Delayed | b.w.s

3

14:29

Brad huffs in front of me and his frown deepens even more so than I thought possible. I watch him as he becomes more and more frustrated at the small screen and I find myself almost smiling at the small quirks he has.

"What are you working on?" I ask him.

He tears his eyes from the screen to look at me, taking his one headphone out and chucking it on the table with yet another puff of air from his lips.

"A song." He grumbles.

"And I'm guessing it's not going so great." I add with a small smile to get him to ease up a little bit.

"Not particularly." He responds with a frown still evident on his face.

"Well what's wrong with it? Maybe I can help?" I offer, not thinking that I could actually be of any help at all.

His eyes look to me and then to the screen and back to me, seemingly contemplating my offer, which is more than I thought he would do.

"The bridge is pissing me off." He concludes and I find myself enjoying the way the curse word sounds coming from him. "It's supposed to go all mellow and atmospheric but there's something missing and I just can't...get it." He groans again.

I watch him and lean forward before speaking again.

"Well let me listen to it." I shrug. "Maybe I can help, I do listen to music after all." I tease him a little.

He bites his cheek and frowns again before sighing and holding out his left headphone to me. I take that as my answer and pull my chair around to sit next to his. I accept the white earbud from him and place it in my ear, his fingers scrolling on the laptop and clicking as I do. My eyes try to make sense of the many bars and wavy lines on the screen but I decide that I won't understand and instead I focus on the smooth music fading into my ear.

The song starts off slow with just an acoustic guitar plucking a few strings before strumming joins it and picks up a constant melody. I hear some kind of soft drum beat in the background and what sounds like a piano before a deep voice rings through my ears.

"She lays down on her bedroom floor. The chemicals that make her laugh don't seem to be working anymore."

My eyes widen slightly as the husky voice floods my eardrum and my head instantly turns to face the person sitting next to me. I adjust to his face being a little closer than I thought and note the almost shy expression on his face.

"What the fuck." I mutter and turn back to face the screen.

I let my ears listen to the soft melody and almost lose myself in the perfectly composed instruments and the deep, yet soft voice on the track. The lyrics in this song are so meaningful and have a level of intelligence that I didn't think Brad had, let alone could make sense of and throw together in a song.

"Okay, it's this bit." Brad says softly from beside me and I make sure to focus on the upcoming bridge of the song.

The guitar changes key slightly and all that is heard are several instruments all knitted together perfectly. I hear an electric guitar performing some riffs in the background and the same strumming and plucking melody continuing. However, a few string instruments can lightly be heard, along with some sort of computerised noise that makes the whole thing seem very atmospheric. Then, the key changes back and the song continues to how it was before, repeating what I assume is the chorus before fading off slowly in a similar way to the bridge. I take the bud out of my ear and place it back on the table before turning to Brad's timid expression.