Something In Between: Sequel to On The Edge of Tomorrow

Chapter 58

The words were direct and unforgiving. A condemnation of my faults, my weakest moments, the moments that I thought had been long forgiven but suddenly came so raw and present in the song. It was all so thinly veiled, having lived through it. The wounds were deep, and this music came from them. I feared when it was written. Even as I tried to focus on the damning words, the guitar pulled my thoughts; it was exquisite and terrifying at the same time.

After the second playing, I didn't adjust the needle to hear it again; twice gutted me enough. The next song quietly started, a tender voice, but the words were equally brutal in their description of love. Billy got up quickly and pulled the needle from the record, causing a screech to echo around the room. He picked the album up and slammed it against the table corner in a swift movement, shattering it. Our eyes watched the pieces rain down to the floor as silence filled the room.

"I'm sorry," Billy murmured without lifting his face.

"You're sorry. I'm horrible." My voice came hoarsely.

"That's not true. An angry man inflamed the exaggerated characteristics of the person in that song." He couldn't acknowledge that I was the person.

"When did you write that?"

Billy uncomfortably shifted. "The week I married Sarah."

"You wrote that when you married Sarah?" Shock filled my tone.

"See, I'm sorry, not you." His head fell to his hands as he slumped back to the couch. "I had to give up on us to give her a chance. I needed to focus on..." his voice gave out.

As loneliness took hold, I felt my arms tightly wrap around me. I always thought I had Billy's support, even when we were fighting. But that one song stripped away that feeling. The level, calm, sensitive man I knew was replaced with a blistering public conviction of all my faults and insecurities. My mind whirled to more; there must be more. Billy was known for scorching emotional work that a person could only get to through tapping into the most challenging parts of life, and I was the most vicious part of Billy's life.

I had thought the scorn I'd witnessed in Billy when he was in the hospital wasn't real. I had pushed it away. He could never feel that way toward me. But the song, the words; that man was in Billy, and the anger he had towards Sarah was nothing compared to what lurked within him towards me.

"It's okay," I murmured to myself. I didn't know if I was soothing him or myself. "I just need..." My mind couldn't settle on what I needed. "I just need to be alone for a minute."

I stumbled from the studio. The cold bite of the late fall air did nothing to sober me. I made it to the house and found myself standing in front of the jukebox in the basement. I scrutinized the songs. My ten were there as they always had been, followed by Mary's. I scanned through the rest, looking for personalities. They had been changed; I knew they had. The next dozen or so were clearly Viv and Jackson. Then Tim's character beamed through with hints of Tess' warm kindness seeping into the selections. The rest were Billy. There was little to no order to an outsider, but the progression of songs was straight from Billy's mind. A trigger in one song led to the next regardless of artist, period, or even genre. Of course, Black Jack Davey would lead to Party of Special Things To Do. They fit unexpectedly and perfectly at the same time.

"Hey, there you are."

The voice was so close to Billy's, but not as rough. If Billy hadn't beat on his voice for ten years, would this be how he sounded? I knew the answer; Billy's voice had a ten-pack-a-day rasp from the day he was born.

I didn't lift my head from the jukebox to respond. "You got here fast."

"Mmhmm, I was having dinner at Mary's." Tim halted next to me. "You okay?"