Page 89 of Paint the Town, Dove
Day by day, Scarlett.
One foot at a time.
I slid my hand up his arm, cupping his cheek, fighting the sensations deep inside the trenches of my heart. “Do I feel like home?”
We locked eyes – eyes sunken with sorrow, glittered with tears. “You’ve always felt like home.”
And we stayed like this, interlocked in front of the city we conquered, high above the ground that held our rotten roots –
Perched above the tree we planted from ash.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ryden
“… and it’s the final show, don’t you see? We were always meant to be, even in the thick of dismay –”
Arc & Sheild Records:‘Dismay’
Composition By:Ryden Spectre
You don’t get much alone time right before a big show. Let alone a whole tour.
It’s your name people are screaming, your person people attend to.Do you want this? Do you want that?
Iwantto be alone.
And in the times that you find yourself in empty spaces – five, ten percent maybe – you savour it like ice on a hot day.
Crowds believe musicians don’t get nervous, like they aren’t the ones performing in front of thousands of people.How could they be nervous? This is their career.
I’d argue that’s why half the people roped up in the music industry don’t end up on the other side.
It’s wild, honestly man, it is. What media does to promote this life. Pushing wealth and fame atop real problems, believing money’s magic – nothing short of a miracle.
That’s what pulled me in, I hate to admit it.
All I ever wanted was to make music.
I didn’t realize the strings on my guitar weren’t the only ones being pulled.
“What’s with the jitters, Mr. Spectre?” Mallory. “You’ve done this a hundred times.”
It’s like you’re fucked if you don’t feel a thing, and fucked if you do.
Sometimes you want to yell, scream at anyone that’s patient enough to listen but that’s the thing – patience runs thin around here.
Why are you nervous?
How could you not be?
Playing Radio City –Radio fucking City– on a sold out tour. And it wasn’t just the numbers in the stadium, the seats that were taken – it was fans across the world, watching me live across all platforms.
Thousands. Thousands more.
People counted on me to wow them,importantpeople – toshockthem – blow them away.
To be the Ryden Spectre they all loved.
