Misprinted Lies (Alice in Chains/Bruno Mars)

Pushing Me Farther Away

Bruno was on tour for the majority of 2014. I texted him every so often but I was consumed with work. For most of the year, I worked with Ryan a whole lot to engineer an entire One Republic album.

Ryan got into the booth to start singing. Jerry kept texting me. He refused to leave me alone. I was so close to taking legal action. I zoned out for a bit.

"Lily, you alright?" Ryan asked, from the booth.

"Yeah, of course. So I'm thinking for this song you should run through it once, because it's going to be a single and you're opening the tour with it."

"You think?"

"Yeah because it'll work better because you get a better live sound as opposed to like stopping and starting. That's what I did with Bruno."

Ryan nodded his head and started singing. He sounded really good; he took really good care of his voice. Suddenly his singing stopped, before the song was over.

"No, Ryan do the whole thing," I said, dropping the headphones down onto my shoulder.

He was staring, but not at me. It looked like he saw a ghost. I spun my chair around.

"Jer-Jerry?"

His arms were crossed. He was fuming. I hadn't seen him in five years. It would have been better and easier if he had said something first, but he didn't for a while.

I tapped my foot on the floor waiting for him to speak.

"Oh don't give me that fuckin' attitude," he said.

"Nice to see you too," playing up the so-called attitude attitude.

Jerry just started yelling. He was out of control. Ryan came out of the booth.

"Why are you even here?" I asked.

"I'm taking you home. This is fuckin' ridiculous," Jerry said, getting closer to me and grabbing my arm very forcefully.

Ryan got closer to me and pulled me away from him, standing in between the two of us. He was way calmer than I was. "Don't put your hands on her like that. Now get out. You're not wanted here."

"You don't make that call. You're part of the problem too."

"Yeah," I yelled. "I make the call. Now get out of my studio!"

Jerry refused to move and they both got into a fist fight. Ryan pushed him over to the door and managed to push him out all the way. He locked the door. Jerry banged over and over on the door.

"Keep it up and I'm calling the police," I yelled.

Eventually the banging stopped and Ryan took a seat beside me. I put my head in my hands.

"Hey," Ryan said, putting an arm around me. "It's alright. Don't cry, Lil."

I picked my head up. "I'm not crying...I'm just really frustrated. I hadn't...I hadn't even seen him in five years and I wanted it go better than that. You know, I've thought about seeing him. Mike and Sean have been so nice lately and supportive. But now, I just...I just can't."

"I'm sorry."

I smiled weakly. "Back to work?" I needed to get my mind off of everything.

"Of course," he smiled. "Let's go."

Ryan restarted the song and sang it again. It was perfect. We didn't need to redo it again it sounded so good. By the time we left, it was the middle of the night, as usual. I packed my bag and walked out with Ryan. As I shut the lights off and locked the door, Ryan was looking at me. I was emotionally and physically drained.