CHAPTER 6: Circle
"Form a circle around me," Christian read out loud from Rin's notepad; "hold me back, don't let me leave, it's all that I'll ever need." He lifted his head. "I can't tell if that's sweet, or dark as shit."
"It's a bit personal," the twin said in an attempt to dismiss it. "That's all I'll say."
It was the afternoon of the next day, and the group had assembled in Paul's studio. Rin had barely spoken to anyone since her encounter with John, her thoughts being a complete mess. The good part of that was, once she snuck back home and in her room – not bumping into anyone else in the house, luckily – she poured that chaos into lyrics for a song she decided to simply call Circle.
The twin was well aware that at first glance, the theme might come off as a neat song about friendship, albeit a bit of a toxic one. The truth was... Rin felt the urge to just run away. Abandon the band, her exes, Gumi, her own brother, ditch all of these people and things that ultimately made her feel unwelcome. Though, at the same time, she would have wanted for someone to grab her by the wrist as she was moving past them and pull her back in, reassuring her that she actually mattered and that they'd always be there for her. The polarity of craving something and also believing she didn't deserve it was making her mad, and she desperately needed anyone to tell her what she was meant to do and, more importantly, how to feel.
The presence of Lily did anything but ease Rin's pain, even if it shifted her focus elsewhere for the time being. The twin made the conscious decision to acknowledge the bass player as little as possible. So far, she only told her "hi" and avoided any eye contact.
And even so... She had to take a few quick glimpses of the blond girl when she wasn't looking. Rin wanted to see if it'd make her feel anything. Lily was pretty, she had to admit that. On that day, her hair was braided, she wore a pink shirt with floral patterns, light denim shorts and black tights underneath. Her legs were skinny as one would expect from a woman of her height and figure.
She's so slim, Rin pondered. If we hugged, I'd only really need one hand.
Would it have been a bad idea to just ask for a hug? Boy, did she need one right now.
"Do you have music for it?" Jason spoke up.
"Hm? Yeah, kinda. Paul," Rin addressed the producer; "do you have an acoustic I could borrow?"
Paul stood up. "Yes, I do. But I haven't gotten to change the strings in a few months now, I hope you don't mind."
"Nah. Thanks."
As Paul was leaving the room, Christian turned towards the twin. "An acoustic song?"
She shrugged. "Not entirely. I'm picturing a chorus where the electric really kicks in, Nirvana style. That's gonna be on you, Chris."
"Jesus, so much pressure," he said with a well-meant sarcasm.
"Shush. What I think is cool about the song structure – well, I'll show you in a minute. But I'm lowkey proud of it."
Jason spoke up: "You seem eager."
Rin smiled for what seemed like the first time in centuries. "I dunno. It's something different again."
"Don't be modest," said Lily. "I really liked what you played last time, I think your ideas are neat."
"Well... Thanks. I'm doing what I can," the twin replied neutrally. Luckily for her, Paul just stepped back in the room with a plain acoustic guitar in his hand.
"Here you go," he said. "Should I plug you in?"
Rin shook her head. "Thanks, but I don't think that's necessary. Lemme just-" And she began to quickly tune the guitar by ear, dropping all strings a whole tone below standard tuning. "So, you guys know how usually the number of bars in a phrase is two or four? I tried slapping only three in a group together for this. One bar is in E minor, the second is G major, the third one A major, and then it jumps straight back to bar one."
"That's interesting and all, but I can't appreciate your genius until I hear it, love," Christian taunted her.
She snorted. "Okay, smartass. Here you go."
Rin began to play. She let the three chords repeat for a bit before she opened her mouth and, in her lower register, sang what she intended to use as the first verse:
I'm so done, I'm fed up with this life
I'm so scared of my dreams coming true
I cut myself with the knife you held
I'm so done with you
Her playing ended abruptly at that point. "I'm not so keen on some of these lyrics. 'I'm so done' could probably be replaced, but I haven't gotten to that point."
"I don't know," said Lily. "I like that it's written as if you were just talking about it."
"Thanks. No sense in hiding behind stupid metaphors, am I right?"
"So..." Christian grabbed his own guitar. "Did you think about what the rest of us are going to do here?"
It was a good, productive band meeting. Rin felt somewhat pleased about herself again: by the end, they had the song structure down, Christian was beginning to come up with a few lead parts, and... Holy crap, Lily. She wrote a gnarly but very entertaining bass line for the verses, and the twin's admiration for her at that moment even toned her resentment down for a while. And, of course, Jason accompanied all that with drum patterns reminiscent of those on Nirvana's Come As You Are. For the time being, as he said.
"For some reason," Christian remarked when the whole band walked out onto the street, leaving Paul inside; "I adore that verse chord progression. It's very simple, but just the fact that it imposes a dorian scale makes me horny as shit."
