Page 61 of Best Friend Burden

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I think we should probably show it to Ernie. I think it's time.”

“I don't know,” Natasha said. It's what she always said. “I think we should work on it a little bit more.”

“We've worked on it,” I told her. “It's there. Could stuff be fine-tuned? Maybe, but it's minor tweaking at this point. I think he needs to hear it so we can work on actually getting this out into the real world. I think we've got a few potential singles here.”

“That's the last thing I want!” she said. “Success is terrifying. And if one of these becomes a hit... I'm not sure I'm ready to hear people doing bad renditions of Stone's Throw or Firefly at karaoke bars or open mic nights.”

I laughed. “Is that true? Do you really not want to do this?”

“I do,” she said. “It's just that right now, I can be who I want to be. Once you put something out into the world, it becomes theirs, and you lose control of it. It's a scary thing.”

She paused and thought for a second.

“But what I'm really scared about is Ernie messing with it,” she said. “I don’t want to be a pop princess. And I'm worried that's all he'll be able to see in this.”

I pulled the car back into the parking lot.

“Here's the thing,” I said. “You've got me backing you up, and I'm not going to let him do that. He does something like that, and we'll both quit. On top of that, once we get him to agree to help out, Jackson will draw up an airtight contract that ensures you maintain control of the final release.”

We sat in the car for several minutes in the early morning sunrise. Ernie would be heading into the studio at any minute, and it was better to catch him at the beginning of the day, right after he'd had his coffee.

“You really think it's ready?” she asked.

I nodded. “As ready as it's going to get.”

The words came out with an almost unexpected sadness. I'd enjoyed working with Natasha, and had rediscovered my love of making music through this album. And I managed to do so without drugs or alcohol. If it was over, I'd have to return to the drudgery of my everyday life.

But was that so bad? Millions of people out there weren’t happy, did I think I was better than them? There was a satisfaction in being content enough with life. Wanting to be genuinely happy was asking too much.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's go get it set up for when he comes in.”

* * *

Ernie listened to the whole album in one sitting, as we watched his face for any kind of reaction. Other than the occasional drag on his e-cig, there wasn't much to read off of him.

When the album finally reached its conclusion and faded out, he put that vape pen on the console and leaned back in his chair, keeping us in suspense as he mulled it over.

“What's that track, the one with the raindrops?”

He hummed a few bars.

“Storm's a Comin',” Natasha said.

That's the song that Natasha and I spent the most time on. And it was the one that, from my perspective, was the most about Melody. I figured Natasha knew that even if we didn't ever talk about it explicitly. She more or less let me take over on the lyrics, changing a word here or there. But those changes made a world of differences. Even if it felt extremely personal to me, it was still very much a collaboration, and it wouldn't have been nearly as good without her input.

Ernie nodded. “That's the first single. We can market that as sort of an alternative singer-songwriter type thing. Maybe get it into a teen TV show or something like that.”

He was thinking like a businessman, and what we wanted was something simpler.

“Ernie,” I said. “We just spent some eight months working on this in secret, pouring our heart and soul into it. We're not thinking about how to sell it. We want to know if you like it.”

His eyes looked up at us, serious for a moment, and then he let out a laugh.

“You know what?” he asked. “That didn't even cross my mind. I've been doing this so long, manufacturing what listeners want, that I couldn't even stop to consider if I liked it.”

He nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “It's good. It's real good. And there's nothing else out there like it.”

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