Page 40 of Shattered Chords

Upstairs, I stood in the shower while the water streaming against my skin washed away all the hard-earned sweat. My mind catalogued every single word Camille and I had exchanged yesterday. Was I really losing it? Was my charm no longer working?

Was I getting old?

The last couple of years had been a blur. I hardly remembered the names of all the women I’d slept with. Truth was, at times, I didn’t even care to ask. I’d been too numb to think.

A flicker of something that felt a lot like—as they call it—a butterfly dance that reigned in my chest last night reminded me that not all parts of me were dead yet. And I wanted to experience it again. I needed that burst of color in my monotone world like I needed air.

Was this need the main reason behind my social media stalking action? I wasn’t sure. But later that day, I lay in my bed and scrolled through my Instagram feed for the first time in months.

We’d grown up in the streets, jamming in garages, hanging out in back yards, and smoking weed behind bleachers. Electronics had never been a thing in my neighborhood, and then one day, it’d just dropped on us. Myspace, Facebook, Instagram.

This is where your fans are, Dante, my publicist at the time had said.You need to be online.

So we’d done it. We’d gotten my public persona connected and hired a marketing guru to pretend to be me. Piece of cake.

And here I was—years later—trying to make sense of how to navigate a social networking app, because I was desperate to find out everything I could about a woman who’d said no to dinner with number one onTime’s Best Electric Guitar Players list in 2008, 2009, and 2011.

I felt like a creep as I typed a teenager’s name into the search bar and scrolled through the list of all the Allys. She was easy to spot—the only dark-haired icon in a sea of pinks, blues, and lattes.

What are you doing?the voice in my head said.You promised her mother.

“Fuck,” I muttered into the empty space, then returned to the search bar and typed inCamille Rockwell.

I wasn’t sure if I got the spelling right or if she had the same last name as her daughter. No one really used their real name on social media anymore. Everyone went by a cool nickname. Seeing a splash of red hair in my feed almost surprised me.

Camille Rockwell didn’t have an online alias.

Mom extraordinaire. Makes stuff happen at Dream Bride.

Oh, the irony! Camille Rockwell specialized in weddings.

Laughing at the absurdity of it all, I scrolled through her feed and studied her photos. She was like no one I’d ever been with before. Bright. Simple. Domestic. An open book. Smiling and posing leisurely for the camera in front of clothing racks with frilly white dresses, behind the wheel in her car, in front of the Disneyland sign with her hands wrapped around her daughter.

Camille Rockwell was an all or nothing kind of a woman who lived a real life.

My gut told me I didn’t have a chance with someone like her. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a chance. I just knew my ego’d been cracked and hurt like a motherfucker, and I needed to repair the damage.

I had no plan whatsoever. She was shiny and I wanted her. End of story.

I eased my Navigator into a spot in the lot across the street from the building with the numbers 6-7-0-0 and checked my GPS again. Yes, this was the right address and something told me Camille had played me. Hard.

Crowds of people milled around a row of cars shimmering in the morning sun. Sloppy homemade cardboard signs jerked in the air. Puffs of soap and hoses mingled among a sea of bodies.

I killed the engine and remained still for a while, scanning the pandemonium. A hugeBENEFIT CAR WASHbanner hanging above the entrance covered up the name of the business, but the GPS clearly indicated that on a regular day, this was an auto restoration shop.

What the hell am I doing here?

Friday night had been different. Yes, there’d been teenagers at the club along with their parents, but it’d been a night of music—something I was familiar with. Darkness had been my friend ever since I could remember. This—the screaming pack of soccer moms and their spawns in T-shirts with puppies and kittens in their natural habitat, the suburbs, was all new to me. I’d done my share of charity appearances in the past, but I’d been high during most of those because of a constant feeling of inadequacy. The same feeling spread through my chest right now—a dull, hollow sensation of not belonging here, in this a-little-too-perfect neighborhood with its a-little-too-perfect Sunday morning shenanigans.

Taking a deep breath, I popped one of the shallow compartments in the console open and grabbed a few lollipops. Now that cigarettes were in the past, cherry, strawberry, and mango bursts were my best friends. It was like going from driving a racecar to a Mini Cooper. Downgrading for the sake of my life. Pockets full, I slipped on my aviators and stepped outside. The heat enveloped me instantly from head to toe, hitting all my bones at once.

It wasn’t anything new or unusual. Thanks to Malik and our hikes, I’d gotten used to being sober in broad daylight, but the sheer volume of teenage cheer made me uncomfortable.

Slowly, I crossed the street and searched the crowd.

“Would you like a car wash?” a young girl in a bandana asked, shoving a piece of paper at me. “All the proceeds are going to benefit BrightSide Animal Shelter.” She smiled, revealing her colored braces.

“And who do I talk to, darlin’?” I asked.

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