Almost Famous |h.s|

Let it Wash Away

July 26, 2020

In the last four days there has been an incredible and resounding silence between me and the band. Only Mitch offering to speak to me on occasion but knowing well enough to let me drown in my misery and self loathing. I had stayed blended into the walls, a silent observer of the musical process. I watched them write together, play together, and drink together as they crafted several songs. A couple of them were beautiful ballads that I was interested to see which he picked for his next album and which one he would save for another time. One night, I had accidentally walked in on him sitting in just a towel at the piano and so I had laid against the hallway wall out of his line of sight, allowing myself that moment to just be with him, even if he didn't know it.

It had been like that for a while now, him not saying a word to me, not acknowledging my existence, so I began to pack my things back up one by one. I had been serious about leaving at the end of this week. I had looked up a plane ticket back to New York that would leave on the morning of the 28th and hadn't told Sinclair about it yet. I figured I'd have a better excuse than, "sorry old habits die hard" for him by the time I got back to the office.

Mitch, Harry, and the band had just wrapped up a music session while I was leaned up against the leather couch, writing down every last detail, when Mitch approached me.

"Want to go grab coffee? We're taking a little break." I looked up at him and smiled.

"Sure, let me go grab my jacket." The weather had been odd today. It kept raining and then being sunny, then rainy, and then just cloudy so I figured I'd better grab a jacket with a hood just in case.

"I'll go with her." A deep British voice spoke over Mitch's shoulder and we both looked behind him to find Harry standing there pulling keys out of his back pocket. I was shocked. It felt like years since I'd last heard him speak to me.

"Are...are you sure?" Mitch asked looking at me and then back at Harry who just shrugged, carefully avoiding my eye contact.

"I need you to work out that guitar solo, we'll be twenty minutes. We won't kill each other in that time frame." I widened my eyes slightly at that...that was actually plenty of time for us to both murder each other.

Mitch mouthed a sarcastic "okay" at me and I just grinned. I was just as lost as he was in this moment. I stood up and grabbed my wallet before following behind Harry towards the garage. He clicked the garage opener and then sauntered over to a rented black Range Rover. I slipped quietly into the front seat and noticed that Harry's grip on the steering wheel was tight as we reversed out and onto the road.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence the whole way there and at some point the sky had opened up and decided to pour down sheets of rain to the point where I couldn't see through the windshield no matter how fast the wipers went.

"Harry, maybe we should pull over." I suggested and he didn't say a word, just kept driving. We were going around a winding curve when I felt the car sliding underneath us. I gripped the center console with my left hand, my right hand holding onto the door.

"Harry." I warned and he just kept ignoring me. I was starting to panic. I guess fifteen minutes was really all it took for us to kill each other. The car slid again and this time he accidentally overcorrected the vehicle and we went sailing off to the side of the street and into a ditch. I screamed until we finally came to a stop. The tires rolling and sinking into the mud the more he tried to get us out.

"God dammit." He muttered and hopped out of the car. I sat there completely shocked at what had just happened. I was feeling angry now.

I hopped out of the car, slamming the door shut, and charged at him as he looked at the damage done. He had been on the phone with someone but was hanging up as I approached.