As Sin

songbird

Everything came to him in a rush. A switch had flipped in his life, and his schedule changed from empty hours of sleep to squeezing work into every second of the day. He woke up before the sun was out and went to sleep well into the night. It was tiring, but he was more grateful than anything to not have time to think. If the press were clamoring for a piece of him, he hadn't had the time to give them anything. Rumors floated around about what he was busy with, but he was grateful that they were focusing on that. Maybe enough time had passed that the breakup had long been old news.

He didn't know how, but Xia seemed to have a plan that stretched out for weeks, maybe even months. He knew what each one of them needed to be doing every minute of every day. He had Charlie practicing every instrument the band could need and Ra playing every song they had ever released. Meanwhile, he had Nate busy with vocal training.

When he first started, he found himself struggling.

"Make sure you're breathing in through your diaphragm. That way, you won't be straining your voice to reach those notes," his vocal coach, Mali, chided. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Mali nodded.

"Sorry," he murmured. "I haven't sung in a while."

"That's okay. We'll start slow. If it wasn't for me saying you needed to rest, I think Zin would have me over every day."

He felt flustered. Mali always spoke in a steady tone that drew out every word. It made him feel like a child. Or maybe part of an audience. Like he wasn't supposed to speak unless he was told to. Maybe it was because she was one of those people he could never truly impress. But he still tried.

She had him start as simple as possible, despite his urging that he could do better. Nonetheless, he found comfort in the way he could easily breeze through the notes. All Mali had to do was guide him to project his voice to be as clear as possible. He sang the same song for the whole session, an acoustic song he wrote called Smokeshop. It hardly differed from his talking voice, only occasionally dipping into a low note.

His mind zeroed in on every word that left his mouth. He might not ever have written another song like that again. Smokeshop was the first song he wrote that he would ever be expected to perform. Nights were spent fretting over every lyric and practicing how it sounded in his voice. As a result, the words were forever etched into his brain. If he had to do it all over, it wouldn't have come out as special to him as it did. He would sing it forever, if someone was there to listen.

Living to get high

Living just to die

With those ending notes, his first session out of many was over. His mouth felt dry and his throat a little tired, but his mind was quiet for the first time in a long time. A smile spread across his face. Exhilaration from the way the words danced on his tongues lingered in his mind. He couldn't believe that he nearly forgot how much he loved singing. He missed how his voice brought a song to life. It was like magic, dissolving all his doubt that he could ever perform again.

Mali watched him from the corner of her eye.

"Do you think you want to sing again tomorrow?"

The answer spilled out of his mouth before he could think, "I do. I've always wanted to sing. I want to sing as much as possible. I always wanted to. I just forgot that I did."

Her mouth stretched out. It took him a moment to realize she was smiling. It might have been the first time he had ever seen her smile. Maybe she didn't view him as harshly as he thought she did. And maybe she wasn't the only one.

"Welcome back, Nathaniel."

Time trudged forward on and on that way. He sang in the studio, in the car, in the shower. He might have sung in his sleep. "If you can't sing for an audience, at least sing for yourself," Mali had told him. The advice embedded itself into his heart. When he was alone, it hardly even mattered how he sounded. When it was just him and the melody, he could lose himself to the music. That was easy enough.