Page 139 of Paint the Town, Dove
I shut my eyes, buried the sorrow alongside my music, and pulled Scar in for a hug. “This is it,” I whispered. “This could be our chance at something more.”
She tensed, then softened at my touch. A deer in the headlights, my Dove.
“Thisisour chance, dummy.” She pulled back. “Show the world who Ryden Spectre really is.”
I didn’t give myself another opportunity to back out.
I didn’t give myself another opportunity to break from fear.
I walked up on stage, the crowd still immersed in their own doings, while I set up my mic, testing the feedback.
No one heard me.
Not above the noise of other artists blazing through the speakers – Presley, Rose, Cash –
I’d be like them one day.
I’d be bigger.
“He – Hello,” I said. “I’m… Ryden Spectre.”
No one. Heard. Me.
“Hey,” I tried again, clearing my throat. I caught Scarlett’s eye, who was sitting by the bar like she promised, engaged in a conversation with Mr. Acton.
Even my Dove didn’t hear me.
There was nothing to hold on to.
Nothing to tie me to this life.
I didn’t exist.
I was invisible.
But it’s always the people who have nothing to lose that have everything to gain.
And I repeated that. Over and over I repeated that while I strapped Harley to my chest, taking in a deep breath, and began to strum the chords to the first song I ever wrote:Grey Heights.
Shutting my eyes, I thought about the mountain peaks we climbed – me, mom and dad – the only true memory I could look back on – before cancer found a home in his lungs.
“There was a sun that day, in the hazy grey…
The height so high, I can see them fly –
The birds they sing, and the tears they bring…
Is that why the raindrops fell?”
His hair was dark, I remember that, he had the same eyes as me. We were the same, I think. I’d like to believe that. He was good, I felt safe with him. With my mom.
“I called them the Grey Heights –
They stood tall with their might and I can’t lie –
I wantedthe same, I wanted the rain, I wanted to be…
Strong and fly, strong and fly…”
