The Price of Perfection (editing)

Chapter 19

I couldn't think. 

I literally couldn't think, at all. All that was running through my mind at he moment was that melody. That gorgeous mesmerising melody that wouldn't stop playing on repeat in my mind.

Last night had been a strange one. After playing Iris I knew there was bound to be the most awkward two hours of my life after. But instead, Connor made me sing it all over again. Maybe some other time I might have been angry or annoyed at the least but at the time I was so overcome by emotion I couldn't explain that I simply did as i was told.

We both agreed knew that the second time was nowhere near as good as the first, and that was simply because of all the thought and feeling that had gone into that, so much that there was none left for a second time. 

After that the time just flew by. Connor went over a lot of things with me and surprisingly I was able to keep my concentration and quench my desire to throw a chair in his face the few time we argued. 

One of the things we argued about was that he told me I was never to go anywhere near the control panel. That's where all those buttons were that helped you perfect the song. Obviously I got a bit agitated at this because if it was my songs we were going to be making then I wanted to have input in the producing part as well as the singing and playing.

Needless to say a more than a few arguments happened in the space of the two hours and all I can say is thank God for soundproof rooms!

There was a lot of bad blood between us and I don't think that's a matter than can be easily resolved but somehow we managed to leave all that behind when we were in the studio. The times we fought weren't serious, it was just the banter you would hear between friends.

I guess music just made me calmer.

It was because when I held that guitar in my hand it felt like my life had a purpose again. I might be thinking way beyond what was healthy but I could almost shut everything out and think about playing my own songs to people and have then remember me.

Because that's all it accounted to in the end; being remembered. 

We even managed to write a whole series of chords that would be great for a song, all that we need were lyrics really. That's the hard bit.

It turns out that Connor can play the piano very well, although he lacks the creativity to make a career out of it, but thankfully he's amazing at producing. A day ago I would never have dreamed of saying this but I was actually sort of glad to have Connor as a producer. The hard bit is just ignoring the fact that the jerk broke my heart twice, but besides that we're practically best-friends.

So here I was, thirteen hours later, standing in a small one-room apartment with nothing but two beds, a kitchen and a door that led off to a tiny bathroom with barely enough room to stand in.

It wasn't much, but according to the lady handing me keys with a fake smile and botox, it was home now.

Me and Lillian slowly looked at each other. There was nothing in both of our expressions. No love; no hate; no anger. Just nothing.

Then after a lifetime of silence we slowly drifted away, like leaves blowing in the wind, to get on with life.

*          *          *

Turns out, we couldn't actually afford this apartment. The next morning I looked across the room to Lillian to discover that she wasn't actually asleep. She was just lying there in bed looking at me. There was something in her expression that made me want to hug her; a sadness...no actually more like regret. Then her face hardened again and so did my heart.