The thing with writing a romance is that you can never have things get too solid too soon. And, well, I don’t know that this is a romance but considering that I have most of the alphabet ahead of me, nothing is going to be solid right now so I’m going to throw some wrenches into the works until I figure out what me and my characters are up to! So you go your own way and I’ll go mine and we’ll meet up. 😉

I’m aware that this is probably not a strong entry but hopefully I’ll do better. Apologies.

Parting Ways

Tom’s mad. He went from sullen to mad. He can; that’s his right.

“We’ve got this incredible opportunity,” he said as if I should be thrilled that a record executive wanted to sign us.

But that was never my dream. It was his.

“They want us, not Kim,” he said.

I stare at him now wondering how I should tell him that I’ve never wanted to be a professional musician. I love to sing but karaoke is as far as I want to go. Touring, singing in front of crowds, being always on? That’s not for me. In fact, I can’t think of anything less I’d like to do other than maybe driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge twice or three times daily or going to the dentist for root canals.

There’s something else in his eyes though that makes me ache for something that will never be. All of these days when I thought I was jealous of Kim, I realized that wasn’t really what I thought it was. I’m not in love with Tom. This will never be a love story. We will never be.

I clutch his hand and look down at it. “I’m sorry.”

His lips thin. “You’re going to throw all of this away.”

I glance to the side while still holding his hand, feel its solid warmth, and know that soon he’ll jerk it away as if I’ve burned him. And maybe I will have.

“Singing for me is fun, not a job. The moment I make it a job, I don’t think I’ll like it anymore. But Kim. She’s super talented. That record person just never heard her.”

“No, she heard us. This is my career you’re throwing away.”

A part of me hates him right now. “No. Your talent’s separate from me. You know you’ve never once asked me if I wanted to sing or be a singer. You call me up, ask me to fill in, but never realize that I’m really doing you a favor and that maybe this isn’t all that for me. I don’t want the life you want. I don’t want to sing in front of tens of thousands of people or even two-hundred. I just don’t want it. I sing because it’s fun. Not a job.”

“But it’s my life.”

I look at him. “But not mine.”

end

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