Page 80 of Synced to Us

Today, I’m finally comfortable enough to say, “Hey, let me play you guys something.”

East looks up from his drum kit, and Rex steps away from the mic in the center. Mason lifts his fingers from the bass strings, but regards me as if he’s bracing for the worst.

“Sure.” Rex runs a hand through his shaggy blond hair. He’s grown some stubble since we were last together and has deeper lines around his eyes, but with the way he barked at us to go back to the first verse, again and again, he’s still the same grump I left him as, so I jump on his brief benevolence.

“It’s something I wrote—a little rough, but it has potential.”

I bend over my keys and play. It’s Dee’s song. I haven’t mustered up the courage to play it until now. The night she left me on the curb almost ended my confidence in composition. She was my muse, and she walked away. Yet, as I start to play, the notes sound the same as they did when I first put them into the keys. They hit the air and chip away at that strange hole in my chest that’s widened as the weeks have gone by without her.

She’s here in this room, as I see her. At first slow, cautious, and wary, the chords reflecting each hesitant step she takes when faced with the unfamiliar. Then, the transitional bridge hits, where she assesses her environment, gains confidence, and becomes what’s expected and true to the observer, a buoyant mixture of high notes and overlapping keys. I hit the chorus, and that’s where I slow down again, adding the synth sound and the specific multi-track patch I created simply for her in the moment she’s most herself. I bang on the keys to add the dramatic punch, to mimic the effort it must take to constantly be something you’re not, until I land on the bridge, where the music changes again—just like her, always like her—and in this song, I reflect on how it was to lay with her in bed, to feel myself inside her, to watch her head tip back as her mask falls away and she succumbs to pleasure, her soul flashing like lightning with her unfiltered cries.

There’s the Dee I want. The one I miss. And when the conclusion comes, the piece I’d been missing falls into place—the loss of her.

“Whoa,” East says once I lean back from my instrument, sweat sticking to my temples. He massages his neck as he stares in my direction, stunned. “That was insane, Wyn.”

I work hard to school my expression. “You think?”

“It’s good.” Rex nods his approval.

“Fuck you, Rex, it’s goddamned sick!” Mason calls. He didn’t move from his position, but was silent the whole time. He says to me, “I see you fixed that rough spot.”

“Yeah.” All I needed was for Dee to tell me to my face she didn’t care about us. “Could it get the attention of the label? What if we added it to our set list?”

“East and I don’t have time to pen lyrics to it,” Rex says. “Not with our tour taking off in a week.”

“I’ve been working on lyrics. They’re not perfect, but—”

“Sorry, dude, we also have to figure out space for our wives and kids,” East cuts in and gestures to Mason. “And McKenna’s due in a few months, so he’s dealing with that. There’s a lot on our plates. Part of agreeing to this tour was that it’d be paint-by-numbers. Our old songs, same set list, usual personalities—everything our fans are waiting for.”

“You don’t consider that selling out?” I back away from my keys. “What happened to our creativity and freedom?” I indicate the wireless pack clipped on to Rex’s electric guitar. “Or using a monitor mix different from yours? When did we all get so complacent?”

Rex runs his tongue along his top teeth, laughing without humor. “How about we focus on what’s made us successful so we can all be thankful for this opportunity?”

My muscles contract. I calm myself before I say, “And what is that supposed to mean, oh mighty leader?”

“It means all this complacency got us here. I’m leaving my wife and kids for this, and you know what? I don’t have to. None of us have to, except for—”

“Rex,” Mason warns, but it’s too late.

I surprise them all by hooting with laughter. “Thank you! For finally saying what everyone’s thinking, and what I’ve known this entire time! This isn’t necessary, is it? You three have banded together as some kind of charity anthology because you don’t think I have what it takes to do this alone.”

“Wyn, we all want this,” East says, ever the arbitrator.

I’m past hearing him. “This may go back a ways, but try to remember when we first started out and how hard it was to break into this industry. We worked our asses off, we didn’t give up, and we took all our failures as lessons. Coming off the high of Nocturne Court, that’s what it was like for me. Except this time, I knew the odds. I was willing to keep working, keep hustling, keep up with my family. If you all truly want to be here and leave your families, then great, let’s do this. Otherwise, fuck off because I’m not accepting pity for how my life has turned out.”

“Hear, hear,” Mase says.

Rex sets his jaw and stares me down. “All right,” he says. “You have a point. We used to be a hungry rock band and, contrary to your blow-up, I miss that age, too. I want to play like we did in the garage. I want to scream at the audience like they can’t hear us, and riff my guitar until my fingers bleed. I’ve missed all that shit, too. So yeah, let’s do this fucking thing.”

East and Mason roar their cheers and bang on their instruments in solidarity.

Rex points in my direction. “We’re not using your new song, though. My opinion stands.”

“I’m finishing the lyrics, then going above your head,” I say, but resume my stance behind the keys. “To the label.”

Rex flips me the bird, then steps up to the mic and launches into “Heartfall,” the rest of us following suit, which makes me think I’ll eventually get my way. Mason hits the down beat and East grins as he catches the vibrations and hammers at his drum kit.

For the first time, we’re lost in our music, finding our old selves and sinking into those younger memories like they still belong to us. And by the fifth rehearsal, we’ve returned to Nocturne Court.

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