The Chord to my Heart

16: Story Of My Life

                                                              16: Story Of My Life

                                                                [Mase’s POV]

           My parents were teenagers when they had me. My mom was a senior in high school, getting straight-A’s all four years. She was just starting to find acceptance letters to the colleges she’d applied to in her mailbox. She’d also received a scholarship to some pricy university but she declined. My mom attended the local community college instead.

           My dad was never studious, spending his nights and weekends playing guitar in a garage band with three other guys from his school. He told me he’d tried to keep up with it after I was born, while working a minimum wage job at some fast food joint. But the band fell apart and he focused on my mom and me instead.

           They’d told me their story numerous times, warning me not to make the same mistakes as they did. “Focus on school. Get an education. Do not let a girl get in the way,” they chanted over and over again. But it seemed that no matter how much they stapled the reminders to the walls inside my head, I still seemed to take after my dad. School was important. But music was always way more important.

           I’d been playing the guitar since I was a kid. My parents claimed I’d been obsessed with it since I was two years old, strumming on my own while singing made up tunes in gibberish. The memories I kept folded deep in the pockets of my jeans were of the nights I’d sit with my dad while he pressed my fingers firmly against the narrow neck of his acoustic, teaching me chord shapes. Or the times we’d force my mom and baby sister to sit on the couch while he picked at the strings to our favorite Beatles song and I sang the lyrics.

           What I didn’t know, though, was how much music would change everything. I didn’t know that if I let the music flow so deep in my veins, it’d become a deciding factor for my future. I never wanted the chords or the lyrics to alter my brain waves and make me believe it was the most important thing in my world. But at that moment, I did believe it. And that moment defined my life. It haunted me, turning my dreams into nightmares. The sounds of that day echoed off my eardrums and into my conscious, making me bleed. 

           It was summer. The sunlight was hot, but the cool breeze made it bearable. I was held up in my room though, the door and windows sealed shut. My half-assed notes from history sat face-down on my desk, the lyrics to my latest song scribbled on the back of the paper in a barely legible font.

           I played the melody again, my fingers finding the shapes of the chords along the neck of my guitar so easily, I didn’t have think twice about it. The strumming pattern was branded in the corner of my mind as I replayed it for the hundredth time. This damn bridge kept me up at night, the words never stringing together the way they were supposed to. So don’t even get me started, I sang to myself, before jotting the words down. You were the one to break my heart and...

           “Dammit,” I cursed, scratching out the newly written lyrics. This song was the best I’d written yet. But I had yet to come up with some epic bridge. So far, it all sounded like shit. I ran a quick hand through my hair before starting again, placing my fingers against the strings again and strumming the familiar melody.

           My door flung open then as Madelyn came racing in.

           “Mama says to take me outside,” she called out, flinging herself onto my bed. Her dark hair was in two braids, her eyes glowing with excitement.