It had been a few weeks, and we were in the studio. To be honest, I hadn’t expected that this would ever happen. And even if it did ever happen, I hadn’t held out any hope that things would actually work out this well.
Something about Leah yelling at Mark in the middle of the bar seemed to have struck a nerve. He still liked to chase after women whenever he had a chance, which was pretty frequently considering that we were only in the studio for a limited amount of time each day. At the same time, he was really putting some effort in, in a way that I hadn’t expected from him for a while now.
It wasn’t just him, either. Once Mark started to put himself back together, Carter had seemed to take a cue. Or maybe it was just the fact that the rest of us sat him down and told him that if he didn’t chill out with the drinking while we were in the studio, then we were going to find someone to replace him with.
Mark had actually led that charge. I still credited it all to Leah’s intervention, though.
Working on new songs, putting together some different tunes, felt amazing. I had forgotten how good it felt to hear something come to life, to be honest. It was creating life; it was furthering our dreams.
Not only that, but the things we were putting together now, these new songs, were our best work yet. By far. I couldn’t wait to show them to the world. The first person I wanted to have hear them outside of us, though, was Leah. It was all because of her.
It wasn’t just that she had gotten my bandmates to shape up and put the work in; it was also that she had inspired me to push myself as well. She really seemed to believe in us. She really seemed to think we could make it. But in order to do that, we were all going to have to work harder, myself included.
The lyrics I had put together for the new songs were way better than anything I had put together before. They felt relevant. They felt like the kind of songs people would resonate with. They felt like the kind of songs we wouldn’t regret if we were still singing them five or ten years from now.
Somehow, when Carter sobered up some, his guitar playing was better than it had ever been before. I didn’t think he had been practicing all that much, but he surprised us, pulling out some new riffs that none of us could possibly have expected. It amped up the pieces, even as it sounded forlorn and haunting. There was a hopeless, transcendent quality to it that worked well with the lyrics I was writing.
We had all come together for this one, and it sure sounded like magic.
This could be our ticket. I felt goosebumps go up my arms as we listened back through parts of it.
Things still weren’t finished yet. We were still missing a song or two, and I think we could all feel that. Still, we were getting closer, and I had a feeling that by the time we ran out of time at the studio, we were going to be at least well on our way, if not fully finished. I hadn’t felt this excited about anything for a long time now.
Except that there was one thing that had gotten me to this level of excitement, but I hadn’t seen Leah since the night she had yelled at Mark, and it was bumming me out. I didn’t know how to see her, though. I mean, sure, she lived next door to me, but I didn’t know how to approach her.
I didn’t know what she was thinking; that’s what it really came down to. I had thought that things were going well after the concert she’d been at. Or at least, she certainly hadn’t been complaining when we were together in the back room. If Luke hadn’t interrupted us, I didn’t know where things might have gone.
But he had interrupted us, and by the time I had gotten done with the Carter situation, she was gone. I had thought that she might have just gone to the bathroom or something, and that she might reappear by the time I was done helping Luke tear down the equipment and load it into the van.
But she hadn’t come back and she hadn’t said goodbye. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Of course, I had thought about going over there to thank her for helping us out. She had been a huge part of my personal inspiration, but she had helped to get the rest of them on track too. Not only that, but I still wanted to talk to her about us. That one night had been so therapeutic. It had felt so good to get things out.