Songbird (27 page)

The chorus repeated a few times, the tune made it sound like tears were being shed on iron. I could imagine the writer sitting over their notepad, tears
starting to stain the paper. The best songs were normally written with blurry eyes.

“I will spend the rest of my life in a chain, my punishment is living without you. I will regret each moment of my mistake, the day I threw our future down the drain.

“My biggest shame is knowing I hurt you, that I was the one to cause your tears. I didn’t deserve your love, your willingness to only be true.

“If you would give me one last chance, I know I wouldn’t deserve it. But I would spend the rest of my life, making sure we never stopped our dance.”

Now I could imagine the couple on a dance floor, their formalwear swishing around the room like they were floating in the clouds.

Through the song, I could imagine this couple’s complete relationship from that first sweeping gaze to their e
ventual end. I wondered what the mistake was, what could have been so terrible to break up a love like that.

He probably cheated on her, that’s what all guys seemed to do. The poor girl was no doubt completely smitten with him and then he went and threw it all away by doing something stupid. Typical. I could feel her pain.

I replayed the song a few times, each run through sounded better and better. It wasn’t my playing that caused it to improve, it was the song. Some of the intricacies were only revealed after a few goes.

The more I played, the more I felt at one with the song. Something about it was familiar, it was like I was wrapped up in my
favorite blanket. I had heard the tune somewhere before, I was sure of it.

Suddenly it hit me. I
had
heard the tune before, Forest used to hum it sometimes when he warmed up before a show. I quickly read through the lyrics, trying to find evidence that I was wrong. He couldn’t have written the song, why would he even do that?

But I
couldn’t deny it. The song was the story of our relationship, from start to finish. I felt such an emotional connection to it because it was about me. I was the girl and Forest was the guy.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“
W
ho gave you this song?” I asked Demi, cornering her in the kitchen. I wasn’t going to let her go anywhere until I got the truth. I held up the sheet music like it was evidence in a court proceeding.

“I told you, a friend wrote it.” She was chewing on her bottom lip, I knew she was lying. Forest and her were never really friends, there was no way she could call him that.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me it wasn’t Forest.” I stood unwavering, making it clear what I wanted.

When
Demi’s gaze flew to the floor, I knew I had her. She couldn’t lie to me directly, especially when I already knew the truth.

“Why give me the song, Demi? Why do this to me? You know how much Forest hurt me.” My anger was subsiding, slowly being replaced with disappointment. Demi had to know I would eventually work out who
wrote it. How did she think it was okay to rub our failed relationship in my face?

She took a deep breath before replying. “Because you’ve been miserable without him. I don’t like to admit it, but you were a better person when he was around. You were happier, more carefree. That’s how you should live your life, not as seriously as you take everything.”

“Yeah, and look what being carefree got me. I’ve been humiliated and hurt. I wouldn’t exactly say it worked out for me.”

“There’s something you don’t know.”

My eyes squinted as I stared at her, trying to work out what the hell she was on about. It felt like I was still half asleep and dreaming the whole conversation. That’s how much sense it was making.

“Brierly, you never got the full story about Forest,” Demi continued seriously. “You never gave him a chance to explain everything in full.”

“I didn’t need to know everything, he lied to me. What more about being married was there to know?” My hands moved to slap the music onto the counter before resting on my hips.

“I know how mad you were at him, and trust me, I was too. But when he came to explain-”

“You’ve talked to him? You said you hadn’t seen him since New Orleans.”

“It was only the other day.”

“You said it only the other day,” I pointed out. How many other people had been lying to me? I seriously started to doubt whether anyone told me the truth anymore.

“Calm down. Can I make you a coffee?”

“I don’t want a coffee, Demi. I want the truth. Tell me everything or I swear I’m going to go crazy.” I meant it too. I was already eyeing off the fruit bowl and wondering how many pieces it would shatter into if I threw it onto the floor.

“Maybe we should sit down.”

“Just tell me.”

Demi sighed as she resigned herself to the fact there was no way out of the conversation except my way. I had no sympathy for her internal struggle, she had started it by giving me that song.

