Back to Me (Book Three ✓)

five

BEAU

"Move your hand up a little," I instruct Parker, feeling the familiar roughness of the guitar strings beneath my own fingers. He does as I tell him, looking up to observe my placement, and I continue with the lesson. "See how it sounds different?"

"I guess so," He shrugs, pushing dark hair behind his ear and crinkling his brows in frustration. I hide my smirk - I guess not everyone can be a guitar-playing god. Sucks to be everyone else.

Setting my own instrument to the side, I lean back on my hands, letting the dewy grass impress lines against my palms. Looking out over the small pond, I watch the ducks dunk their heads below the surface, rippling slightly from the fountain in the center. After a couple of minutes, they pop right side up again, necks discolored from the murky water. Parker continues playing, if you can call it that, the chords disjointed and harsh on my ears, as I let my mind wander.

I'm only a couple of weeks away from being two months sober. I let the idea stir in my mind, wondering what it is I'll finally do once I'm out of this place. Emma is a no go, obviously. How strange and depressing it is to consider a future without her in it.

I roll my eyes up to the sky, the fluffy white clouds looking too soft for my mood. Resuming my habit of tugging the grass out from the ground, I let out a deep sigh. I can't really go back to music, either. At least not the tour scene. So where does that leave me?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Parker mumbles, huffing as he sets his guitar in his lap, rubbing the sore pads of his fingers against his old sweats. I pick at the calluses on my fingertips, missing my nail polish yet again.

"My thoughts are worth much more than pennies." I mutter sarcastically, avoiding the question entirely. "And you should keep trying. Practice makes perfect - isn't that what they say?"

"Is that what you did?" Parker stares at me intently, making no move to pick up the instrument again.

"No," I admit with a casual shrug. "Some are just born talented. Don't take it too hard,"

I chuckle as Parker shoves me hard, rolling his eyes and flicking hair from his view. His gaze doesn't waver and I know he won't just let the subject go. Parker isn't one to take hints, subtle or otherwise.

"Just thinking about when I get outta this place," I shrug again, mindlessly grabbing my guitar and beginning to strum casually, hoping he'll do the same.

"What's your plan?" Parker asks instead. He's like me in a lot of ways: sarcastic, angry, sometimes rude. But he's more of a talker, so long as it's not really about him - a habit that causes me more suffering than him.

Again, I shrug. "Don't really have anywhere to go or anyone to see... So I guess I don't really know." My brows furrow and I close my eyes to avoid his intrusive staring as I pretend to concentrate.

"Man, I wish," Parker sighs, laying back against the grass and staring up at the sky. "My family is too much. They'll probably send me back drinking just by trying to help."

My eyes open and squint involuntarily as he complains. "They care about you though, right?"

He raises his brows at me, a smirk on his lips. "Sure they do. If for nothing else, I give them something to talk about around the holidays." I don't speak but my expression must give me away because he chuckles humorlessly and keeps going. "You know how it is, Beau. Everyone claims to care but no one really does."