Page 148 of My Lovely Tragedy
“Yeah,” Cobain says as he pushes to his feet and stretches. “I think we could all use some normal.”
Dex nods, curling against Benji’s side—who’s typing on his phone with one thumb. “I know I do. Ben?”
He peers over at him with a smile. “Yeah. That sounds good to me.”
“That easy?” I ask. Cobain shrugs.
“Why not? We need some easy shit right now.” My lips curl to the side. “And music’s always been easy for us.”
I nod. “Yeah. It actually has been.” Maybe that’s what I need to do. Focus on what Ido knowuntil… everything else feels a little less. Less consuming. Less hollow.
Just… less.
I need Tobias to shrink. But even thinking about it feels impossible. He’s larger than anything and everything. And even now, hundreds of miles between us, he’s still in me. My viscera, my blood. Fused with my atoms and interwoven with my neutrons.
Swallowed whole.
“How many songs are we doing?” I ask. Benji’s thumb freezes on his screen.
“Uh. I think five. Linear Disaster, Hollowed, Razor Lines, Lay on Me, and…”
“Be My Flinch,” Dexter finishes for him.
“Could we swap one out?” I ask as I slide the key back and forth along the gold chain. His eyes catch on the movement, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Yeah, it’s not set in stone. What one did you wanna switch for? Used?”
“It’s, uh, a new one.”
Cobain perches on the arm of the couch beside me. “What new one?”
“One I wrote while I was gone.”
“You wrote a song while you were gone?” Benji asks, sitting up straighter and dislodging Dexter from beneath his arm.
I ignore the pounding in my chest as I focus on unraveling a thread on the cuff of my sleeve. “Yeah. I’d like to play it. At the end of the show, if that’s okay.” Their eyes burn holes through my flesh, and just as I begin to fear they’ll find their way to my center—or lack thereof—the heat is gone.
“Hell yeah!” Cobain exclaims, rocking precariously as his balance falters. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had a new song. Can we hear it?”
I replace the thread with a strand of overgrown hair, coiling it around my finger. Unwinding it. Repeating. “I’d like to wait ‘till then if that’s okay.”
It’s Benji who answers me. “Yeah.” It sounds more like a question, but I leave it as it is.
“I’ll just need one thing—well, two, I guess. A piano. It can be a keyboard or something if that’s easier. And I wanted to?—”
“Apiano?” Dexter blurts, eyebrows sky-high. “I didn’t know you knew how to play.”
“Neither did I,” Ben drawls.
“Apparently, that’s the collective because fuck if I knew,” Cobain adds.
The look Ben’s giving me—tight eyes and curled lips—tells me he sees more than I want him to. My skin crawls, and my fingers curl until the teeth of the key sink into my flesh, pushing me to finish.
“I learned on my own,” I supply blandly. Benji raises a single brow, face never shifting from his poised query. I shoot him a glare before continuing, “But I also wanted to ask if this was gonna be live-streamed or anything.”
“I think so. Ben?” Dex glances up and behind him. Benji’s eyes never leave mine, pin-pointed and unwavering to the point that it takes more energy than I have to not flinch away. Once I drop my head, he answers Dexter.
“Yeah. It’s festival style. Multiple stages over the grounds, different bands playing simultaneously. And each band is doing their own shit, but Jack said they’re gonna set up their own cameras and whatever on each stage for promo material and to get more donations rolling in through each stream.”
