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She thinks she might be dead.
She’s been laying in bed for days, maybe weeks. She’s curled up as small as possible, a difficult feat for someone her size. Ghosts walk in and out of the place, or perhaps they’re her parents.
Her parents .
She’s at her parent’s house. After the fight, she just ran, and she wouldn’t stop until she passed out, which happened to be on her parents doorstep.
She has an apartment of her own, a humble thing she shares with Min. They can afford bigger of course, their band’s success has earned them more than enough, but they’re on the road more often than not, so they never bothered with something pricier, not yet.
But Min started the fight, and she frankly doesn’t want to see her.
Which is a new phenomenon. Min’s always been comforting, and soft. A gentle presence in the sharp world of touring and recording. She took solace in the quiet moments between the two, the synced breathing and drifting off together.
But Min’s image has been shattered, joined now with the other sharp parts of Diya’s life, and she’s starting to believe she deserves it, deserves the knives poking at her softest parts.
Min was yelling at Noelle, and Noelle was crying. Min stormed off and Akarsha went to comfort Noelle as she always does. It is her fault it happened at all, and she just needed to get away from it, to run and never look back.
Her phone died ages ago. Flooded constantly with texts and phone calls and Twitter notifications. She hasn’t touched it, she can’t bear to look at it.
Her parents are worried too, most likely. They were hesitant to let her go on the road as a high school student to pursue the band’s growing popularity, but eventually gave in when Diya promised she’d still graduate. She did, along with Noelle. Akarsha and Min decided to drop out completely when money started flowing in. Her parents still worried, fearing the worst would happen. Diya didn’t have the heart to tell them they were right to be, the whole “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” mantra turned out to be more true than she initially thought, she never imagined she’d get caught up in it too.
Has she eaten? She can’t remember. She doesn’t feel much of anything, really. And she hasn’t in a long time. She never wanted to be in a famous band, but she went through with it for her friends. Joining them on stage every night to perform her songs. Was it worth the frequent panic attacks before and after? She can’t remember. She just can’t remember.
She’s been drifting in and out of consciousness for days, barely able to distinguish between reality and sleep when her dreams are so vivid.
She dreams in memories, usually mundane, but recently only the bad ones she’d have rather forgotten. Her sleep is a mess, part lucid dreaming, but not being able to contort her memories, and part just wishing she could wake up.
It’s quiet here, and she can feel herself falling.
-
Freshman year, 2008
Min’s back, and Diya’s happy.
She realized she’d been unhappy without Min. But she’s back, and it doesn’t matter now.
Nothing could ruin that, nothing could take that from her.
They’re at Akarsha’s house, the four of them. Min picks up a guitar, and Akarsha says it belongs to her dad. Min can play it, much to everyone's surprise, and she can sing, too. Well. Incredibly well, even.
Akarsha makes a joke stating they should form a band because “Min’s talented, I can play drums kinda, and Noelle can play piano”. Diya chimes in that her dad has an old bass guitar in their garage that she’s always wanted to try, and that settles it.
They were so young then, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
-
Awake again, but she knows not for long, never for long. Her vision’s become static-y and monochrome, and she can never tell if it’s night or day, not that it’d matter much, her curtains have been closed since she got here.
One of the ghosts enters her room, she isn’t sure which. A moving shadow without facial features or color at all, really. She assumes it’s her mom. They place a bowl of… something on her nightstand. Food, maybe. The ghost is gone now, it doesn’t really matter.
She’s too weak to move. Once so strong she could pick all of her bandmates up at once, now too exhausted to pick herself up, she’s stuck here, and she sees no other option. There aren’t options anymore. It’s over. The band is over.
She would cry, but she doesn’t have it in her anymore.
She goes back to sleep.
-
2010
She tells herself that if she focuses on Min’s hand in hers, it’ll all be okay.
They’re in a recording studio, an actual honest-to-god recording studio. She feels she must be dreaming. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to a group of 16 and 15 year olds. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to her. Min’s hand is solid in her own, and she knows she is awake.
