Tales From the Dragon Cave

Dream • D a n

"Can you do the first verse again?" Alex says. I nod, swallowing.

I think they want a clearer recording. But even just the first line chokes me up.

"Take a breath. You're doing good," Wayne says gently. I nod, taking a deep breath and rubbing my eyes. I hate how many people are in the control room. All three of the other guys, Alex, a few other producer-type-people whose names are all mixed up in my head, Mac, a few people with cameras. They're all staring at me, and I'm trapped in a glass box singing a song I can hardly talk about without breaking down. I didn't even want anyone to hear this song but the guys convinced me it was too good to leave off.

I manage to make it through the whole verse with my voice only cracking a few times. When I'm done my fingers are trembling a little and I feel tears burning in the back of my eyes.

"That was good," Alex says, not really meaning it. "But...maybe put some more power behind it. Can we do it again?"

I nod again, trying to calm myself. Wayne gives me his are you okay face and I try to smile back but I'm not sure it came out as a smile because he looks worried. I told him this would happen again. It happens every time. I can't write happy songs and I can't record them without falling apart.

"In the dark...a-and I'm right on the middle mark...I'm just in the tier of e-everything that...rides below the-" My throat stops working and I squeeze my eyes shut to keep myself from visibly crying. I feel my whole face heat up in embarrassment. Rubbing my eyes with my shaking hands, I open them to an awkwardly silent control room. Ben whispers something to Wayne and he shakes his head, watching me with a pained expression.

"Alright. Um...why don't we take ten?" Alex says, standing up.

I nod obediently for the millionth time, walking towards the back of the booth so I don't have to face them. People shuffle out, I assume, and then I feel someone's hands rubbing my shoulders.

He's trying to calm me down, but it just brings me to tears. The sobs that I've held down in my stomach wrack over me as I try to keep them in. This weird, broken, gasping sound comes out of me and I lean my forehead against the wall, trying to make it stop.

"It's okay," he murmurs. "You don't have to be okay." He says that a lot. It's okay to cry, it's okay to break, it's okay to be a mess.

But when you're such a mess that everything's a mess I don't know if it's okay to be a mess anymore.

Once Wayne manages to shush me a little we sit on the floor of the booth, and now I can see there's no one in the control room.

"Can you tell me what the song's about?"

I wipe the tears and sweat off my face with my shirt. "I'm a mess of a human being and when I was a kid they wouldn't listen to me and they said you're fine you're fine you're fine and now I'm even less fine and everyone says you're broken you're broken you're broken but I wish I could pretend I was okay again because it was so much easier."

"You're not broken," he says. "Facing your problems doesn't make you broken and it doesn't make you a mess. It makes you brave."

"They're not problems, they're...defects. I'm a fucking m-mistake." My voice shakes and I cover my face with my hands because it's awkward to cry no matter how many times he's seen me cry.

"Hey, shh." Wayne takes my wrists and gently pulls them away from my face, looking me straight in the eye.

"Dan, there is not a damn thing wrong with you," he whispers. "I don't care what you wanna call them, but they make you who you are and I love every bit of who you are."

I sniff. "You mean that?"

"Of course I do. And pretending you're okay when you're not is only gonna exhaust you, so I don't want you to do that. But you have to remember that only you know how you feel. Don't listen to everyone else."

I look down at my hands. "What if I really never am?"

That's something I'm afraid of. That not only will I be sad sometimes, or most times, but all the time. That everything that helps me won't help me anymore. That I'll feel so sad I'll forget how to feel happy.

"Then I will drive you around in circles at 3AM and bring you cereal and ice cream and we'll cry about nothing in my car and I'll hug you and hold your hand and kiss you on the forehead until the whole city thinks we're gay and someday it will all be okay again."

The picture he's painted in my head is so miserably beautiful that I have to smile a little. "Promise?"

"Promise." He gives me a half-smile and takes my hand, pulling me to my feet and giving me a quick hug. "And I'm proud as hell of you for recording all these songs. Now, I have an idea. Wait here a minute."

He leaves the booth and disappears down the hall for a couple minutes. I think about what he said and try to believe him. Of course, I never will think of myself the way he thinks of me, not even close, and he knows that. But he always tries to convince me anyway and I think that says a lot about him.

When he comes back, he only has Ben and Platz with him. No one else. They head into the control room and give me a nod and a smile, and Wayne comes into the booth with me.

"Whenever you're ready," Ben says, his hand hovering over the button that will start the track. I take a deep breath, put on my headphones and nod, hearing the piano chords ringing through only my ears.

I start to sing and this time I feel better, imagining what Wayne described to me instead of the judgement of everyone in the control room. Whenever my voice falters he squeezes my hand, and when I need to, I squeeze back. We go back and forth for the whole song until I finish, hearing the music fade away.

"Perfect," Ben says.

Wayne smiles and gives me a little tiny kiss on the side of my head that says good job and I sort of nuzzle him back which says thank you, in a kind of weird, overly-affectionate way.

But hey, I guess our whole friendship is kind of weird and overly-affectionate.

And that's a beautiful mess in itself.

Oh, everything's a mess...