Page 182 of Paint the Town, Dove
I’d made peace with the inevitable. That her abandonment was meant for a purposeful transformation – whether I knew it then or not, the pain had always served my music. Theafterof her.
Scarlett Emory-Blake, Scarlett Emory-Blake.
Her name was everywhere. It filled me with a pride like no other, the swell in my heart aching with tenderness.
She did it. Scarlett really did it. Emory’s legacy lived on, soared to new heights, all because of my Dove. Her soul now resurrected.
On my back. On our arms.
In our hearts.
We dug up more of Scarlett’s old journal entries, discarded sheet music and lost pages buried within her piano bench. Her eyes scanned over old words, old memories, like she was fighting a virus inside her wounds.
She wrote like I wrote.
With heart. With pain.
With feeling.
If only she had laid her thoughts bare to me from the start. Maybe we wouldn’t have a song.
[Maybe we wouldn’t have a book]
And I would’ve suffered for it.
I would’ve suffered for her.
It was never my choice.
We were always written in the stars.
And when she wrote, I knew that to be true.
We were always destined to be rock stars.
From the very beginning.
***
Scarlett
It wasn’t a traditional duet, no. What did tradition mean to us anyway?
We were always moving,fast, fast, fast– at the speed of light, our lyrics blended together like ribbon and twine. We flew high in sync, climbing a crescendo and descending to the most beautiful ballad of words to exist.
I never thought pain could make you write like that.
I never thought pain could be the freefall into diving in love.
But the stars were right.
We’ve always been among them.
Nevertheless, the adjustment was still hard over the last few months. It pelted me with resentment. How could I have been so blind to the emotional instability, the anger, the rage I’d built up over the years?
How could I touch a person and feel safe,secure, after so much trauma and heartache little Violet had to endure?
She didn’t deserve that, Sue had said.Andsheisyou, Scarlett.