She was self conscious about her lyrics. She still doesn’t know how she got stuck writing them, and she still doesn’t believe her friends when they tell her she’s good at it. They’re all about Min anyway, not that she’d say that part out loud.
They posted a few demos to YouTube. The mixing and production was rough, but that added to the charm of it. Diya couldn’t help but be thankful for Akarsha’s drums drowning out her amateur bass skills. Min’s the star of the show anyway, and Diya likes it that way, being able to hide behind her the way she always has.
There are so many adults here in the studio. All here to help them record their first album, to fine tune the bits they hadn’t gotten used to yet.
Min went first, recording the vocals and guitar nearly flawlessly on the first try. She feels cold without her hand in hers, but can’t help but smile at her. Noelle goes next, having picked up synth a while back to add more to their music. Akarsha goes after her. They all seem so, so happy.
Diya feels sick.
She’s convinced she can’t record her parts in front of these people, she needs to get away from them, and fast, but the doors are locked. She’s in the booth with her bass but she feels wrong. She feels like a failure. The guy behind the glass who can hear her is being too nice, telling her to take her time. She keeps messing up, repeating the same songs over and over and god it’s late. She’s taking far longer than any of her friends did.
She isn’t done after finishing her bass parts either. Of course not. She has to record backing vocals . Why did she agree to this? Why didn’t she just let Noelle do the backing vocals? She can’t sing in front of all of these people. She freezes, clutching onto her instrument like a lifeline.
Noelle walks over to the guy in front of the glass and says something to him. He nods, and everyone but her friends leave the room. Noelle puts the guy’s headphones on, and speaks. “I told them you’d have an easier time doing this if they weren’t present, I hope that’s okay.”
Diya nods. She’s still embarrassed, she knows she’s not the greatest singer, but she’s singing backup. It’s fine. It’ll all be okay. She finishes, everyone is smiling at her.
She just wants to go home.
-
Min used to be what she called home, but it’s infested with bats now.
Her eyes feel as if they’re full of glue, stuck staring at the ceiling, and limbs stuck to her too small twin-sized mattress. She needs to get up, but she can’t.
She just can’t.
She tries moving her fingers, slow and steady, but they don’t do as they’re told.
She’s dying, probably. Maybe she wants to.
Her eyelids glue themselves together.
-
2010
Their first show, their first real show.
They’d played a few basement shows before. Diya was anxious about those too, but they were so crowded together she just stood facing Akarsha and no one could blame her for it.
But this one’s real. On a real stage, in front of a real crowd.
They’re opening for some band Diya’s never heard of, but Min’s really stoked about whoever it is, and Diya’s tried being stoked with her.
She is so totally not stoked.
It’s like she’s been called to present next in front of the class, but instead of hurrying through a slideshow, she has to perform for half an hour in front of people who probably don’t even know her band’s name. She needs to leave, but she can’t. She’s held prisoner by the hundreds of eyes in the audience.
On stage now, it’s a typhoon of human bodies, ready to overtake and swallow her whole. Her bass is shaking in her hands. Will it ever get better? Will it ever get better?
She looks to Min. Min always grounds her, pulls her down to earth when she’s gone out of orbit. She’s come to realize she revolves around Min, but maybe she needs to.
Min is electric in all senses of the world. Her blood-red guitar compliments her boots and she sings unafraid. Diya wishes she could be in the audience to watch the way Min works a room. It’s captivating and charismatic. Truly charming, and maybe the only reason people like their band at all. She wouldn’t blame them.
Akarsha lets her hair down when she drums. She excels here. The spotlight was made for people like her. She keeps beat like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She’s still just as jovial behind her instrument, always getting laughs out of Min and the audience during a performance. Her and Min riff off each other. It’s their show, mostly. They bask in the attention and give it right back to the audience. Diya thinks that, maybe, just maybe, if she watches them enough, she can learn to do so as well.
