I was sat on a chair, tuning my guitar, a few people watching me as if I had grown horns. I supposed they didn't explicitly agree with me playing music while they talked to their friends, drank, and just relaxed after a long day of work, or school so I decided not to be too loud. I knew that people could complain, and I really didn't want to stop playing here, even if it only was my first time.
I randomly strummed a few chords until Eric told me that I could start. I went to the corner with the microphone and stool, setting my loop pedal. Don't fuck this up.
"My name's Ed." I said quietly. Since nobody reacted, I didn't add anything. They didn't care, but it didn't bother me. All I wanted to do for now was prove myself that I could regain control over my own life and do something I enjoyed just because I wanted to.
I had worked all night long on this song, rewriting the chorus at least five times before being sort of satisfied with it. I had thought twice about every single note of every single guitar part of that song, about every beat of it many times. I wanted it to be perfect, or at least, make myself believe that I could actually write songs that were worth listening to.
I began to record the first guitar part and looped it, adding the second part. Nobody seemed to listen. I started to sing, but still no one was watching me. I didn't especially want attention, but it would've felt great to see that people somehow enjoyed what I was doing. I'd just have to take in how eased it made me feel.
"In shadow there lies hope
Cut tension with a knife
I find it hard to cope
Stop playing with my life
You analyze my fears
Analyze my dreams
Choke on burning tears
Through my silent screams...
...Things aren't what they seem."
People went and left the pub. This invisibility made me feel weak. It reminded me of how I felt when she left me, when no one seemed to notice that something was suddenly wrong with me. I knew that if I thought too much about it I'd break down, thing I have never allowed myself to do. And as everyone knew, building things up only worked for so long before doing something bad -in my case, drink until I wouldn't be able to find my way home and ending up on a bench, wishing I had passed out a long time ago because the thoughts of how miserable I was would be too much to take.
I then felt someone looking at me. It was the kind of glare you could feel the weight of and which could only mean that the person was trying to see right through you. I knew that if my eyes met ones that reflected hurt or sadness or even just sympathy, I wouldn't be able to take it. Weakness was always way worse when showed by someone else's eyes. Instead I focused on my music, on everything I was supposed to put into it without having the possibility to take back after the song ended.
It was a true escape. I still couldn't believe how helpful music was. And the worst part was that I had let down the most powerful thing on earth for a girl. A girl, a human, someone that could change their mind in the snap of their fingers, and throw anything away without thinking about it twice.
I couldn't let myself get angry again. So I kept on playing, breathing deeply every time I could.
"Watch me fall
As I stumble at your feet,
Always losing in this game.
Your lies cut me deep
And you don't even know my name,
With your consistency
To always make me crawl
And my durability
Not affected at all..."
Did you sometimes wish you didn't regret so many things? I did. Regrets could tear you apart. I wished I had never met her a thousand times, I wished I hadn't cared so much about her. I wished I hadn't made the same mistakes four or five times. And all those things forced me to live in the past. It prevented me from moving on, and as much as I was aware of that, I still couldn't let it go. I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid I had been all along, even when I had no reason to be.
When I looked up, I saw that girl I had growled at the other day. She was staring at me with a blank expression on her face. She didn't look away when our eyes met, I didn't either. I wanted to prove her I wasn't a monster, that I never meant to hurt her or anybody in the process of ruining my own life. But I got lost somewhere along the way. These eyes, they reminded me of hers. I guessed I'd never know if she understood what I was silently telling her because she stood up and ran away, leaving me alone and unnoticed again, only with a blurred image of her in my mind. One that I had never wanted to remember.
I miraculously managed to play two other songs, nobody paying me attention, before I packed my things, getting ready to leave as soon as possible because I knew If I stayed only two more minutes, I'd begin to drink just to chase the picture of my mind. And I'd relapse, probably giving up any hope along the way.
What must have made me less disoriented on my way home was nicotine. I smoked cigarette after cigarette, barely standing the torture of my mind: now perfectly clean images of her, of us, passing before my eyes. My mind replayed the scene of that day she abandoned me. When I finally entered my flat, I could only smell her scent, saw her touching everything, visions of me kissing her against that wall before she told me she had something important to tell me, of her smiling lightly as if she wasn't about to destroy me.
Laying my guitar on the couch, I couldn't look away from my song book, the page where I had written the bridge of my last song standing out in an incredible way.
Feel the pain
On my brain.
Feel the strain
As I start to decay.
Feel the strain
Every passing day.
Feel the pain
As I start to decay.
Deep down, I had known this would've happened. I had written it. I couldn't get better, I didn't have the strength to.
I let my equipment fall on the couch and ran out of my flat. I couldn't stand to be there, to see her, to see how obsessed with her I was now that I could remember her face. I didn't think twice and went to the bar.
***
"The usual, please." I muttered to Max, the bartender.
"But I thought you had..."
"I said please." I answered. I had already had this conversation and it made me sick. Without a word, he went away. I was right back where I started.
I sat there, holding my head in my hands, rubbing my temples, trying to make my world stop spinning. I didn't want to relive this. I didn't want to think about her. I wanted it all to stop.
"You know you really shouldn't do this." A girl next to me said. I didn't even know if she was talking to me. Well, until she tapped on my shoulder. "Are you ignoring me?" That voice... It was like hers.
I looked up briefly before my head started throbbing even more. It was the girl from earlier, the one I never wanted to see again. She didn't only have the same eyes, but the same voice too, and I felt like dying right there.
"Well now it clearly looks like it. You shouldn't drink so much. It would ruin your voice, and I heard you sing, you are great." She complimented me.
"Stop speaking!" I suddenly shouted. I couldn't take it.
"First of all, don't yell at me. I didn't do anything! And don't growl either, because I am human and can speak English. Now, what's your problem?" She said.
"You! You are my problem," I started harshly, but soon enough my voice failed me and turned into a whisper. "Your eyes, your voice... in two seconds my mind will identify your hair as hers and I will go crazy." I could feel myself shaking from head to toe and it terrified me. There was a silence for a while, before that girl spoke again.
"Do you really want to let her control you? Do you want to ruin your life because of a girl? A girl, dammit! Look at yourself. Do you really want to please her? I'm sure she wanted to make you miserable."
She didn't understand. It wasn't her fault, she just couldn't understand how too far gone I was. I had made mistakes that would always push me to the edge. No one could totally get rid of an addiction; I would never be able to live as happily as anybody else. I would always turn to alcohol when things got too hard. I would always regret things and torture myself with them. I would never have control over myself and I had no one to keep me off the edge.
"Come on, we're leaving." She said, standing up. I couldn't move, not that I wanted to. Every muscle of my body was contracted, waiting for the burning feeling to arrive and make me collapse again.
"I have every right to ruin my life, now go away." I muttered and I saw Max come back with drinks.
"Aren't you supposed not to give alcohol to people who couldn't take it? Well, what are you doing, then?" She exclaimed before turning to face me again. She took both of my hands in hers and pulled me with a force I didn't suspect and which almost made me fall.
"I'm going to show you what it means to move on and you'll let them all see you're doing better. " She was surprising and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind or stand up for herself. Three things that she didn't have in common with her.