Let Love Win

Chapter 29 - Hadley

For the last couple days, I tried to hard to get him out of my head. but it seemed like nothing I did worked. For whatever reason, he was stuck in my head like glue. Of course I knew in the very back of my mind it was because I fell in love with him, and I still haven't forgiven myself for it. but I guess something's gotta give. For the longest time, he was the inspiration to all of the songs I'd written but for the show coming up on Friday, I didn't want to make it about him. Though it was too hard not to fall into old habits and keep his face—his gorgeous, chiseled, lying face in my head while writing.

So badly, I wanted to play one of the songs from before he came into my life, but I gave myself the challenge of writing a new song in the week I had before the show. Now it was Wednesday and I had to have the chords sent to the band by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. And you best believe I was going to do it, even it if killed me. I asked Cal to give me the week off so I could work on the song since he knew how important my music was to me. Though it was partly true, a blind man could see I was also just avoiding Zeek and using music as my way out.

But unlike every other time I used music as my therapy, it wasn't helping to forget the idea of him. Everything I wrote down somehow tied back to him. It was annoying really. Max suggested that I write a song about the zoo for the show, and I took his advice yesterday and wrote a song about animals and try to cleanse my mind to start fresh. But even then, I was using the way Zeek carried himself and his strength as a muse to describe a lion. At that point, I knew it was inevitable and that no matter what, this song was going to be about him in some way.

The next challenge that I was facing in the endeavour was deciding what to write the song about. I was ultimately an emotional songwriter so most of the time, all I had to do was pick an emotion out of my ass and come up with stupid words to go with the feeling. Unless of course, I had a saying in mind that I wanted to include and then all I had to do was build off of it. But every time I sat down and began brainstorming words and ideas, they all lead back to love, which only had one background inspiration—Zeek.

I didn't want to write anything like that because if I knew my luck at all, he was going to show up at the performance eon Friday if only to see me and try to talk to me. if I ever wanted anything, I wanted to prove to him that what happened between us didn't faze me as much as I lead on. I mean, love doesn't exist, I know that. And he just further proved my point. No, that's not 100% true, but maybe u just wanted to stick it to him so he felt the same way I did when he lied to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go out and lie, saying I never loved him. but maybe I should start with telling him I didn't love him anymore. Sure, that's a lie to myself, but he doesn't know that.

Listen to me talking about love as if it were life-changing. It's all stupid, that's what it is. I can't stand the idea of love. Can I? Maybe before, but now? Being with Zeek totally changed that. My outlook on love, my tolerance to the idea. He changed all of it. He changed me. And even though at the time, I enjoyed it—I had fun—I want the old me back. I want the Hadley that never let anyone get too close to her because she knew that people would say things and do things all to make her fall and then not be there to catch her. The Hadley that had no one but herself to face the world with. And I'd be lying if I said she would come back now that Zeek had made his mark.

Speaking of lying, that's another thing that didn't seem to want to leave my mind: how he lied to me. And how much it hurt to know that he lied to me for so long. But that part of it was more of a physical feeling rather than mental or emotional. And for the first days after the big reveal, I thought maybe that's why it hurts so much, because I could feel it everywhere. From my heart, to my head, to my toes, I could feel his lies cutting into my life, slowly destroying it. It felt like—no, it was certain that everything I ever thought I knew about him was fake.

Nothing about the months we spent together could have been true, especially if he has a fiancé on the side. Someone who he was going home to the nights that we didn't spend together—hell, maybe even some of the nights we did. I could have told her that he was cheating on her the day she showed up on my doorstep to tell me about his other life. But she seemed like she knew already and wasn't bothered by it at all. It must have been how comfortable she was that he would come crawling back to her no matter what happened between us. And that stung, just a little.

I started to feel angry all over again. I don't know what it was that made him want to lie to me for 8 months, but whatever the reason was, I didn't have to take this. I didn't deserve it and he sure as hell had no reason to spit it at me. I thought being open with someone would be good for once, but I just proved to myself that it never helps to allow yourself to be vulnerable. On the other hand, I was the one who fell for all his crap. I was the one who became reliant on him. I was the one who ultimately sent my life spiralling out of control over some stupid guy. I had just as many reasons to be mad at myself as I did him. I was just as much to blame in all of this.

Through all of my conflicting thoughts, I was apparently scribbling down notes that went in 2 totally different directions, I decided to make it 2 separate song. I'd never done that before, but I had also been going on an internal rant for the past couple hours and had lots of feelings coming out. The first one was somewhat of an inner monologue—a soliloquy of sorts. I was apologizing to my heart for letting myself fall for every little thing that Zeek whispered, that he said, and that he showed. I was apologizing for betraying my heart and all my morals that I held so dear—an apology that I was actually making to myself now.

The other one was directed at Zeek. I was telling him to back out of his little game—his little play. I was telling him that I knew the sick joke he was playing at and to stand down, act out the final scene and to come out as himself for the final goodbye. It was like saying that no matter what he said to me the next time he saw me, I already knew that it would be a part of the script, an act. I'd written out all the dirty lies that he told me that made me believe there was no one else when there actually was.

I spent the better part of the afternoon scribbling potential lyrics that I would obviously have to go over tonight in order to make them performance ready for Friday. But I got something—two songs worth of something—down on paper, which was better than I had been doing all week. I jotted down titles for the songs and stuffed them in my bag. I grabbed my car keys and left my room for the first time that day since classes ended. When I got down the stairs, I saw Monty and the boys playing on the city carpet that Zeek got them for Christmas.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?" Monty asked as I reached the door.

"I finished the song for the show on Friday and I'm just going to go and run it past my Prof and the event organizers, then give the chords to the band," I answered as quickly as I could.

"Ok, well I'll see you a little later then?"

"Yeah."

And with that, the conversation was thankfully over. I rushed out the door and jumped in my car.