She’s gonna have to if she wants to survive this.
Noelle is… Noelle. She stands straight and poised, the way she has at past piano recitals Diya’s watched her at. She wishes she were closer. Min stands in the middle of the stage, with Diya to her right and Noelle to her left, Akarsha behind her. Diya would give anything to walk across stage to stand by Noelle, but she’s just so far away.
She’s stuck in place.
She’s supposed to be singing backup, but the microphone has grown thorns and she cannot walk near it. She feels like crying.
Their set is over and Diya practically runs offstage. When Min is done soaking up the cheers and applause, she rushes towards Diya, jumping into her arms and telling her she did well.
Diya nods, but she doesn’t believe her. She wishes she could.
The room is spinning and the spaceship is crashing. She’s falling, falling, falling and her life is flashing before her eyes and there’s no saving her. There’s no saving her.
She’s sitting on the couch in their tiny green room. Min’s saying something to her, but she can’t hear her, she opts to headbutt her chest like a cat, not having the energy to speak. Min speaks again, barely audible. Something about the other band, she stands and scurries off. Diya can’t care, she can’t think at all. She just lays down and tells herself to wake up from this nightmare.
-
Which she does.
Was the rockstar lifestyle she was thrust into truly better than anything normal? She’ll never know. She finds it difficult to complain, because how dare she when she has enough money to retire now and thousands of adoring fans? She thinks she’d give it all up if it meant a quiet, private life with Min.
But she has none of those now.
It’s fine though.
She’s perfectly fine.
She’s felt worse, for sure.
-
2012
The gentle rocking of the tour bus nearly lulls Diya asleep, but she can faintly hear music.
Opening the curtain closing off her bunk from the rest, Akarsha and Noelle are still asleep, Noelle in the bunk below Akarsha’s. It’s dark, but a warm glow emanates from her left.
It’s rare, to be awake this late. Shows are exhausting, and usually as soon as they’re back on the bus it’s lights out immediately, and when they wake up the sun is high and they’re in a new city.
Diya misses the stars.
The music is radiating from Min like heat from the sun. She’s plucking at the strings of her acoustic softly, mumbling rhythmically. She startles slightly when she spots Diya.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” Min asks, voice quiet and tired. Domestic.
Diya shakes her head, sitting next to Min on the small couch and leaning into her side, head resting on her shoulder. “Play me something.”
She feels Min smile, and she tries a few notes before deciding on a song. Diya doesn’t recognize it at first, straining to make out Min’s words over the guitar, but soon realizes its vague familiarity. She can’t place the band, but remembers a CD Min was excited to find on a late-night Walmart run. An album cover, something beige with a yellow butterfly in the middle.
Min sings of ghosts and traveling endlessly, and Diya falls asleep.
-
It wasn’t all bad, of course.
She learned how to deal with it after a while. And maybe it wasn’t all her, maybe she had some help. Not help from any person or specialist, but help . Whatever it took to get through shows.
And god what would a younger her have thought if she knew that’s where she ended up? She was so against the idea, so against it until it became available, easily so, and with the promise she’d stop freaking out on stage, the promise of energy, just for a little while.
She used to feel ashamed, she’s mostly just numb to the fact now.
The quiet moments with Min. The off days where her and her bandmates would find a park and play some sort of racket sport. The fans who camped overnight to stand at the barrier, to stand close to Diya; she always made sure to hand them a pick directly instead of vaguely chucking one into the crowd, a gift of thanks. It wasn’t always bad. Of course not. Of course not.
She finds she has strength, not much of it, but a little. She thinks she can get out of bed, at least, and go brush her teeth. It’s a start.
She gets out of bed despite her body’s protest. She’s so weak, incredibly so, but she’s made it this far, the bathroom is just across the way of her own.
She’s always hated looking in the mirror.
She could never understand what everyone else seemed to see in her. Min’s relentless flirting seemed much when they were kids, and compliments increased tenfold when she became suddenly famous. She thinks she looks sick.
