Page 59 of Silver Sweet
“I’m fine,” I say into a frustrated breath. I drop my hands off my face, so he knows I’m not crying. I don’t cry, especially not over him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He sighs. “That sounded…not the way I intended…I’m an asshole.” He leans back on his elbowto get closer to me. I’m aware we’re both practically lying down on my bed. “I do agree with you,” he adds. “I think an album covering our insecurities and our fears is the direction we should go.”
“Any fears you want to share with the class?” I ask him. “Besidesbirds, of course.”
He slips me a glare as he lies down fully. “Again, I’m not scared of birds.”
“Prove it.”
He chokes on a laugh. “You’re fucking trouble.” He gazes up at the dimmed ceiling lights. “I’m scared of being stuck where I am.” His eyes fall to mine. “In resentment so deep, I can’t unbury myself.”
Tragic hold.
I think about this for a moment. Then I ask him, “What about afterward?”
“I don’t know what comes afterward.” He slides his fingers through his hair, his hand pausing on his head while he’s lying on the mattress. His flexed bicep attracts my gaze for too long. Thankfully he doesn’t notice. He thinks out loud, “Maybe I write about trying to escape the tragic hold.”
“I like this idea,” I admit.
He skims my features. “How about you? Any fears you want to share?”
I stare at the ceiling. My chest goes heavy. “How about a fear and an insecurity…”
He’s silent. Waiting for me.
I take a deep breath. “Sometimes…I feel like maybe RJwouldbe into relationships if the guy he was sleeping with wasn’t me. MaybeI’mthe one who’s not relationship material. Because someone who has a dream as big as mine is already taken. I’m already in a commitment. And that scares the shit out of me—that maybe I already chose the love of my life, and I can’t have another.”
Phoenix lets out a long exhale, and then I feel the guitar on my chest. I give him a frown. “What?—”
“Let’s work on it.” He grabs my shoulders, lifting me back up into a sitting position. I reanimate and reposition the guitar on my lap, my fingers on the fretboard. He has his journal open, and he says, “These vicious dreams have a vicious grip. Left you wanting for another but the other left you in the cold.” He makes a face like it’s justokay.
My heart is hammering because I think it’s better than just okay. He came up with lyrics off the cuff that speak to me. Is he trulythatgood? I’m staring at him like he’s a dream. He feels likemydream. The one I’ve been clawing to hang on to my whole life.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“It’s a good hook.”
“Yeah?” He writes down the lyric. His penmanship is legible. Long, smooth inky lines.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with RJ,” I admit. “How it’s nuclear winter.” This hoists his strong gaze back to mine. “A barren wasteland where nothing grows.”
“Nuclear winter,” he repeats. “That’s your fear.”
“Never feeling the fire. Dreams and love are cruel when they’re cold. Passion should be torrid, stifling, so hot it’s agonizing, not on the verge of meeting an Ice Age.”
He’s stopped writing. He’s just looking deeply into me.
“Sometimes it feels like I’m already there,” I admit. “Every time I hold a flame, it starts going out. The Carraways. RJ. I spend so much energy trying to ignite a fire just to watch it all die out over and over again.”
Phoenix sweeps me. “Why do you keep trying?”
“I don’t think I can stop. I think I’d rip apart my flesh and bone until there’s nothing left before I could make myself let go.”
My words must spark something in Phoenix because he dives back to the journal. His pen flies over the pages.
I watch him write. His dark hair falls in his eyes. He pushes it back with the heel of his palm before quickly scrawling more lyrics on the page. The way he locks in has me transfixed, and when I start singing and playing, my world falls away.
It’s just me and him and words that dig and carve and excavate between us. My lungs burn each time the melody flows out of my lips, and he looks up at me with eyes that don’t hide.
