glitch | jack hughes

Chapter 3

I push my blanket off of me and grab my phone from where I threw it. I grab my phone like it's a disease and open it to my Instagram. I look at the notification from a few hours ago and click follow back. I blow out a long breath, a little nervous for what might come from this.

I text Mere that I followed him back to which she responds with "Yay!" and confetti flows down my screen. I chuckle at the text, and turn it off to clean my house before I decide to go to my music room and start making some music.

To start off my music routine, I prepare my voice with some vocal exercises, and massage my hands to prepare them for being hunched over an instrument for a while. Usually after a long studio session I have the worst shoulder, back, and wrist pain.

I look through my music journal and find a song I've been working on. I've got all the lyrics down. I'm just not sure how I want it to sound. After a few warm ups I get an idea for how to sing the chorus.

"Oh,oh oh. Oh I know. Ooh I like that." I say to myself, opening up my voice memos app to record the idea.

"I should probably go, no go, yes, back home." Wanting go and home to have a slight croak to it towards the end. I'll keep it softer only having a slight rasp but towards the end it'll go to like a tired, fighting voice.

"I'm a genius." I say to myself as I come up with a drum beat to go with my singing. I hum out what I'm wanting the rest to sound like, using different color pens to symbolize different things I want in the song.

For instance I draw a green zig zag going up to signal getting louder, a wavy line going up means singing higher, and so on. I usually need a second opinion on my music so I'll probably call Aaron Dessner in the morning to solidify and reassure my thoughts on this new song.

For now though I spin around in my chair until my phone vibrates again. I bounce out of my spinning state and grab my phone.

@jackhughes hey:) He dms me.

I can't do this, especially not tonight at 6:00 pm. I have to go out.

I call Meredith, waiting for her to pick up my leg bounces in anticipation. "Hey babe." She responds happily.

I get straight to the point and say, "Wanna go out?" To which she responds with "Did Jack text you again? Is that what this is about?" She interrogates me.

I huff into the phone and drop onto my chair again. "Yeah he did text me, but I also just want to get drunk." I make a noise with my mouth making her sigh into the phone.

"Well let's go, but if we're both getting drunk let's get
an Uber." She says, making me smile.

"Okay yay, thanks. Mwah, love you!" I hardly give her time to say I love you back by the time I hang up.

  I throw on a black bra that makes my boobs look insanely good, and a mesh top that shows my bra, but I make it work. Pairing it with some leather pants and boots, I take a look in the mirror while I throw on some earrings, spritz on some perfume, and take a Uber to Meredith's house.

Once she gets in the car we head downtown and get to business. I don't even remember being tipsy. All I remember is being sober then being on stage drunk as shit singing a Luke Bryan song.

I run my hands through my hair and sing "Baby, we'll remember what to do. To drown out every distraction, it's time we made it happen. Strip it down, strip down. Back to you and me like it used to be." I giggle into the mic and spin around making a show of my karaoke.

"When it was an old back road with an old school beat. Cowboy boots by your little bare feet." I take the mic off the stand and grab Meredith's hand to pull her close to me, as drunk girls do.