She’s thinner than she used to be. Her eyes are in a constant sunken in, tired state, she began wearing sunglasses everywhere that wasn’t a show. She couldn’t stand the idea of someone looking at them. Her hair is longer than she likes it to be kept, but that’s more so due to neglect than anything intentional, it happens when you’re on the road most of your life.
She hates what she’s become. The mirror just reminds her of it.
And look at her. Only twenty-three, so young and too much life left to live, and yet she feels like she’s lived enough life already for ten people. She can barely even hold herself up, needing to rest on the counter for support. She’s a mess.
She brushes her teeth quickly, hoping it will make her feel some semblance of normal, something to ground her, but nothing can. She goes back to her room.
And she’s so wobbly. She’s too weak to support her own weight, and she’s shaking so much her vision becomes blurry.
She collides with the floor.
-
2015
They weren’t supposed to fucking find it.
She started making her own music a year or so ago under the name Letters from a Deaf Poet. It wasn’t a secret, she advertised it herself, the band’s label pressed her own music onto vinyl and everything. She didn’t think anyone would find what she hid in the songs. They weren’t supposed to.
Twitter practically exploded when they did find it. One fan stripped back the instrumental and uncovered it, posting the isolated audio to their account and racking up thousands of retweets. It’s all so fake.
Fake sincerity, fake fear. These people don’t really care about it all, they just care about the music. Diya has never cared about the music.
Hundreds of text messages, most from her bandmates, others from the industry people whose numbers she got… somehow . She doesn’t know how she suddenly began knowing so many people.
She didn’t want to talk about it, especially not to her band, so she admitted herself, just to get away . She’s been searching for an out since she was born, and this seemed as good as one as any. She probably would’ve had to come here anyway sooner or later, might as well get it over with.
She posted a quick note to her Twitter account, a barren thing she lets the band’s managers have control of most of the time. A note that explained where she was and that she was okay. It was more for her band than the fans, but she was too afraid to tell them directly.
Always too afraid.
-
She’s being shaken awake by one of her parents, they’re shouting at her in Tamil. They think I’m dead . She opens her eyes and mumbles a response back, saying she’s okay. I feel dead .
She pulls herself up and back into bed, accepting that this is just where she’s going to be now. This is her fate; a bedridden 23 year old. What a joke.
-
2016
They’re on in 30 minutes. Diya feels great, which means she doesn't feel like herself.
Min and Akarsha are at sidestage watching one of their openers close out their set. The two of them have always loved interacting with their openers, making quick friends with them and watching them perform every night. Diya doesn’t understand it, and apparently Noelle doesn’t either.
Noelle’s place has always been a weird one in the band. She’s always taken a less public role than the other three, sometimes not even joining them for certain photoshoots or interviews. She doesn’t play in every song they perform live, so often she’s on stage doing nothing for half the show. She doesn’t seem to mind.
Noelle took to producing pretty early on, finding that more compelling than writing music, lucky for their band it saves them money on having to hire a producer. She’s still the band’s keyboardist, she always will be. An integral member, to Diya at least. She feels as much.
She’s sitting on the couch in this venue’s greenroom ( which venue even is this? What city are we even in? Doesn’t matter, Min will know ), and Diya realizes that Noelle hasn’t been standing much at all recently.
She’s taken to sitting on stage with her keyboard on the floor in front of her as of late. She never moved around much in the first place, maybe bouncing a bit, but she’s always been a statue otherwise, a fact music journalists love to grill them for.
It hadn’t occurred to Diya until now that maybe Noelle isn’t okay, like her. Maybe she also doesn’t want this. She isn’t sure of what Noelle’s feelings on the band are at all now that she thinks about it, she’s always just been there with them. They’re bandmates.
Noelle closes her laptop lid slightly, looking at Diya. “You alright?”
Diya blinks, “Yeah.” Has Noelle always been this thin?
“Alright.”
