LOGAN (Book One)

THIRTY-THREE

"Great job," Lena told me over the speaker.

I pulled down the large headphone panting with a dry throat. "Thanks, Lena."

"Come have a drink, and we can continue next weekend."

I hung the headphones and went to the recording room's small lounge. Lena hands me room-temperature water. It quenched my thirst and almost had me finish the bottle.

"Although you aren't officially a trainee, it seems that you don't need the voice lessons." Lena pours a small liquid bottle into an electronic cigarette. She saw me stare at her and then at the pencil size device. "Oh? Chris wanted me to quit smoking and insisted I do water vapor."

"Your six-year-old son told you that?"

"He may be in elementary school, but that boy has an adult brain."

I laughed, taking another drink to moisten

my throat.

"He told me his teacher taught his class that smoking is bad and can cause cancer." She groaned, rolling her eyes while taking a inhale of the vape. "Chris is scared I might die soon if I don't stop."

"Well, they are bad for you, and you don't want him to be without both parents," I told her, backing up her six-year-old son. "My dad used to smoke until my mom threatened him that they couldn't have sex anymore if he didn't quit."

"Your mom is awful."

"She just wants him to stay healthy."

"I started smoking when I was sixteen," she blew out the vape smoke, and for once, the recording studio didn't steam with nicotine but with vanilla flavor. So much better. "I was a rebel during my teen years. My mom always worked and never had time for me, and my dad was with his fourth mistress in Milan or the Caribbean, who was almost my age. Yeah, I have a very prosperous childhood."

Man, her life sounds awful.

"But ever since I met my baby daddy in college, got knocked up, didn't finish my degree, had Chris, and now a CEO of Sky's Studio."

"I've meant to ask, who's Sky?"

Lena blew a vape. "Sky comes from the first child I had before Chris." Her voice started to fade, but she kept her calm. "Skylar Joyce Graham."

Lena paused as she looked down at her open-toe shoes with dark red painted toes with white flowers painted on her bigger toe. "The first time my husband and I had sex, I was pregnant with Skylar, and while I was pregnant with her, I built Sky's studio from the bottom. But with all the stress and my miscarriage, I lost the baby."

I listen in, getting the emotional feeling of losing someone.

"Effie, whatever you do, don't drown yourself with sorrow. It will eat you alive. I know you get that feeling when your parents die. I was in the dark about alcohol. It almost consumed me." Lena placed her hand on my shoulder. "When I first met you, I saw a girl who felt the whole world was gone. Your expression of yourself made me see things that you had lost everything. But you empowered yourself when you thought of that person. Tell me, Effie, who did you think of when you sang?"

Once she asked, I immediately pictured those people in my life who made me the person I'm supposed to be." My brother and sister, my best friend, Lily, who has my back, and..." my face lit up with red blush heating all over. "And Logan. He is the first guy who ever sees through me because he understands me the most when losing someone dear to me. The first guy who broke down my walls and the first guy I love so much. That's who I think of when I sing. I sing to the people captured in my heart."