To the Beat of My Heart

Same Same

-PART ONE-

Why don't you hold me like you used to? Why are your lips the hardest things to reach?

Even now you kiss me, but it's fleeting, the rush of adrenaline before a show, and you're putting on more than one performance. I watch you run out to a crowd of thousands. Tens of thousands. They're there for you, Clay. Sometimes... sometimes I have to wonder: When can you be there for me?

You know, I miss... just us. Just that quiet. Everything is so fast now. City to city, rehearsals and meetings, and you lock yourself away in the bus, writing, sleeping... when's the last time we had sex?

When—

Someone strikes me, a proper smack, right across my arse. It stings like hell, and I spin, knowing exactly whose face will greet me, pointy chin and intoxicating eyes. Eyes like poison.

"What the fuck, Kai?"

It's almost humiliating, having to stare up to meet the austere golden-green gaze which clashes with his olive skin. Doesn't help his pineapple jet hair gives him a few extra inches. Tall bastard.

"Too easy, mate," he sings in that thick Australian drawl. There's something else there, a little Finnish. He's got the voice of a bully, and I know that intimately well. Known it my whole life.

Kai unhooks the strap from around his shoulder and sets his guitar down on his stand, fussing around in his pockets. It's quiet back here, not too many stagehands bustling through. Lots of curtains, a maze of metal crates and stands. Apart from the dressing room, this is the only place I can think right now.

A cigarette now dangles from Kai's lips, and he slaps a hand down on my shoulder.

"Stop hiding back here," he says, leaning in a little closer, sea-green eyes wavering and rippling under the harsh lights.

"Not—" my neck locks up, worse than a shudder, a burning pain that never becomes easy—you just kind of accept it grudgingly, but that fire fades quick. "hiding," I mutter, shaking free of his toxic spell.

Kai snorts, then lifts his lighter to his smoke, falling back into the double doors leading out, towards the street where our tour bus is camped. He gives me a salute and saunters out, smoke trailing. The doors don't close quick enough.

A shudder runs down my spine, and I fight out a sudden wave of tics. Where was I?

Screams. Not—not the terrible kind. It's them. They're in the height of their Hudsonmania. It's the second statement of the chorus to 'Easy Colours'. The second verse flips a question from the first into a statement. That always gets the crowd going. I cried the first few times. Hell, I still get foggy-eyed when I hear it.

I close my eyes and just... listen. I love Clay's music. So honest. I was there when he wrote those lyrics. I'm the reason for some of them. I love that side of Clay. To share his soul and be so vulnerable. Some songs, I know, are all mine. He's said as much in interviews. And then there are certain lyrics that are purely aimed at me, meant for no other ears, and I choke up just thinking about that. Music is more than blissful memories and the soul's notes laid bare. Clay's music has kept my mind focused, lifted by a harmony of notes that still a fractured brain.

My tics, painful intrusions, let me go when I'm lost in Clay's music.

I wipe at my nose, sniffing, and laugh, despite myself. Just thinking about the power of Clay's songs, I know sometimes I'll just plain up refuse to listen to them. Not if I don't want to be a sobbing mess in the corner of the room. I'm a crier. I weep at everything. I am drama and sentimentality personified. God help me.