Chapter 1: Songwriting
Rayna entered the music room and sat in front of the piano. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well get a song out of it.
Trying to get an idea, she brainstormed on the mess she called her life. What should the song be? Regret? Divorce? Heartache? Sleep? Rayna traveled on her train of thoughts and fought herself to make up a single phrase that might give some direction. I need a drink. I need a drink right now.
Rayna got up and went into the kitchen. She poured herself some red wine, not bothering to look at what kind it was. She walked back to the piano and sat down. She took a sip of the wine she was firmly holding and closed her eyes as she felt the warm liquid trail down her throat. It wasn't strong, but at least it's something. Oh, I need something stronger than this. Hell, I need something stronger than me.
Rayna found herself smiling as she reached for the pencil and wrote the phrase down. Yes! That's good but I need it to sound desperate. She took another sip of her wine and soon finished it off. She grabbed the bottle and poured her more of the dark, red liquid. She suddenly stopped in her tracks and gripped the pencil as she scratched off the first two words of the phrase. There! It makes so much more sense. Pour me something stronger than me.
The verses practically built themselves as the words raced through her brain, finding each and every one of them on the yellow paper. Rayna's scars were so deep that thousands of phrases could fill them and this song hinted only a fraction of her pain.
Rayna fiddled with the piano until she could find a chord progression that was bittersweet as her voice harmonized with the melody. She stopped, remembering how that sound was a little familiar to the song that she wrote with Deacon. It was the song they both wrote before he went back to rehab for the fourth time.
Rayna eyed her reflection on the shiny dark surface of the piano, loathing the way her face expressed unhappiness and regret and broken in so many ways possible. She couldn't stand the idea of lying by laughing through all the pain and simply answering "fine" with every question that interrogated her feelings as she try to go on with her life. All she wanted to do was scream the truth to the world and hope that they would understand what she was feeling inside. To take all the weight of the lies she have kept trying to glue all of the things she wanted together when they weren't supposed to be. To rip off the mask of smiles whenever people see her and expect everything of her to be perfect.
Perfect. Her world is everything but perfect. But she has learned how to live with it, knowing life could never be truly perfect. And if it could be, she'd know that she wouldn't live long enough to see that happen. But even with the thin likeliness of it all, she wished that she could relive every moment of her life the way it was supposed to be lived, to figure out where she stood in the middle of it all and to put everything in its place. But the puzzle pieces that she thought were in the right places just created a picture of hell that would hurt every single person that was linked to her life.
Oh, how did it all become so hard to grasp? Just a year ago, she had it all in the palm of her hands. Everything was occurring the way she had intended it to. And now her career that was once buzzing with new experiences and so many shades of happiness is now sliding from its peak position from the mountain of success, her family has turned into strangers to one another, and then the feud between Deacon and Teddy and Daddy that was once civil now turned into a silent, deadly battle right out of the blue. The battle that had shaped her decisions over the years, the battle to win the prize they all wanted. Me. They all wanted a part of her, but she could only give it to one man. The same man who once had it and broke it and still has it. He had a death grip on her heart that she was never willing to loosen no matter how much she wanted it to. All along, by every passing minute that turned into hours that turned into days to months and then into years, it all slipped through her fingers unnoticed until the day they all escaped. Escaped from her desperate hands and coming back to cross the line she never dared to tread on.
These feelings and thoughts were plainly easy to see on the shiny surface of the piano that has brought life to her songs, the songs that were about happiness, love, heartbreak, confusion, guilt, regret, and everything that described her very soul. These were the same songs that she have shared with the world and knowing that they could relate to it. But they could never fully understand the meaning of the simple words and phrases that she's poured into these ballads. No one could, except for Deacon.
He's the only man for her and she's the only one for him. They both knew it but things were too complicated. Over the years, the glances that were never innocent, the quick accidental contact of skin that electrified them both, and when he held her hand after they sung their song at the Bluebird a while back were the simple things that they were allowed to do. And even those mindless actions were forbidden in their unspoken rule because they always end up relenting it.
Rayna's lips curled slightly as she lingered in the memory. The memory when he placed his hand on hers and gently caressed it with his calloused fingers was so familiar. Too familiar that it could have led to something else if they happened to be alone in that room. He has made Rayna the happiest woman to ever live whenever he smiled and sung in his angelic voice. Whenever he would touch her, it would echo so many words that she could never describe.
But living her whole life in a privileged world, she knew her happiness was always too good to last. She was waiting for it, actually. And it proved her right when Deacon entered the shady world of alcoholism. Almost every night, she would discover him drunk in bars and looking for a fight. Every night when Deacon was nowhere to be found, she was too scared to answer the phone calls that either told her where he was or if he was dead. The tears that came flooding in when she was alone knowing that at the same moment he was taking so many shots that anyone could get dizzy trying to count. Those shots that made her want to cancel so many shows because he was missing or passed out backstage. And because he wasn't in the position to perform, she had to sing all of their duets alone. The duets that they both wrote together in the moments of passion and love were so meaningless every time he wasn't by her side singing the harmonies back with her.
These memories sure perfected the song she's staring at right now. This song reminded the pain she has endured throughout this whole situation and will remind the person she fell in love with the pain they have both caused each other. Having all the lyrics and chords down, Rayna was too tired to go back upstairs. Instead, she fell asleep on the couch near the piano, her worries and fears being temporarily carried by the pads of paper beside her.