“Fine,” she finally agreed. “But you really should be hearing this from Forest and not secondhand from me.”

“It’s either you or no-one.”

She leant against the kitchen bench, delaying the inevitable for a few seconds. I was about to open my mouth to prompt her when she started talking.

“Forest got married when he was nineteen years old. He-”

“
Nineteen years old
? He’s been married for seven years?” Apparently I was the seven year itch. I had no idea how that was supposed to make me feel better.

Demi nodded. “Yes, but let me finish. He married a girl who he knew through a friend. Her parents were second-generation Americans, their parents emigrated from India. They brought with them their strict beliefs and traditions, including those surrounding arranged marriages.”

“That’s a nice fairy tale, Demi, but Forest isn’t Indian. You can’t tell me he was forced into an arranged marriage.”

“I wasn’t going to. This girl’s parents matched her
with another man, but this guy was much older and he was known for his temper. The girl feared for her life as a married woman.”

The story seemed interminably long. I wished she would get to the point.

“The only way she could get out of the arrangement was if she found herself a husband. Her parents agreed to let her marry for love providing her choice would take responsibility for her.”

I rolled my eyes. “How nice of them.”

Demi shot me a disapproving look for the interruption. “Forest offered to marry her and pretend they were in love. Their friends arranged for the wedding and they held the ceremony in the courthouse before her parents could have a say.”

I waited for the rest of the story but apparently that was it. “And? How does this change what Forest did to me?”

“Don’t you see? He is married in name only, he never had a relationship with the girl. He hasn’t even seen her in five years.”

It was a nice story, but it sounded too far-fetched to be true. Although, normally it was the bizarre stories in Hollywood that tended to be the real ones. Still, I didn’t trust anyone not to make things up anymore.

I snorted a laugh. “And you believed his story? What makes you think he wasn’t just making the whole thing up?”

“I saw the marriage certificate, remember? The girl’s name was Padmal Yadav, that’s Indian.” Demi would make the worst ever district attorney. If that was her only evidence, I’d say there was definitely
cause for reasonable doubt.

I threw up my arms in frustration. “Well, that solves that problem then.”

I turned to leave, done with it all. While the song was beautiful, it wasn’t worth the heartache. I would rather rip it into shreds than deal with the pain of missing Forest all over again.

Demi’s hand grabbed my shoulder gently. “Brierly, he was telling me the truth. He looked into my eyes and I could tell he wasn’t lying. You and Forest were good together, you owe it to yourself to resolve your feelings for him. I know you still care about him, I know you haven’t closed your heart
to him forever.”

I shrugged her hand away and kept walking. I didn’t stop until I was upstairs and in my bedroom. I closed and locked the door, hoping it was clear I didn’t want to be disturbed again.

Throwing myself on the bed, I hit the television remote and tried to get lost in someone else’s problems for a while. I really wished I had a secret stash of ice cream in my bedroom. Note to self: install freezer in bedroom for future ice cream emergencies.

I couldn’t concentrate on the show. All I could picture was Forest’s wedding in the courthouse with a desperate young woman. They probably didn’t even have wedding rings or flowers, or
formalwear.

But it didn’t matter. Forest and I were done. Sometimes people broke up for a reason, even if it wasn’t the reason they thought it was. Obviously if we were a better couple, we would have talked about his marit
al status and worked it out all those months ago. We wouldn’t have had to act with Demi as an intermediary.

Some people weren’t meant to be together and Forest and I firmly fell into that category. It didn’t matter how right it felt when we were together, it didn’t matter how many butterflies he set alight in my stomach, it didn’t matter how we could talk for hours without running out of things to say. None of it mattered in the end.

In the end, it was just the end, a natural progression of things. Could I ever have imagined growing old with Forest? I don’t know, maybe. Just because I could picture having children with him and how he would look standing at the end of an altar waiting for me, it didn’t mean it was anything other than a fantasy.

