's my first time playing that for someone". Nervously, Brian looked around some more at the posters on the wall and was struck by one that he'd missed before.

"Was this your band?" He asked her.

The poster had a picture of a lifeless head with a bullet hole between its eyes and a huge splash of blood behind it in which was written the words HOLLOW POINT. Underneath the band logo was five girls all dressed in black leaning against each other.

"Yeah; that's Raylene on the left, she was our bass player, that's me next to her, in the middle is Ava, she was our vocalist, to her right is Adeline, our drummer, and to her right is Amy, she was on rhythm guitar, I played lead."