She feels like Noelle knows something, she hopes she does. She just looks into her eyes, trying to find an answer, trying to find understanding. What is Noelle thinking? “You look terrible, Diya”, “Diya, your lyrics are nonsense lately, what’s wrong?”, “What’s with the sunglasses, Diya?”, “You’re a junkie, Diya.”
Maybe Noelle is just her inner voice.
She wishes she could talk to her, like how she used to. She can’t remember the last time they spoke, the last time they really spoke.
She locks herself in the bathroom until Min and Akarsha come back.
-
She’s being shaken awake again, but it’s different.
First she thinks a crazy fan has broken into her house, killed her parents, and is now trying to kidnap her, and then she thinks she’s just still asleep, but this isn’t a memory…
The person is saying her name, and their voice is familiar , it’s sickeningly familiar, but she also isn’t sure if she would know a familiar face if it stabbed her.
It’s not her parents, because they sound perpetually annoyed. This person is worried. Diya blinks, then squints, and strains to remember familiarity.
It hits her that this is one of her bandmates, she struggles to remember their name.
Diya reaches up and puts a hand on their face, and it’s not Min, but she hoped it wasn’t anyway. She knows who it is, but she can’t find the words, she just can’t remember. She puts her other hand on their face, trying to mold it into something recognizable.
The person holds one of her hands with their own, “Diya…”
“Who are you?”
“I’m… well that’s a loaded question isn’t it, D?”
“What’s your name?”
“Are you high?”
“I’m dead.”
“Oh my god you’ve gone insane.”
“No, I'm dead. ”
“C’mon homie, get dressed, we need to get you out of this room.”
“I don’t think I can.”
The person laughs a bit to themself, “I’ll pull you out of that bed if I need to.”
Diya stares at them, eyes heavy, “Can you?”
“What?”
“Pull me out of bed.”
“I… guess so.”
They grab hold of both of Diya’s hands, pulling her out, tugging a bit at the loose skin on her arms.
On the floor now, Diya looks up at the person. She feels like a child. “Akarsha?”
“In the flesh.”
“Wh… mm… why are you here?”
Akarsha laughs again, Diya thinks she hates the sound. “ Dude … why are you here? Oh my god we thought you died ! You haven’t answered your phone, you haven’t gone back to your place, you went back to your parents house? What the fuck? We’ve been worried sick!”
Diya just keeps staring at her. She thinks she’s supposed to feel something, guilty, maybe, but she just doesn’t feel anything. “Why are you here?”
Akarsha throws her hands up, “To save your sorry ass! Get dressed.”
-
Akarsha has to basically carry her out to her car.
Diya’s leaning on her, and she’s far too heavy to do so, they keep nearly falling. She’s exhausted once she finally gets into the passenger seat.
“Dude, have you eaten ? You look like a zombie.”
“I think I am.”
“Dude cut that shit out.” Akarsha pulls out from Diya’s parent’s house, and drives off. The movement makes Diya woozy.
Pulling into town, Diya tries mustering up the courage to ask Akarsha where they’re going, but she never finds it, and decides she’ll go wherever Akarsha wants to take her, and then she wonders if this is her being kidnapped.
A McDonald’s looms in the distance, and Diya’s stomach growls angrily. Akarsha pulls into it.
“Here you go man, twenty chicken nuggets and a large fry.”
Diya doesn’t feel she has much choice in this scenario, so she just eats. It at least gives her a good excuse to not talk.
“So…” Akarsha glances over at Diya shyly. “I won’t ask how things have been because obviously the answer is terrible, but Min and I have been talking…”
And suddenly Diya is crying, and she can’t stop. Her tears fall into her food, and she’s lost her appetite all over again.
“Woah woah hey man, Diya…” Akarsha keeps glancing between her and the road, and Diya just wants to go back home.
Akarsha curses and pulls over, leaning over the center console awkwardly to hug Diya. She’s crying, but no sound comes out. She doesn’t hug Akarsha back, she just sits there.
