Page 101 of Seven Lost Summers
Under it all, I sense her. Quinn. Moving through the space. Camera in hand, eyes sharp, silent. She circles the room, locking this chaos into something still. Something permanent.
I catch her out of the corner of my eye more than once.
The soft click of the shutter somehow louder than it should be. She crouches near Theo, gets a shot of his fingers flying over the strings, then moves around behind me. I register her presence more than I see her. The air shifts when she’s close. My skin prickles. My focus wavers, then resets, harder than before.
We spend the next few hours tearing through the track, pulling it apart and building it back up. Again and again until it stops sounding messy and starts sounding alive.
Ace stands next to me, guitar slung low, mouth tight with concentration. He runs through the rhythm section, calling things out in that clipped way of his, not wasting a single word.
I keep pace. Every beat I land digs deeper into me, crawling up my arms, into my spine, rooting itself there. This isn’t sound anymore. It’s muscle memory. It’s blood.
Ace leans over at one point, barely audible over the noise, muttering a quick adjustment. I shift the pattern, hit again.
This time it lands. His head lifts in that sharp nod that means I got it right.
He turns to Theo, tapping out the rhythm against the body of his guitar while Theo listens, brows drawn, adjusting the bassline until it grooves the way it’s meant to.
The sound thickens, grows heavier, layered.
It builds into something that could tear you apart if you weren’t ready.
We don’t stop. Not for drinks. Not for air.
It’s work, and it’s fucking brutal—the kind that burns behind your ribs and makes the rest of the world fall away.
And when we finally nail it, when the rhythm locks in and every crash and pulse wires itself into our bodies, Xander steps forward.
He’s been quiet the whole time, pacing near the mic, running through the lines under his breath, watching us. He grips the mic stand, closes his eyes for a long second, then opens his mouth.
And fuck. It hits.
His voice is rough at first, frayed at the edges from hours of silence, but then it opens up. Raw. Magnetic. Every word dripping with that ache he carries so fucking well, that fury buried under the calm.
The room bends around it. Every sound we’ve built locks beneath his voice, lifting it higher, driving it harder. I feel it in my chest. In the weight of my hands. In the space between my breaths.
Quinn’s still moving. Still working. But slower now, sharper.
I catch the way she lifts the camera, framing Xander in the shot, her eyes wide with something close to awe.
Then she lowers the camera, arms falling slack, and her eyes catch mine.
And I’m not in the studio anymore.
I’m back in that beat-up bedroom I used to share with Theo.
Posters curling off the walls, the constant stink of that cheap deodorant he refused to stop using. Bianca pulling her guitar from its case. Quinn on my bed, knees drawn up, camera around her neck, quiet, always watching.
She was always there. Part of those long-gone nights. One of the last true pieces of it—the music, the laughter, the late hours that didn’t carry guilt. Before Bianca’s name turned sharp, cutting into the back of our throats.
And now she’s here again, camera in hand, pulling it all back without even trying.
Every memory I’ve spent years shoving down, locking away, pretending never existed, she carries it with her. In the way she stands. In the way her eyes find mine.
Maybe that’s why I can’t stop watching her. Because when she’s near, time seems to fold in on itself. Nothing broken. Nothing missing.
For a moment, everything lines up again. Bianca’s still alive. We’re still laughing. And somehow, we’re all still whole.
Chapter 18
