Eucatastrophe ~ h.s.

✗ twenty-six ✗

HARRY

As soon as we had arrived home four hours ago, Shay dismissed herself up to our room and hasn't been down since. She was particularly silent in the ride home from the precinct, which is understandable, but it worries me.

The last time she shut me out Shay nearly lost it, and we can't have that process repeat itself. Hounding her could only get me so far, and I know she hated it even though she didn't say anything to my face. The evidence was clear in her eyes, it always is.

I've been sitting in my home studio since we arrived home, after I made sure that Shay was settled of course. I haven't been able to spend much time down here in the past couple of months, maybe six or seven actually. Work has been so hectic with the expansion that I don't have time to relax and write music or sing like I used to.

A few years back anyone who entered this home would walk in to a house full of music and I'd be singing and dancing around like a teenager.

"I cannot stand. I cannot run. Without you by my side I feel so alone."

My fingers tickle over the keys before I pound my fists down, creating chords that sound so horrific to the ear. A loud groan leaves my lips as my head makes contact with the top of the shiny piano. I feel the sheets of paper there slide out and flutter onto the floor. "Great." I mutter, shaking my head and sitting up tall.

I've been down here for ages it seems like and I cannot produce any good lyrics. Those three phrases, sentences if you must, are the only true lines that I seem to continue to write. Nothing else has come of the writing process. I used to be able to write a song in hours, minutes even if I was inspired.

I stand from the bench and pick the sheet music up from the floor, placing it neatly on top of the piano. My feet take me over to the bookshelf at the back of the room, where binders sit untouched with songs upon songs stuffed inside, some of the music spanning all the way to when I was around sixteen, years of experience between them and I know.

I used to write about things that any sixteen-year-old boy is interested in, parties, having a good time, and girls. In a way, even as a grown man I still write about girls, but not just any girl. My girl. I've been writing about Shay since she started working for me all those years ago. It sounds creepier than it actually is. But since everything that's happened, I cannot seem to write one piece about her that is worthy of being produced and recorded. They're all shit.

Picking up one of the binders I bring it over to the table and throw it down, slouching down in a chair in front of it. I open it and begin thumbing through it; maybe looking back will help my creative mind.

Or maybe you're doomed to failure.

A smile comes to my lips at the words written in my handwriting, some of the lyrics cheesier than cheese itself, but still quite good in my opinion.