Echoes of a Broken Melody

Chapter 16

AN// THIS STORY IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!! TO CONTINUE READING MEANS THAT YOU AGREE TO ACCEPT THAT SOME PLOTLINES, NAMES, AGES, AND PEOPLE WILL CHANGE. THANK YOU FOR BEARING WITH ME AS I WORK TO MAKE THIS EXPERIENCE MORE VALUABLE TO YOU.

Sitting in the living room with Dan and Phil was nice. It was a moment of solace in the hectic life that had become Brooklyn Jones-Howells life. She still hadn't decided what she planned to do with her last name, whether she was going to keep it or fully take on Dan's name. It was a difficult choice for her. 

Does she leave behind everything she's previously know to fully embrace her new life? This was why she was accepting towards therapy. It wasn't an instant process, there was a wait-list she had to be on before she could be accepted, but she was interested to start really living her life to its fullest potential. 

She felt like she was still missing something. Like she was a puzzle, and it was missing one of it's pieces. An incomplete picture with holes and gaps. You can get rough outlines of what it's supposed to look like, but you don't really understand the bigger picture yet.

The three of them were all sat together, watching some baking show as Brooklyn was lost in thought. Her eye was healing well, and it just reminded her that she needed to be more careful. Not that she could avoid this, really, it wasn't her fault. She was defending her friend. 

As the commercials came on, Dan turned to look towards Brook. "How are you doing?"

He had his laptop rested upon his knees and she could see he had twitter open. "I'm okay. Still decompressing. I have to go back to school day after tomorrow, and it's going to suck massively. I don't even know what Amber's deal is."

"Who's Amber, anyway?" Dan asked, locking eyes with Phil who was shaking his head in a motion that said 'No, don't go there'

"She's a bitch!" Brooklyn's jaw clenched as she said it. It wasn't what she wanted to say. What she wanted to say was 'She was a friend' or 'She was a girl from school' but instead Dan and Phil got the rare glimpse of emotional honestly from Brooklyn. She was a very shut off person. Very reserved. She didn't like to share her emotions if she didn't have to.

"Watch your language" Phil remarked, gaining a smirk from Dan. "You're no better" he shot out. "She should do as I say, not as I do." Phil replied, jokingly crossing his arms. "I think I'm gonna go to my room" Brooklyn replied, waving her hand towards the boys. She honestly wanted to write music.

"Sure" One of them said, but she wasn't quite sure who. "Hey, Dan?" She turned and faced him "Do you mind if I borrow your keyboard piano? I want to play some music" She asked bashfully. "Go ahead! You know where it is."

She smirked and raced her way up the stairs making a B-line for Dan's room. When she got there, she noticed how much it smelled like him. It reminded her of home. She stocked that thought away for later and latched onto the piano, unplugging it and hauling it to her bedroom in a heady stumble. It was too big for her hands, and threatened to plunge over her arms either direction.

When she made it to her bed she plopped it down and ran back to her bedroom door, shutting it.  The music started to just flow out of her naturally at that point. She played around with the keys at first, not meaning to make anything serious. But when she started, it was impossible to slow down.

B and E, C, and A played together, quickly followed in succession by A, E, C. The lyrics formed in her head as she played them. The sounds that came out of the piano sounded magnificent, and it encouraged her to continue playing more. 

She added in a G sharp, and A chord into the first verse and played again. This time the song truly came to life, adding melody to the song as she built it up.

'Tell me again, about how it hurts'

Including an E note into the songs, she built up her second verse as if it was nothing. 

'being awfully loud, for an introvert'

weaving and intertwining her poetry with the music behind it really felt special, like something she'd never experienced before. She'd made music before, but she'd never been able to encapsulate her emotions in one moment like this. Like everything she'd experienced, everything she'd worked towards lead to this one moment and guided her path to be here.

She was meant to make music.

She hurried onto the chorus and started crafting it in her mind. 

G sharp, B, and E and A are what made up her chorus. It was very simple. She used her little knowledge of music theory to add down shifts to her music, making sure to layer the notes. She wanted this to come off exactly the way she felt it.

'Mmm I've said my speech. Mmm through sharpened teeth. You break the rules, and spiked grow from your skin, please let the devil in'

When she was done, she knew this was exactly how she wanted her song to sound. She wrote down all the tabs to her music so that she wouldn't forget. It wasn't finished yet, but this was it. This was her sound. She could use this to audition with, or maybe post it on YouTube.

YouTube. Brooklyn had practically forgotten about YouTube. She had made her own channel one day but by this point, she had privated all of the videos. They were all just too cringey to bare. Since then, however, she had posted one or two videos with Amber. 

She stood up and walked over to the desk she had sitting in her room and flicked open the browser, typing in 'YouTube' in the search bar. She signed into her account and looked at her channel. The videos were still there. She didn't know if she could watch them.

She clicked it. Flashing on the screen were videos of better times with Amber and Alex. They were singing one of their original songs they had written together about being a fish. It had 200 views, and three comments. Two of them were hate comments from the girls living in Brightside. The other comment was an emoji heart from Amber. 

She felt tears prickling hotly in her eyes and her jaw went tight. They threatened to spill over her eyes. Just as this happened, she heard a knock at her door. 

"Hey, are you good?" It was Dan. She quickly wiped her eyes and pointed towards the video playing in front of her. "That's Amber"

Dan walked over and looked at the screen. "You two seemed happy." He tilted his head to the side. "I'm sorry it didn't work out"

He said it like they were together. A relationship. In a way, they were. Platonically, of course. They were there for each other in ways other people weren't. They defended each other from the abuse they faced at Brightside. They were each others ride or dies. The fact that it fell apart is beyond Brooklyn.

"Me, too."