It’s quiet for a while, the engine and the other cars passing the only sounds present. It’d be peaceful if it didn’t smell like cold chicken.
“Remember that time we were playing badminton, and Noelle somehow managed to hit the birdie into Min’s mouth?”
Diya does remember, but she stays silent.
“And that one time, we had a show in Europe on your birthday, and there were a bunch of puppies in the greenroom? And all those people in the crowd with those huge signs telling you happy birthday?
Or that one time when we were like 16, we went to that one guy's party. They had weed brownies but you didn’t know they were weed brownies, so you ate two and you spent the rest of the night curled up in a ball on the floor?”
Diya grimaces. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”
Akarsha takes a deep breath, “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Akarsha pulls back and looks at Diya. Diya closes her eyes.
“C’mon man, don’t say stuff like that. You’re the heart of this band, we can’t do it without you.”
I don’t want to be in the band . She just keeps quiet.
“Min and I have been talking… we’re gonna just go to the studio and see what happens, but we couldn’t do it without you.”
Diya feels cold. “Will Noelle be there?”
Akarsha makes a face, pained, maybe, “I don’t know.”
She starts driving again, towards their studio. The traffic stretches the journey there thin. Unnecessarily long and just awkward.
Diya wonders if Akarsha has ever felt the same way she has, like a prisoner. She assumes not, based on her charisma on stage, but she hasn’t always been that way…
She feels alone. She considers rolling out of the car, but can’t shake the feeling that the doors are child-locked.
Akarsha turns on the radio, pop music. Diya can barely hear it.
Her eyes blur in the sea of congested cars, all going somewhere, she wishes she could do the same. Anywhere but here.
She blinks. “Do you think that was my only time?”
“What?” Akarsha’s brows furrow.
“The weed brownies. Do you think that’s all I’ve done?”
Akarsha’s eyes go wide but she keeps them on the road, her lips droop down, serious. “... What are you talking about?”
“... How’d you think I managed to perform in front of that many people?”
Akarsha grips the steering wheel, leaning forward into it slightly. “Oh my god Diya what did you take ? What have you taken ?”
“Bit of everything. Don’t like weed though.”
Akarsha’s shaking her head, repeating “oh my god” quietly over and over again. “Diya I… I had no idea.”
“No one did.”
“Well… I remember a year or so ago seeing these guys on Reddit who kept making posts about how they were certain you were super fucked up. No one believed them but… oh my god … why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Wouldn’t be able to play if they stopped me.”
“Diya that’s… oh my god.”
She hasn’t had a conversation in so long, and talking about this exhausts her. The wave of cars is crashing over her, a metallic tsunami. She feels anxious, like they know she’s in here talking about this and are about to tattle on her to every news outlet available.
She needs to hide, to get away from them.
She reaches for every compartment in Akarsha’s car until she finds some sunglasses, a rose gold pair fall out of an above head pocket. Diya slumps into her seat, tuning out Akarsha’s words.
She puts them on, and goes to sleep.
-
2017, two weeks ago
It’s all her fault.
Noelle had made some songs, some songs by herself. None of them knew, Diya isn’t too sure they know much about each other at all. They don’t talk, that’s for sure. Maybe if they did, it could’ve been avoided, or discussed, been brought to peace. Anything.
She imagines that this is what a nightmare feels like, all of one’s worst fears coming true.
Because Noelle had made some songs by herself.
She tried explaining. Tried telling her and Min that she never planned on releasing those songs, they were supposed to stay in a file on her laptop until the day she died.
Maybe today is that day.
You cannot keep things secret when millions of people know you by name and by face, when millions of people can pick you out of a crowd. The files were leaked, none of them know how, but it doesn’t matter. The damage has been done.
It’s the principle of it, is what Min keeps trying to explain, Noelle says she can’t control how she feels, especially not around Diya.
Because of course it’s about her.
Noelle had written some songs. By herself. All of her own lyrics and vocals and instrumentation. 100 percent hers, without any outside influence.
