Page 67 of Closer

I push the thought of her from my mind, grab my Mac off the coffee table, and pull up the songs Brie and I had recorded. I hit play on the piece we were working on before she left. My vocals aren’t as great as Cooper Ryan’s but all the emotion is there, and her heart bleeds out from her strings accompanied by my piano. Ash’s face is contemplative as he listens. I see him forming the bassline in his head as he nods along with the music. The song ends because it was never finished. It’s written, but I’d distracted her before she could finish playing the piece, and then that fucking phone call came.

“You wrote this?” Ash says, grabbing the Mac from my lap and scrolling through the list. “You’ve got almost eight songs here, man.”

I nod, but don’t say a word. He clicks on another track and the violent strains of Brie’s bow sawing the strings fill the room. I see her in my mind, eye’s closed, head tilted, and her face pure torment as her fingers plucked furiously at the strings and her bow stuck with a recklessness I wouldn’t have thought her capable of. I’d never seen anything more fucking beautiful than the wild abandon with which she played.

Ash gives a startled laugh, my head comes screeching back to the present.A present without her in it. I can see the wheels turning in his head. “This is fucking brilliant. You want her to play with us.” It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway.

“Wanted.”

He frowns. “As in past tense?”

“What does it matter? She’s gone. She isn’t coming back, and those songs aren’t shit without her.”

“Bullshit. You’re good at this. Really fucking good, why haven’t you been writing for us the entire time?”

“And offend Coop’s delicate sensibilities?” I set my pipe down in the ashtray. “No thanks.”

“Jesus.” He shakes his head and pats my dog, who seems to have commandeered his lap. “You two used to like each other once upon a time.”

“Like is a strong word.” I grin, and he closes the Mac and hands it back to me.

“You have to bring this to practise next week.” His brow pinches. “You do remember practise, don’t you? Your two months are up, Quinn. We need you.”

I bury my head in my hands. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Can what?”

“I don’t know if I can come back.”

His throat bobs as he swallows, and for a beat his eyes are too dark, hollow. It’s like a stranger stares back at me. “To the band, or at all?”

“To my life.”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Ash gets up, unseating Dog in the process. He paces. Like a fucking idiot, Dog follows him, back and forth.The two of them make me dizzy. “You can’t just quit your life because shit gets hard. It’s always gonna be fucking hard. But you’re family, man. I don’t know how you and Coop work this out. I don’t know how you’re supposed to move on from Ali or this cellist chick, but you belong with us.”

Do I?I don’t know where the fuck I belong anymore. I know even less about who I am now than I did when I found this place. And I have no fucking clue where that leaves me.

---