Painted Lady {h.s}

astronomy

{"We've traveled the seas, and ridden the stars
We've seen everything, from Saturn to Mars
As much as it seems, like you own my heart
It's astronomy, we're two worlds apart"}

★HARRY★

May 17th

1997

The clock is running out.

The deadline is approaching suspiciously fast.

It feels like just yesterday I was signing my name on the dotted line, and all I did was blink and now it's only three days until our showcase.

Three days til our showcase and one song short.

I sit on the couch, in the same room I've been slumped in the past two weeks. Up against the wall, facing the recording booth, while everyone's eyes stay planted on me waiting for inspiration to strike. I wish I could just flick it on like a light switch and finish a song in one hour, but I've had zero inspiration.

All of the finished songs were written during a certain point of my life.

Not that now isn't any good. It's been really great ever since I woke up and took accountability. Something just isn't clicking, it's almost like I'm too content to write a song. Which fucking sucks as a musician.

I stare over to the whiteboard in the corner of the room. There's a numbered list of all the tracks we have so far, number ten being empty, taunting me.

I read through the list, hoping I can somehow get inspiration from it.

PL1

1. I'M FULL
2. COME A LITTLE CLOSER
3. LITHIUM
4. ALRIGHT
5. ABOUT A GIRL
6. CAN'T STOP
7. TELEVISION
8. EVERYBODY TALKS
9. CAROLINA
10. ??

This is hell.

"How 'bout a song about not knowing how to write songs?" Max mutters from his chair, a half smoked blunt resting between his lips.

"Fuck off." I groan, throwing my head back against the wall.

"I like that song you wrote for my birthday! We could use that one!" Mitch exclaims, laying his body upside down on the couch beside me.

"I was drunk off my ass, I can't remember that shit."

"Don't worry, I keep the lyrics close to my heart." He speaks sincerely, holding his hand to his chest.

This is how the past couple weeks have been spent. All of us sitting cramped in this room running through millions of different ideas, and opting against all of them in the end.

Three soft knocks land on the door before slowly creaking open. A head full of blonde hair pops through the door, and my heart flutters.

Caroline walks into the room carrying coffees for everyone.

"Brought some liquid inspiration!" She announces, placing all the cups onto the small table in the middle of the room.

She walks over to me on the couch and sits on my knees. I lean forward to place a gentle kiss on her cheek in greeting. "Hey cutie." I whisper in her ear, watching her perfect smile grow on her face.

"Hey babes," She turns towards me, kissing me on the lips.

Ever since that night, after dinner with Leo and Lorelai, things between Caroline and I have been great. I was holding myself back from something that's ended up being really good for me. Caroline is so attentive and thoughtful, more recently she's been surprising me with little things or texts throughout my day. She's always there when I need to rant to someone about a particularly stressful day, and a person to take my mind off of work for a while.