They were songs about Diya.
Painstakingly obvious, a rose in a blizzard. Love songs, confessional tapes, the like.
Diya wishes Min would stop trying to protect her from Noelle. She wishes she would stop yelling at Noelle. She wishes it could all stop.
Yelling and crying, spit and tears; a war in a panic room.
It’s blown up. It’s all blown up and it’s Diya’s fault. She can’t help the fact that both Min and Noelle like her, and she doesn’t care about that, but she blames herself for getting in the way, always in the way.
So she just runs.
And she runs and doesn’t know where she’s going but when she wakes up, she’s in her parent’s house.
It’s the closest thing to home she has.
-
Akarsha is shaking her awake softly, uncharacteristically.
Diya rubs at her eyes, and takes Akarsha in for the first time in a long time. She’s grown up so much. Somehow the fame had seemingly the opposite effect on her than it had on Diya. Akarsha found her purpose in the music and the crowds, Diya lost it all the second she picked up an instrument.
She’s more serious, serious about band stuff, at least. The band is important to Akarsha, more important than anything except for maybe her siblings. Diya’s thought of asking her if she wants her out of the band, she feels she’s holding her and Min back. She’s always met with the same response in the face of her insecurity, “ You’re our lyricist, you can’t leave ”.
She can’t leave.
They’re here at their studio. Her car is still here, her and Min’s car. She wonders if Min drove, or if she carpooled with Akarsha earlier in the day, and if her car, their car, has been here the whole time. Min’s never been the greatest driver.
They walk inside. Atop the door frame is a family of crows. Diya wonders what it’s like to fly, what it’s like to be free to go wherever, whenever. She wonders if birds ever feel trapped in their need to migrate, if they ever feel like staying, but can’t.
She wishes she was a bird. That’d be nice.
Min is in their studio, her electric guitar hanging where it always is, like an extra limb.
People always say instruments become that way, like extra limbs. If Min’s guitar is an extension of herself, then Diya’s bass is like a parasite.
Her bass is still here, of course it is. An expensive thing, she had it custom made some years ago. Sky blue, flying v, left handed. People always tell her that her instrument will be more famous than she is one day. She doesn’t tell them that was the point of her getting it made.
Maybe not the whole point. She did want a lefty bass also, struggling with her dad’s old right-handed one and not liking the look of any of the ones on the market.
She doesn’t really care about it.
She looks back at Min, who smiles at her quickly before looking away. Min looks so… old ( she looks 23 ). She looks her age, at least. Adult. She looks adult. Diya feels like a 14 year old trapped in a 23 year old’s body, she supposes she is.
She doesn’t want to look at Min, she wishes she could see her the same way she did when they were kids, brave and strong. Min isn’t much of anything anymore. She’s her bandmate, not her partner, not her friend.
They all are, just her bandmates, her coworkers. She doesn’t have friends.
Noelle is not here, but her keyboard is plugged in. She needs Noelle to be here, they can’t play without her.
“Where’s Noelle?”
Min looks at her, her face unreadable. Diya used to be so good at reading her friend’s expressions. She can’t figure anyone out anymore.
“She’s not coming.”
Diya nods, and hides her face, looking at a wall.
The band isn’t the band without Noelle. They can’t play without her. Maybe she’s the only one who thinks so, but she knows she’s right. It’s the one thing she knows for certain.
Despite it all, she picks up her bass. Akarsha gets behind her drum-kit, enclosed slightly behind a glass barrier. They can’t play without Noelle, they just can’t.
But they do.
It doesn’t sound much different.
Diya sits on the floor, the same way Noelle has at shows, and closes her eyes, plucking weakly at her instrument’s strings.
If she strains, it’s like she can still hear her.
She pretends it’s okay, she pretends she isn’t hurt, because, at the end of it all, she is only their lyricist.
Trapped in a bird cage, forced to give up her words for everyone else’s amusement.
Forever.