Rin blinked. "A what scale?"
"Dorian. That's when you have your normal everyday minor scale, but with a sharp sixth. And you threw that in when you decided to use the A major chord rather than A minor. I dig that so much."
"Meh. I knew nothing about that. I just liked how it sounded together."
"Right on, man! I think it makes it sound a tiny bit more... psychedelic, almost?"
"I guess so," the twin shrugged. "Frankly, I felt a little psychedelic when I wrote that, but all without drugs, oddly enough."
Meanwhile, Jason walked aside, unlocked his tiny old car and threw his backpack into the trunk. "You guys want a ride home?"
Rin shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm meeting with Tom. I'll just walk."
"Do you mean our Tom?"
"Yup. I wanted to catch up," she said vaguely. There's no way in hell she'd explain the circumstances to them.
Christian approached Jason's car. "Can you take me home?"
"Of course, man. Lily, are you coming?" the drummer asked. Lily who stood in the background observing the conversation rather than engaging.
"Oh, no, thanks. I wanted to stop at the mall first," she replied coyly before looking directly at Rin. "We can walk together if you'd like."
The twin promptly decided not to think about it. "Sure, let's go then. Guys," she turned at the boys; "thank you, I feel good about today. See you on Monday?"
"Yep. I'll try to figure out the solo on the weekend." Christian, having dropped his guitar into Jason's car, walked up and gave Rin a quick hug. "Take care, will you?"
She just had to smile. "Don't worry, I always do."
"I know." He pulled back and waved at Lily who waved back. "Have a good weekend!"
"Thanks, you too," she said. "Bye, Jason!"
"Bye!"
The two girls turned around and walked down the street side by side, each carrying a gig bag on their backs; Lily's bass bag was obviously a bit taller, but then, she was also taller than Rin.
"Christian is such a sweetheart, don't you think?" the bass player asked a few seconds later.
"He sure is." Rin, lowkey anxious about being suddenly alone with Lily and fearful of having an awkward small talk, chose not to elaborate.
"And I admire his musical knowledge," Lily continued. "The only Dorian I knew of was Dorian Gray."
"You read that?"
"I tried to, anyway. For a class. Pardon my language, but it's a fucked up book. It's enthralling, but seriously messed up."
"I didn't read it, I only know the summary. But yeah, Oscar Wilde was a fucked up guy." Rin thought about it for two seconds. "To be fair, I like fucked up. Makes me feel at home."
The two girls turned the right corner and walked forward in silence.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill the conversation," the twin said eventually with a strained grin.
"No no, it's okay. I just don't know how to respond to that." Lily glimpsed over at her. "How much do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"Well... I just wonder if it bothers you to think that way about yourself."
It took Rin a moment to fully comprehend what her companion said. In a way, that was a perfect suggestion. Lily – who hadn't known the twin for too long at that point – didn't know anything about her inner struggles, but she didn't want to be pushy about it just in case it was a sensitive topic. It was completely up to Rin to decide whether or not she wanted to talk about it in depth.
Such cautious approach was something Rin never experienced. Whenever she suggested to anyone that she wasn't feeling great about herself, people either tried to immediately change the subject, or to convince her she shouldn't feel that way because she was great or whatever. The way Lily phrased that seemed like... She genuinely cared? She wasn't trying to dismiss Rin's thoughts but rather acknowledge that they exist and probably have a reason to exist. The girl suddenly felt like she could be safely seen.
"I..." she opened her mouth, then shut it again. "I'm... sorry. You just caught me way off guard."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I don't think I ever thought about it this way."
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm just curious."
Rin took a deep breath. Now she felt a little bit obliged to talk about it, especially since Lily showed sincere interest.
"It's... complicated. I often feel like I don't belong here."
"In the band?"
"More than that. Like I don't belong in the world." The twin's pace slowed down, and her gaze turned beneath her feet. "I wanna fucking know what it feels like to not worry about that all the time."
Lily shortened her steps as well to stay on the same level. "Look, I'm no therapist, but... Why do you think you don't belong?"
Rin felt her vulnerability surfacing against her will. "Everyone seems like they live for a reason. And for me, it gets harder and harder to enjoy anything because I don't see that reason. So I sometimes feel left out. Like there's something big that I'm missing that everyone else has, and... each time I think I've got it, it slips through my fingers, and I can never hold it long enough to find out what it actually is."
The twin fell into depression. No, that's not accurate – she realised she'd been depressed for a while, she'd just been keeping it under the surface until that moment.
Lily's voice fell softly on her ears: "I'm so sorry. For what it's worth, you're doing a great job keeping it all hidden."
Rin smirked; she heard the hint of sarcasm in the girl's voice.
"I don't really know if I can help with that," the bass player continued. "But let me ask you this: why do you do music?"
