"Fine!" Irdane spat at the door. "I don't want your stupid songs, anyway! Keep'em! I'll write better ones!" He wheeled around and kicked a pot plant, scattering dirt across the paving stones. If she heard, she didn't respond. He knew he was being irrational and he didn't care.
He raised his voice to a shout. "You'll see. I'll write better songs than you ever did. I don't need you or your help or your stupid music!"
There was no response, of course. He wandered away and slumped down to sit on the curb, feeling a little foolish but mostly like he was about to cry.
"Stupid," he muttered into his hands. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. What the hell did I think was going to happen?"
He should have thought about this better. Approached it better. But no, he'd gone charging in like a bull in a china shop, and now Erin would never ever speak to him again, let alone acknowledge his right to the music.
"It's not fair," he said.
How could she? How could she do this to him? She knew how important those songs, that song in particular was to him. She had to know. There had been other songs later, but - it was the first thing he'd ever done. The first beautiful thing he'd ever had a hand in. And she just… wiped it away like it was nothing.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair that Erin should get to be successful while he couldn't even get into the damn music school. It wasn't fair that she was getting contracts while he was writing songs nobody wanted to listen to and slowly teaching himself to sing all over again. He'd felt slow and stupid and clumsy for months after he got the morph, and sometimes he still felt that way. Stupid and clumsy and… talentless.
He tried so hard not to admit it to himself, but he was scared, deep down, that they'd been right when they'd told him that he couldn't make music. All he could do was steal and copy and destroy. He couldn't create.
It's not true, he told himself. We yeerks can make things, beautiful things. I can make beautiful things. I just need the chance.
But sometimes, when he sat up late at night with pencil and paper, wracking his brain for words that wouldn't come, or when he threw out the scrawled pages he'd laboured over a week after writing them because they were rubbish, he wondered.
Maybe it had never been him at all. Maybe it was just one more thing he'd stolen from Erin. He'd enjoyed it so much, but he'd enjoyed her graceful body and her clear sweet voice and long glossy hair too, and he'd always known that those weren't his.
Music had been different. Irdane had believed that the music was his too. Maybe he had been wrong.
No. He rejected the idea. He stood up, taking a deep breath. It is mine. I just need more time. If I love it enough that makes it mine.
OOO
Irdane stood on the corner, tuning his guitar. He took to the piano more, for some reason. Maybe it had stuck better because he'd just absorbed Erin's knowledge of how to play the guitar, but she'd been halfway through learning piano when he took over? He didn't know. But he was good enough at guitar, too. The case was laid at his feet hopefully.
He sang the last few scales of a warm-up routine under his breath. His new voice was different to Erin's, too, and different to the second host he'd had after her. It couldn't reach the higher notes, and new notes had opened up, and it reverberated somehow indescribably differently in the back of his head and chest.
He didn't mind, though. It was kind of nice to have something different.
He scanned the people walking past before he started. No familiar faces. A few redheads caught his eye, but neither was the one he was looking for.
Well, he couldn't just stand around waiting. He hummed a note, and began to play. One or two people glanced his way as he took a deep breath and added his voice to the guitar.
It was just as sweet as it had always been. The music filled his chest and poured out of him, and he almost forgot to watch the crowd.
Yes. This was what he'd stayed for. Not that he couldn't have found a way to make music no matter what body he was in, but this… words couldn't describe it. And he would know, because he'd tried.
He finished the first song, and found himself slipping easily into singing an old piece he used to sing a lot as Erin. The song wasn't in the program he'd worked out for today, but that was OK. No surprise that she was on his mind.
It had taken him months to get over his outrage enough to buy her CD. Once he had, though, he spent hours listening to it lying on his bed with earphones in and his eyes closed. He was biased, of course, but he thought she'd only gotten better.
He'd squirmed a bit on the fifth track, though. Because of course she'd written about her infestation, and it was… weird. Unpleasant. He didn't like the way it made him feel.
He sang through most of his repertoire. A lot of covers, but some of his own material as well. Today, with the sun shining on him and music humming through him like blood in his veins, his own songs seemed to fit seamlessly in with the rest of them.
Every so often he would stop between songs to take a sip of water, glance around at the people, and then quickly return to singing when he didn't find anyone. Once or twice he saw people pausing to put coins in the guitar case, and he smiled at them if he caught it in time.
But eventually he had to stop to pack up and go.
Irdane drummed his fingers on the guitar, not wanting to take it off just yet. He scanned the crowd one more time – two more – but eventually he had to admit it to himself.
She wasn't coming.
You knew she wasn't going to come, he told himself. You already knew that.
He hadn't realised he'd been clinging to that last bit of hope so hard, but obviously he had been, because now that it had been dashed he could feel any remnants of his good mood fraying and falling away. And suddenly, without any warning, he felt awful.
He'd been going to ask…
It was stupid, but he'd thought maybe they could put aside their differences and cooperate again. Her music had only improved over the last few years, and so had his, but – there was a special something about working with her. The works they'd done together were better than the ones they'd done apart. He had listened to them over and over and he was sure he wasn't imagining it. Together, the two of them had just worked.
There had been times when they were something resembling friends. He remembered that, even if she didn't. Bad times when he hadn't said anything, but he'd tried in his own way to cheer her up. Times when she'd done the same for him. Times when they had worked together on projects and the walls of captor and captive had melted away and left only two people creating together. It was stupid but he'd hoped they could do that again. He would've let her keep the earlier songs and everything.
But of course she wouldn't want to do that. Maybe she'd have said yes if he'd sent her a polite email to start with, instead of showing up in her personal space and ranting at her. Then again, maybe not. She blamed him for her infestation, which of course was understandable, even though it hadn't been his fault. Maybe she'd even seemed a little afraid of him. That was confusing and a bit hurtful. He could understand how upset she was, he knew he brought back bad memories, but what had he ever done to make her think he might harm her now?
Irdane bit his lip. Bitterness bubbled up in the pit of his stomach, and he knew it would take over the whole day if he let it.
Which would be a shame, because it was a lovely day.
Irdane looked down at the guitar case. A handful of notes and a scattering of coins lay inside it. A gust of wind pushed against his face and blew his hair back, plucking at his shirt.
How incredible was it, anyway, that he could live like this? A handful of years took him from an artificial yeerk pool and a miserable, thankless mining job to this - an open windy morning, a blue sky, beautiful Earth and people paying him for music?
He played a chord on the guitar and smiled. It still hurt that he had lost this one. Maybe it'd always hurt. But if this was what his new life had to offer him? It really wasn't bad at all.