Page 19 of Verses

If I could win admirers here in Charlotte, I could imagine what would happen when we broke big.

Unless, of course, myadmirerswere nothing more than creepy pervs. There was always that possibility too.

When I got home after work, I was surprised that Kyle still hadn’t arrived from wherever he’d gone the night before. But this behavior wasn’t unusual. He’d been like that even before Liam had died, but after Kyle had spent some time in rehab, I’d thought it would get better.

That he was staying away and possibly doing things he’d promised he wouldn’t didn’t bode well for the future.Hisfuture.Ourfuture.

The band’s future.

After changing clothes, I made a sandwich and tried not to worry about it. I wasn’t Kyle’s mom and barely even felt like his girlfriend anymore. And I certainly had no control or even influence over him.

Three bites of the sandwich and I was done. I had no appetite, so I tossed the rest of it in the trash. With or without Kyle, I still had a couple of hours before it was time to head to the bar, so I decided to be productive, sitting down with a pen and my notebook—the one where I wrote ideas, phrases, poems, and songs.

When I didn’t have my notebook, like if inspiration hit me while I was walking to work or something, I’d capture it in my phone. I had the beginnings of an amazing song in there, but we hadn’t written any songs as a band in months. Even Liam, the guy we’d worshipped, hadn’t contributed much over the summer before his death—even though several of our very first songs had been written top to bottom by him. I’d been nervous the first time I’d brought lyrics with me to a session, afraid mybandmates might think I was overstepping my bounds, but Liam himself had listened and encouraged me to keep going.

That was when I’d bought the notebook.

No sooner had I sat on the couch than I heard a knock at the door. Wondering if maybe Kyle had forgotten his key, I got up and walked the short distance, pulling the door open to discover our landlord Bill, an older guy with a pot belly and white hair. I suspected he was also balding, but he always wore a baseball cap, so I could never be sure. “I’m here to fix the lock on your door.”

It was about time.“Thanks.” Now Ireallywished Kyle would show up, because Bill was nice enough, but I’d always gotten a kind of enamored vibe from him, so I preferred letting Kyle deal with him.

When he set everything down just inside the doorway, he opened up the toolbox and took out a screwdriver. He began taking a screw out of the old knob and said, “How have things been goin’ with you all?”

“Oh, you know…it’s still hard with Liam gone, but—” My phone started ringing, interrupting my train of thought, and I walked across the room to see who was calling.

Oh, Jesus.

It was my mother.

I hadn’t heard from her in months—which begged the question: why now?

Any other time, I would have considered letting it go to voicemail, but my persistent mother would have kept calling every hour on the hour until I answered. Considering Bill was there and would have wanted to pummel me with uncomfortable questions, I chose the lesser of two evils.

“Sorry, Bill. I gotta take this.”

“I’ll just be here workin’ on your door.”

“Hey, mom. What’s up?” I asked, putting her on speaker, because I could care less if Bill heard our conversation. But I closed my notebook on the couch, because I didn’t want him reading anything in there.

“I just wanted to call my Hayley angel.” Why she called me that, I’d never know—because she’d called me a devil more often than anything cherubic.

I knew I shouldn’t complain, though. Since she’d married Phil, I hadn’t had to hear about her boyfriends. Just the shit my teenage brother had been getting into and sometimes his triumphs, her feuds with the neighbors, and the Pomeranians she’d had for a short while before deciding they were too much work.

My mother had almost become domestic since I’d left the house.

“How are you, mom?”

“Oh, you know. Same old, same old.”

If only.

“We’re gonna have to go to court if the Reillys don’t keep their dogs from tearing up that new fence we got earlier this year.”

I’d visited last Easter but none of this sounded familiar. “New fence?”

“Yes. After those windstorms at Christmas when part of the fence blew down, the insurance company paid to have it fixed. And then those damn dogs tore it up trying to get to Salt and Pepper!”

The Poms, of course.

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