I sighed and closed my eyes, wishing the world would go away. I spent the next two days that way. I completely wasted my time off by sulking around my house. Demi took the hint and started working from
her
home instead of mine. At least that meant she was satisfied I wasn’t going to harm myself in her absence.

By day three of Forest denial, I was almost ready to cave in. I was standing in my dressing room at the Staples
Center in downtown Los Angeles. The crowd were already screaming my name as their combined voices floated down the corridor.

In my hand was my cell phone, in my chest was a pounding heart that was torn. My finger was lingering over the contact that said
Do not go there
. It was a timely warning, because I did want to go there. I wanted to hear Forest tell me the truth to my face, I wanted to see him lying. Because a tiny part of me hoped that he wasn’t.

“Brierly, you’re up,” Ryan said from the door. My head snapped up like I was caught doing something I
shouldn’t. Which was technically true, I didn’t rename Forest’s contact for fun. It was a warning to my future self and I was ignoring it.

“Coming,” I replied, plastering on a smile. I placed my phone on the dressing table and left it there. Forest
equaled pain, I needed to remember that. I would do well to remember that.

I took my place under the stage as I stood ready for my grand entrance. I loved the stage setup at the Staples
Center, it was always one of my favorite places to perform. There was something about a home crowd that lifted me, made me feel like I was really home.

The audience were screaming above me, the band were starting to play. I only had to wait for my cue and I would be hoisted up to the stage level. From then onwards, it would be almost two hours of performing.

The last time I was in that position, I wasn’t doing so well. I was so close to a breakdown I could barely hold a conversation, so skinny and nutrient deprived I was the walking dead. I could scarcely function off stage but I still managed to pull it together for the show. Even now, I didn’t know how I did it.

Thinking about that time, it seemed like a world away. I had changed and grown up so much in the meantime. I could never do that to myself anymore, I knew I deserved better than to slowly kill myself while everyone watched.

I would always be recovering from an eating disorder, I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I was cured. It didn’t happen, you only managed to control the disease. But it didn’t define me anymore. I was a better version of myself.

My crew gave me the thumbs up before they
started to lever me upwards. I gripped my microphone, smiled like I was the happiest person on earth, and joined them in the stadium.

The screaming peaked at an ear-shattering volume as the lights went up. I looked around, completely blinded by the spotlights, but still overwhelmed by the love being shot my way. On the stage was truly where I belonged.

I started with the first song and forgot all about my problems. My sole focus was on entertaining my fans and making sure they went home feeling like they had been a part of something special.

When it came time to slow down for the last part of the concert, I was almost sad about it. My body hummed with excitement, energy that had to escape somehow. Still, I grabbed my acoustic guitar from the crew and walked to the end of the platform in the middle of the stadium crowd.

I perched on the stool and waited until the audience grew whisper quiet. I strummed the first note and crooned to the ballad.

The house lights went up, letting me see the entire audience. I liked it when I wasn’t blinded by pyrotechnics and strobe lighting. It made the show more intimate, just me and the audience with no flashy effects.

Halfway through the second song, I stopped. My fingers froze and my mouth hung open. Puzzled faces stared back at me but I wasn’t paying them any attention. There was only one face in the crowd that I could see. Forest was there, standing in front of a group of teenage girls.

He smiled at me, that same smile I had seen
reflected at me so many times. But it wasn’t the same one he gave me when we woke up in the morning entwined, or the one he gave me when we danced to music only we could hear. The smile was full of tension, worry, and concern. I knew the difference, I doubted many other people would.

Ryan was in my ear, asking me whether I was having a heart attack or stroke or something out there by myself. He brought me back to reality, reminding me I had an audience of eighteen thousand.

Oh, right, and I was supposed to be singing them a song. I started strumming again, desperately trying to remember where I was up to with the lyrics. It didn’t help that my eyes kept wandering over to Forest. He was just standing there, not moving.

I stopped, it wasn’t working. I didn’t want to sing the happy song anymore. I wanted to sing something else. “Uh, let’s try something different tonight. This is a song someone special to me wrote. It’s called
My mistake
.”