"Hm. I guess it's the only thing I can do."
"Can do? Let me say, you're great at it! You're very creative and you're able to think outside the box. I admire you for that, I wish I was that talented."
"Please. That bass line you just happened to come up with on the spot? I could never do that!"
"Well... thanks. But all I can do is play an instrument. You write songs, lyrics, you have the whole song structure planned out in your small head before the rest of us can even attempt to bring that vision to life. That's not a talent many people have."
The twin smiled faintly. "Maybe. I just hope that's enough."
"To do what?"
"I want to share my music with other people, and I hope it's gonna make them feel good. Maybe even help them."
"Well?" Lily stopped; Rin turned around and saw her standing there with her arms crossed. "Have you tried applying it to yourself?"
"Is that even possible?"
"Of course it is! You told me all about your goals the first time we met. You said you wanted to be the voice of people who don't feel okay, that you want to reassure them they're not alone. Doesn't that contradict whatever you're saying about you feeling alone and not belonging?"
Rin paused. Then, she chuckled nervously. "I guess... I need feedback. Like, I don't know if that's selfish of me or not, but I would feel really accomphised if, for example, a kid walked up and said that I helped them snap out of their suicidal thoughts. Then it would all make sense."
"I see." Lily took a step forward and looked her intensely in the eye. "But please, listen. You can't base your self-worth on other people's feedback. You just can't. If you don't, deep down, truly believe you're worthy as you are, no amount of other people's respect could possibly convince you otherwise. Not for long, at least. ...Believe me, I lived through that myself, I'd hate for you to make the same mistake that I made. Hell, I'd hate that for anyone, really."
People walked past the pair, their heels clacking on the pavement. The cars hummed as they were driving by; distant car horns added to the cacophony of the evening city which was slowly but surely beginning to fall asleep. Rin kept looking at her counterpart and felt immense gratitude towards Lily for merely existing, being right there and then and providing the safe space the twin desperately craved.
For a split second, she was extremely conflicted. She wanted to step forward and give Lily the biggest, tightest hug just to say thanks. She wanted it so badly. But... She couldn't bring herself to do it. They barely knew each other, certainly not long enough for Rin to try and push into her comfort zone like that. Furthermore, as she had to remind herself, she couldn't allow herself to let the girl too close – and as she'd been progressively finding Lily more and more amazing, Rin was also becoming more and more confused and frightened. And what was killing her the most was the fact that nobody could know, especially now that she was overfilled with all those feelings and the only person physically close enough to listen was also the one to whom the twin was least willing to confess.
Once again, she panicked. Rin felt the intense urge to escape, she didn't care how or where to. And also once again, she knew that her obligations prevented her from doing so. What a place, this prison of her own emotions. She built it herself, she was the inmate and the warden in one person. It was as though she was bound to be miserable by default and had to accept it, and it was so frustrating-
Rin noticed she was getting teary eyed. She quickly turned around to wipe her eyes, only semi-aware of Lily's existence.
"I'm.. sorry," she told her and sniffled. "I'm having a rough couple of days."
"Hey," Lily stepped even closer. "Would you like a hug?"
YES, Rin's mind screamed.
"Nah," her mouth said. "I'm okay. Or, I'll be."
"Alright then. But I'm always here to give hugs if you change your mind. I've been told I'm an excellent hugger, fyi."
That made the twin laugh. "Okay, thank you. Maybe next time. Look, I'm... I think I'm just gonna go if you don't mind. I need to be alone for a moment."
The blond girl put on a face that Rin could only describe as worried. "I hope you don't say that just to give me a way out. I don't mind accompanying you."
"No, seriously. I have to think things through. But thank you, Lily."
"You've been saying 'thank you' a lot today."
"Yeah, well... y'all are being way too nice to me today."
"Only because you deserve it." Lily smirked encouragingly.
"I hope so," Rin replied. "Thanks again. We'll talk soon. Bye for now."
"Take care, Rin."
Later that night, the twin was still thinking about that brief exchange even while willingly giving into Tom's advances. She had her doubts even the day before that maybe it wouldn't actually be a good idea to crawl into his bed, although that quick adventure was cleansing. Most of the insecurities of the last few days gave way to a very concrete form of pleasure and... presence? It was as though the intense feeling of intimacy forced her to take a break from her intrusive thoughts and allow herself to live through it, to really enjoy the moment.
And even so, the recent memories of Lily, her worried looks and nonchalant interest in Rin's well-being, suddenly made it seem like an even bigger mistake. When she got dressed and snuck out of Tom's place long after midnight, it was still on her mind. It didn't work as she had hoped: while it was still nice, Rin kept thinking she'd have rather spent the night talking to Lily, taking her up on her offer and hold her as close as she could, feeling the comfort she exuded and never letting go.
