Cherry Bomb [H.S.]

CHAPTER THIRTY

| Five Months Later |

"What are we thinking, Marlowe?" Lys asks as she peers over at me. "Does these tracklistings seem right to you?"

Lys and I are currently sitting in one of the various recording studios with Dominick as we put the final touches on my album. It took me a few more weeks to crawl out of the hole I was in after I recorded "All I Wanted", but once I did, I managed to lay out track after track - finishing the album up completely.

"I like this tracklisting." I nod as I look over the ones they had come up with, but the one in my hand is the one I'm settling on. "Feels like it presents the songs in a very cohesive way."

"Perfect." Dominick claps his hands together before taking the paper from me. "I'll get this over to the appropriate people. Now, we can discuss what your first single should be and a proper release date for said single, and the album."

As the three of us study over the songs I'll be putting on the album, we decide that "Ignorance" should be the first single as it really packs a punch. I tell them that I would like another month to settle myself before things take off, so we make the agreement that it'll be released at the end of next month with the album following two months after that.

The warmth it brings me to know that I've managed to pull this off is something I haven't felt in months.

Not since Harry left.

I still haven't heard from him, and I got to the point where I stopped asking Kailey and Mikey if they had. If Harry wanted to see me, or at least speak to me, he would. I've accepted that what we had can no longer be. That he's out of my life for good this time. Although the events that lead to our break up were on Harry, the fact that I pushed him away without trying to really help him was on me.

The only thing that I tell myself that helps me get through that is the fact I tried for so long. I guided him to the right path, which he stayed on for several months, before it all came tumbling down around us. He made the decision the morning of the award show to go and drink his embarrassment and nerves away instead of speaking to me - something that I made very clear that I was always available for. If he had chosen differently that morning, we would probably still be together.

I've had to force myself to see that I did all that I could for him, but it doesn't help with the hurt that comes along with knowing it wasn't enough. That I wasn't enough. That we weren't enough. He had led me to believe that our relationship was enough for so long. It pains me to know that he probably never felt like it was.

"Before we go, there's something I wanted to run by Marlowe. Do you mind if we have the studio for a bit longer?" Lys asks Dominick as we all start to pack up our things.

"You can have it for however long you'd like. There's no one down on the schedule for today."

"Perfect. Thanks." Lys sends Dominick a smile as I stand up to give him a quick hug before he exits the studio. "Okay, so I have a friend who's also in music management, and there's a client he's thinking about signing, but he isn't sure if it's the right fit. My friend is a big fan of yours, so he wanted your input on one of the demos the artist has recorded so far."