Pathos

Nightshade on the edge

By the fifth night in the basement studio in Tennessee, quite a few of Nightshade’s songs had begun to take shape. They weren’t merely the weight of chords stacked carefully atop one another, or lyrics revised and re-revised until they no longer flinched beneath scrutiny. This was the heavier thing, the kind that settled into souls and refused to leave.

The songs were no longer half formed ideas scribbled in notebooks. They were almost ready to be recorded at Black Oak Entertainment’s studios. Almost ready to be unleashed to the world. Half the album Nightshade meant to record already lived as demo recordings in digital format. They existed now, not as theory or ambition, but as proof. The AIFF files waited heavily and patiently, holding every word, every verse. Every mistake.

Jace Barnes sat alone listening on the old couch in the corner of the basement studio. Its cushions sagging permanently from years of late nights and timorous artists that sat there before him. In front of him, the mixing console glowed. Lights blinked and pulsed. Meters twitched like tells on a poker player’s face. He stared at it blankly, hands folded together, one leg bouncing despite his best efforts to stay still.

Upstairs, Drew Layton and Tyler Brady were arguing about what kind of takeout to order. Pizza versus Thai. It wasn’t hostile, never was with these two, but it carried the sharp edge of hunger. The fatigue that came from too many hours spent chasing the sound was evident.

Matias Monroe had retreated to one of the main floor bedrooms, exhausted but still wired. He was lying flat on his back on a bed staring at the ceiling fan. As if the answer to everything he wondered might be found by observing the slow counterclockwise rotation of its blade. He was going over and over a solo he wanted to record in his head. Wondering what to leave in. Wondering what to leave out.

And Lila Hart? She was somewhere in the house too. Jace didn’t know where exactly, but he could feel her presence. She was probably writing, pen scratching softly across paper. Lost in her own private order of thoughts. Or she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, practicing the careful alchemy of makeup application. Adding, subtracting, trying to decide how much of herself the world was allowed to see.

Jace rubbed his face with both hands, palms dragging slowly down over his eyes as if he might wipe the feeling away. He loved life right now. Loved this band. Loved the strange experience of shared exhaustion and belief. The way five different people could argue for hours and then suddenly agree on a single note. He loved the process. The long days and nights. The false starts, the moments when a song arrived half broken and left whole. He loved it the way you love something that saved your life. Without irony and without distance. Knowing full well it could still be taken from you. But he loved Lila differently.

That love wasn’t loud. He wasn’t even sure it was allowed. It didn’t announce itself or demand attention. It’d crept in quietly, disguised as admiration, as friendship, as professional respect. It lived in the way her laugh shifted the temperature of a room. In the way she listened when he talked. Not waiting to reply, not drifting away, but listening to hear and holding the space like it mattered. It lived in the way her voice wrapped itself around his melodies as if they’d been written for her long before either of them knew it.

Loving her felt less like falling and more like realizing he’d been standing on the edge of something for a long time. Without ever naming it. Bands had fallen apart for less. He stopped the playback, grabbed his jacket, walked up the stairs and stepped outside into the night. Letting the door close quietly behind him. He walked blocks, noticing the stars in the sky. The sounds, the smells of Mount Juliet in the evening.

He ended up in a bar called Hillside Hangout which looked like it’d been born tired. The wooden decor, complete with appropriate looking wooden barrels. Jace thought the atmosphere was nice. Though it seemed like the kind of place you’d never really expect anything good to happen inside it. The floor creaked faintly under his boots as he strode across it. Jace slid onto a chair at a counter top styled table and ordered a beer from a waitress. He drank it slowly.

Every song they’d recorded that week circled back to Lila somehow. Even the ones that weren’t supposed to. Even the ones they’d written years before she’d joined them. He heard her in the harmonies. Felt her in the spaces between notes, in the pauses where something unsaid waited. He didn’t want to wreck what the band had going on. He didn’t want to be the reason rehearsals grew tense or silences grew heavy.

Bands were fragile things, no matter how strong they looked from the outside. A band was a juggling act of balancing four other distinctive, creative personalities and egos. And his own. He didn’t want to wake up one day, successful, respected, hollow. Only to realize he’d let the woman who might have been his everything walk away, or worse yet, end up with someone else. All because he’d been afraid to speak up.

Afraid to level with her. Afraid to admit that what he felt was no longer theoretical. Afraid to discover that what he was feeling might be his feelings alone. “If you’re going to lose,” he muttered into the rim of his glass, “you might as well go out swinging.” The words sounded right and wrong at the same time.

Twenty-five miles away in Forest Hills, Daniel Charles and his wife Dianne sat in their palatial home. The kind that felt less like a place to live than a place to be observed in. Everything was arranged with intention. Daniel loosened his tie, took it off and dropped it onto a polished side table. Dianne sat opposite him on an overstuffed couch. Her posture was still immaculate despite the late hour, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

They’d been talking about the various acts signed to their label when Nightshade came up. Then Lila became the topic. “She’s special,” Daniel said. “Not just talented. Magnetic.” Dianne smiled, the familiar pageant light spark flickering behind her eyes. “She doesn’t even know it yet.” She said, “She will,” Daniel replied. “But raw talent isn’t enough. If she’s going to be our star, she needs polish. Control. She needs to learn how to walk into a room and make people pay attention before she even sings a note.”

“I can do that,” Dianne said quickly. “She listens. That matters. The new dresses are going to look amazing on her. She’s already learning how to improve her makeup. Her hair looks great now - she’s learning how to present herself.” Daniel looked at Dianne and added, “Stage presence. Authority. Ownership.” Dianne hesitated, something cautious entering her voice. “She’s unguarded,” she said carefully. “Not weak. Just open. People like that can be damaged easily.”

Daniel stood up and walked to a small bar in the corner of the room. He scooped some ice into a glass and poured himself a drink, the amber liquid catching the light. “Stars aren’t made by being careful.” He said. “They’re broken that way too though.” Dianne replied softly. Daniel didn’t answer, he walked across and out of the room. The silence lingered.

Somewhat later, Jace walked back through quiet streets toward the house. He carried everything pent up inside of him. The music, the vision, the trepidation. The wanting, the longing. The night felt heavier now, as if it knew what he was avoiding. When he opened the front door, Lila was standing in the kitchen, barefoot on the linoleum floor. She was picking through Thai leftovers in cardboard containers with a white plastic fork. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, unstyled and honest.

She smiled when she saw him, then studied his face, and in a concerned tone said. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.” He greeted her with a smile and said, “I do.” That was all either of them really said to the other. The smile didn’t leave his face as he walked past her. She went back to her foraging. He went back down to the basement. He walked over to the console and hit play. Nightshade’s music came out of the speakers and filled the room.

The songs played one by one. He listened differently now. Not as a song writer, or a producer. Not as a bandmate, but as a man trying to understand himself. He heard where his voice tightened, where it softened. He imagined Lila onstage someday, commanding rooms. He felt pride and terror twist together until he couldn’t tell them apart.

What if telling her what he was feeling ruined everything? What if not telling her ruined something far worse? When the last track faded, the silence felt enormous. Jace reached for an acoustic guitar that was leaning against the wall. He tuned it slowly, deliberately. The first chord rang out clean and true. He began to play. Not for Nightshade, not for the album. But for her.