Page 12 of For The Record

In black letters on the glowing screen, the email subject line stares back at me: DEBUT ALBUM IDEAS from my coworker. Sent last night, I refused to look at it until this morning.

Sent: 10:59 pm, yesterday

From:

To:

Cc: ,

Hi Skye,

Do you have time to talk about the marketing of Ryder’s new album? I was thinking we could discuss the best album names. I have some suggestions listed below.

“You want him to name his albumSongs About Skye?” I repeat, reading off of my computer screen as I glance over at Mark. “You must be kidding me.”

“Come on, Skye, it’s just about marketing. You know, capitalizing on the whole 21st-century breakup. Things get messy. Everything’s out in the open, online, for people to dissect,” Mark says like he believes he’s saying something truly profound. “It’s about this avant-garde concept—”

“Maroon 5 did the same thing almost twenty years ago,” I say as soft, acoustic Ed Sheeran-style music filters through the room, courtesy of Ryder. “Songs About Jane, remember?”

“And look where they are now!” he says. “Selling out shows, together for fifteen years—”

“I don’t know that he has an entire album’s worth of heartbreak to explore,” I say through gritted teeth. Mark is starting to get on my nerves. I change my mind about any positive thought I ever had on him. He is a garbage human being. Ryder’s sitting right here, so can’t we just bring this up to him?

“Why don’t you ask the guy instead of forcing this lame, hardly avant-garde album title onto him?”

“I think you would do well to remember that you’re new here and that you only got your job due to who you’re associated with. And no, I don’t mean your family.” Mark’s phone rings. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

He walks out of the room.Good riddance.

He assumes I got my job because of Ryder. This is technically true, but it makes me feel like I’m yet another girl on the Hollywood casting couch, another example of the open secret that in this town: everyone’s trading sex for a job. It’s only my second week here and I’ve alienated already the one person who I needed to like me, other than my new boss, Leo Perez.

I sigh, shifting in my chair and turning toward my ex-boyfriend. He picks at his guitar with calloused fingers. “Come on, Ryder. These album titles suck. Be honest with me. Would youevertitle your albumSongs About Skye?”

I wait for him to sayheck no. I wait for the middle-finger-in-the-air, spit-in-your-face, devil-may-care type of guy that I’ve always known to emerge. He doesn’t. He just stops playing.

“I don’t know. It depends.” Ryder shrugs and puts his guitar back into the case, shutting the gold clasps. Where is the fight in him? Where’s the attitude? “What do you want me to say?”

Part of me wants to answer.I want you to say that you care. That we ever mattered to you, that our breakup hurt you enough for you to never want to write another song about me, let alone name your album after me.Because I’ve been steeping in heartbreak and bitterness for the past months, and I want to drag him down until I can tread water. I’m selfish. Resentful. Completely misguided. Yet my mouth is steering a train straight off the tracks, and all I can do is watch it happen.

“Itdepends?” I repeat, open-mouthed. “I know you launched your career on basically writing a diss track about me, but what the heck does it depend on? I was hoping you would at least have the creative integrity to deny an album title Iknowyou wouldhate.”

Was I wrong? Did I not know him at all? When we were together, I always saw him as this rage-against-the-machine, stick-it-to-the-man guy. Does a small taste of fame change people, or did I only project my romanticized vision of what an artist should be onto him?

“We don’t all have that freedom, Skye.” His words break out through gritted teeth. “You want to believe that I can just do whatever I want, sing whatever I want, and title my album whatever the heck I want. I can’t. You have a job that provides you with some kind of security. I make one wrong move and I’m back on SoundCloud making One Direction covers. Don’t sit there on your high pedestal, placed up there by money and privilege, and talk to me like you’re some kind of saint. I’ll title my album whatever sells the most because that’s what will get my music into people’s ears and that’s what will keep me on the charts and let me keep making it.”

My fingers curl into fists at my sides, and I try to understand him. But I can’t. I try, I try, I’ve always tried. I try even now. What is it about his words that tie me up in knots like this?

“I just don’t get it… Is that all you want? Fame?” I say, my voice hollow, soaking in all the accusations he’s levied at me, all the blind spots that I’ve missed. All this time and I thought he was just a guy in a garage band, someone wandering around town like everyone else in this city playing lounge bars at night and waiting tables in the day. All this time, I envied everyone doing things for the love of their craft, eking out a living and waiting to make it big. Did I have the right path all along? Denial and anger war within me, burning hot. “Is that it?”

“I just told you how I feel. Tell me, please, what’s so wrong with wanting recognition for your work.” Ryder shakes his head, deflated and empty of any other indignant words. He pushes on the glass conference room door, then turns around on his way out. “You wouldn’t get it, Skye. You never have.”

His words sink into me, tattooing themselves into my mind with indelible ink as the door shuts behind him. No. Of course, I wouldn’t get it. I’ll never fit into his family or mine, into this fast-paced world of celebrity or any other one. Yet I can’t leave. I’m stuck here.

What’s the point of being professional if everyone is going to assume that I’m only here through nepotism—which is true, anyway?

Fired. Jennifer’s words ring through my head, and I groan. I have to be professional. Somehow. Even though every time I open my mouth in the vicinity of my ex, I immediately regret it, and his boss is possibly more than a boss to me. My professionalism is going up in flames already, and Ryder hasn’t even put out a single song yet. Through the glass walls of the conference room, I lock eyes with Leo Perez, as if he read my thoughts and came. He tilts his head to one side, an expression of concern forming. I must have my emotions written all over my face. I’ve never been the best at deceiving others. Glancing down at the tan straps of my espadrilles, I hope he doesn’t come in here. I don’t want to face him. I don’t have the energy for this. Not after everything that Ryder said to me.

Talking to him feels like another reminder of how I’m already failing at this job. I keep my gaze on my shoes and chipping pedicure. Hopefully, he’ll take the hint.

---