I consumed myself in music as an attempt to distract myself from her, and for a little while, it worked. But I wanted her. I wanted more. The feeling had come to me so violently months after I’d left. The clarity was sharp as a blade, hitting me hard the day I got a call.

“Your father’s passed away,” said my uncle Joe on the other end. “He had a heart attack this morning.”

The world stopped spinning. I had gripped that phone so tight, I could hear the plastic stretching in my hand. My vision swam, and suddenly my life felt like a fucking chasm filled with regrets. I’d never get the chance to tell him I was sorry.

With my permission, the family decided to cremate him. He stayed at my grandmother’s house, a woman I’d barely seen in my life. In fact, I hardly, if at all, knew any of them. They were just people my dad had spoken about in passing. I didn’t come from a lovey-dovey close-knit family, and I never attended their “Celebration of Life” memorial, deciding instead not to confront his passing. That was around the time I started to lose myself, and being alone without Leah’s voice, warmth, presence… it made that chasm of regret fester with unspoken words.

I’d been wanting her back since, and all everyone around me wanted to do was keep us apart. Telling me she needed a break. That I had destroyed her, and she wouldn’t survive another heartbreak. As if already damning me, assuming I’d make her go through that bullshit again. It was guilt that kept me away, and what I’d become… who I was now since I’d left her…

No. She couldn’t be with me like this. Her entire world would be flipped upside down. I needed out of the spotlight first. Needed the fame to die down so I could rejoin the human fucking race without looking like a yellow highlighter in a sea of dull colours. I needed to blend in. Fuck, I longed for the day we faded into black. At this point, it was an eternity away, and then some.

My phone vibrated on the night stand just then, disrupting my thoughts. I grabbed it, needing a distraction, and checked the message sent by Rome.

Carter, there’s been a change of plans.

I didn’t respond and shut my eyes instead. Whatever plans he had to change could wait until tomorrow.

Right now…

Right now I needed sleep.

9 years old

“Where did you get that?”

I looked up from my brand new guitar and stared at Mom. She was leaning against the doorway, her thin lips pursed.

“Dad,” I answered her hesitantly.

She frowned. “How much did it cost?”

“I don’t know.”

“It looks expensive.”

I didn’t respond to that. I watched the features on her face grow harder, and my heart climbed to my throat. She was too unpredictable. One minute warm, the other minute icy cold. She was the latter at the moment.

She came to me then and extended her hand out to me. “Give it to me,” she demanded.

“Please, Mom –”

“Carter,” she icily cut me off, piercing me with her cold blue eyes.

My shoulders slumped. I handed her the acoustic guitar and watched as she walked out of the room with it, carrying it by the neck instead of the strap. I’d had that beautiful guitar for a measly two hours before she’d discovered it. And all I’d done was hold it.

Didn’t Dad say to keep it hidden until he broke the news of his surprise purchase to her? In my excitement, I couldn’t help it. The guitar had been tucked out of sight in the closet all day, and I was too enamoured by it to keep it there.

I swear – I sweeearrrrr – it had been calling out to me. I had to convince Dad of this. That I had not just defied his orders and done something selfish.

Which was kind of a lie.

I sat in my room, nervously counting down the minutes until Dad came home. And when he did, Mom exploded the second his electrician’s work bag hit the floor of our two storey house.

“You know how far behind on our bills we are!” she shrieked. “How the fuck do you think we can afford this kind of purchase, Ron?”

“Calm down, Liz –”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down! I know what you’re doing! You’re making me into the bad guy, aren’t you? Giving him things when I tell you not to! I bet you’re turning him against me –”

“That’s not the case at all. I wanted to do something nice for him. He has a beautiful voice on him, and I wanted to get his mind working. I want to teach him how to play.”

“Give him your old guitar then and return this one!”

“I paid with my bonus money, Liz. I’m not returning it.”

When he refused to budge on her demands, Mom erupted. It got ugly fast. The discussion went from guitars to him being unfaithful. He’d try to be calm, but she’d poke the nest relentlessly, until he exploded in return, calling her bipolar and sick. The tit-for-tat carried on into the night, until they’d had enough of hearing their own voices. Silence would fill the rooms of the house, and I’d be sitting there on my bed, back against the wall, waiting.

That night she struck at two in the morning. It was like a dynamite had gone off. The chaos that rattled the house caused me to run out of my bedroom and follow it down the stairs and to the living room.

She’d grabbed the neck of that brand new guitar and smashed it against the coffee table, fracturing it until it was nothing but a thousand little pieces scattered across the hardwood floors.

“You won’t win!” she screeched.

Mom looked possessed. Her eyes were wild, her anger so sharp, I felt my bones stiffen as she carried on. My heart broke at the sight of her manic behaviour and at the shards of the instrument I’d grown to love for such a short amount of time.

Why? Why was she like this?

Dad stormed into the room, grabbing at her, and she flailed and twisted in his arms. She hit him and screamed, and he forced her down to the ground, pinning her in one place as he tried to calm her down.

“Stop it, baby, stop it,” he pleaded. “Stop it, baby. I love you. I love you. Calm down.”

She sobbed uncontrollably, suddenly clinging to him like he was her lifejacket.

“Go to your room, Carter,” he panted out as she buckled again beneath him. “Now, Carter. Go!”

I returned to my room and resumed my position from before. On the bed. Back against the wall. Staring into the darkness until she finally calmed down, crying softly into Dad’s arms as he told her how much he loved her.