Free Coda by Emma Trevayne Page A

chamomile and honey my way. He has to pick his way carefully across the room so he doesn’t trip and slosh tea everywhere.
    “Here.”
    “Thanks.” It’s too hot, but still soothing to my throat, flayed from the afternoon of singing.
    We don’t do this as often as we used to. Back when the band wasjust me and him in the basement we almost always wound up here after, unable to let go of our rebellious enthusiasm but needing to escape the dangerous presence of guards on the street above. We’d hang out, write lyrics, and talk. Then Mage came in, and Scope. Scope and I started our thing and ended it. Johnny met his girlfriend, the twins became more than an unwanted responsibility, Haven turned up at the chrome studio.
    “Ever think it was easier when it was just the two of us?”
    I grin at him. “Stop reading my mind,” I say, and he laughs.
    “Don’t get me wrong, I love our sound now, just feels sometimes like there’s too many people in the room. What Scope did, bringing his guy, that doesn’t help. You and me, we hardly even needed to talk, we just felt it from each other. It’s still like that, I guess, just not as intense, you know? It’s great when it works, but then someone fucks up, you know?”
    “It’s harder to get it back with so many people,” I say. “Yeah, I miss it, too. That why you don’t want to play for anyone else?”
    “Maybe part of it,” he says, shrugging. “Anyway, you doing okay?” He leans back on the couch and runs a hand through his hair. The back of his neck is briefly visible, marred by the round, sunken jack. I’m glad I can’t look at my own.
    “My father’s not going to last much longer.”
    He nods. It’s normal. Johnny’s parents were heavy users. He’s been on his own since he was fifteen.
    “You said you had something to show me?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    The wooden box he pulls out from under his bed is a prewar antique, worn to glossy warmth by a thousand touches.
    I can’t hide my smile. “New ones?”
    “Yup,” he says, the brass latch flipping easily under his fingers,the lid opening to reveal a sheaf of paper he hasn’t burned yet because these songs aren’t finished. He takes a sheet off the top and passes it to me, one side announcing the collected works of Shakespeare, the other covered with lyrics, thoughts, and words crossed out faintly or with heavy black lines.
    I read them, a melody slowly coalescing in my head. Fresh from practice, still buzzing from the raw naturalness of it, it’s easy to line Johnny’s guitar up with the words, insert Mage’s beats and Scope’s sounds and Phoenix’s clear, bell-like notes.
    “Still not happy with ’em,” Johnny says.
    “They’re about death, and you’re looking for happy?” I shake my head. “Yeah, no, I see what you mean. Pencil?”
    He digs one out of the box and I hold it in my teeth, reading the song again.
    “This isn’t working.” I tap a line in the second verse with the splintered end of the pencil. “It’s throwing the rest off.” Synonyms march through my head until the right one refuses to take another step. I scribble it down above the offending word. “Here. Then the downbeat comes here instead.”
    He reads, nodding when he hits the part I just changed. “Got it. Guess all those books with big words you read do come in handy.”
    “Hey, not all of us can leave the conduit life behind.”
    “You could if you wanted to.”
    “It sucks, but it’s predictable. I’ll take it.”
    “I’m gonna track. You first?”
    I nearly laugh. Even in our addictions there are conventions of politeness, of friendship. “I’m good. Go ahead.”
    The couch creaks as he shifts, kneeling to reach the console on the wall over our heads. Fingertips hit the touch screen with dull, arhythmic thuds. I pluck another piece of paper from Johnny’swooden box and read it, tapping the pencil on my knee.
    “New stuff on here.”
    “Cool,” I say, only half listening.
    “Hey, do me a favor and