Growing Pains

Chapter Thirty

Trent

"Hey, Gwen. I know you're still really mad at me, and I don't blame you. I would hate my guts too, not that you should because there's a really good explanation for it all. I could tell you if you just return my calls. Please, pick up soon... I miss you," I clicked the "End Call" button after I recorded probably my fiftieth voicemail to Gwen.

I hated this. I hated Heather. I hated myself. I hated that I couldn't see Gwen, that I had hurt her.

I just wanted to punch something, anything. I finally understood what Duncan always says about needing to punch a person to escape your own inner rage. I could punch about twenty people and not even scratch the surface of my rage.

I was sitting in my garage. It was the day after Christmas, which meant I would see Gwen tomorrow. Unless, she decided not to go to the cabin, which I hoped wasn't what was going to happen at all.

I started humming a tune to myself, writing down lyrics as I played different chords on the guitar. "You broke my heart, and then, you ran away," I sang lightly as I strummed a different chord with it, trying to pick the right one.

I had written five songs since Saturday. I had sent the boys recordings, and they all loved them. Cody suggested something a little happier, but Justin shot down that idea for me. I think he was in the same morbid mood as I was in.

However, the prospect of writing that many songs in such a short order made me buzz with creativity. We had written seven of the twenty, and I had just written five more. And the boys were currently adding in different harmonies and editing certain spots, so those five were almost complete. So, we just needed eight more songs.

We had about two months to write eight more songs, which was fantastic.

I strummed my guitar and sand, "When can I see you, when can I hold your hand. Baby, I miss you. Oh, don't you understand? No, that's not it." I thought over the lyrics again on song number six. This one was inspired by the horrible lonely feeling I got this morning.

Was I just being pathetic? I mean, Gwen was mad at me over a horrible situation, but she wouldn't even let me explain! How was I supposed to fix this when she was being so stubborn?

"Wait a sec," I muttered to myself. I kicked the tempo up and sang, "Why can't you see what I'm trying to say? I can't believe that you'd just walk away. What about me and you and everything we've had? Is it your stubborn heart that's making me so mad?" I kicked into another chord, strumming my acoustic with a different kind of passion than I had with the other songs.

I stopped for a moment and hummed it back to myself. "That's not too bad," I mumbled. I jotted it down.

Okay, Gwen. You want to ignore me? Well, fine. I have my life too.