Page 16 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

M IRTH

The Yates-Harris household is in such an uproar after the confrontation with Adeline that, after eating only a few bites of breakfast, I blow way past the emotional onslaught I’ve been attempting to ignore until I’m actually swaying in my seat.

Bolan, in the middle of an agreeable rant with Livi about their mother’s past misdeeds, sees this, then promptly scoops me up and carries me the three flights into his attic room.

I fall asleep snuggled in his arms in his single bed. Just as I had fantasized about doing almost every time we visited in our youth.

I sleep hard, but the light hasn’t shifted much when I wake.

I blink up into the open rafters as the edges of the small room slowly come into focus.

The walls around the low bed are lined in decades-old glam-rock posters, including one directly overhead with a scantily clad, big-haired, extremely sexy woman surrounded by likewise big-haired, bare-chested skinny men in gold leather pants and heeled boots.

All the posters were hung by a much younger Bolan.

But the wall above the long, low bureau and the top of the bureau itself have been turned into a shrine of sorts for Bolan’s band, the Blitz.

Band posters, photos, magazine articles, and ticket stubs are pinned to the wall, with all sorts of memorabilia cluttering the furniture.

A tiny ache takes up residence in my chest. Adeline’s reaction to finding Bolan and me all tangled up in the mudroom was …

unexpected. But still … she loves Bolan so much, and I’ve damaged their relationship in a way I know can never be fixed.

Not without a fundamental shift in beliefs— namely Adeline’s.

Rian is in Dublin and about to confront his own mother. Or he has already …

I reach for my phone, only just then realizing that I’m wearing nothing but a printed black tank top and my panties.

My backpack, with my phone, is all the way downstairs.

A glance around the cluttered but tidy room informs me that other than my bra, which is hanging on the desk chair, the rest of my clothing is nowhere in the immediate vicinity.

Shifting out from under the bedding, including a patchwork quilt made out of old band T-shirts that I immediately wrap around me, I pad barefoot into the tiny bathroom.

After relieving myself, I brush my teeth with Bolan’s toothbrush and try to sort out my hair.

I’m unsuccessful. But I flush — all pink-cheeked and more than a little pleased — when I catch sight of myself in the reflection and realize that the top I’m wearing is from the Blitz’s first European tour, well-worn with age and use. I’ve coveted it for years.

Around the corner from the bathroom, the door to the rest of the attic space has been drawn partially closed. Catching a rhythmic pluck of guitar strings, I pause before opening it all the way.

The guitar fades. I peek around the doorframe to catch a side view of Bolan as he leans over, the old Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar that Armin and I bought him for his fifteenth birthday in his lap as he crosses something out in an open notebook.

The Martin is the guitar he used to play me the song in the rowboat, right before I kissed him as a teenager.

Bolan jots something down, likely an edit to whatever he crossed out.

I can really only see his left side from this angle, but my heart skips a couple of beats, then picks up, as I lay eyes on him. As it always does.

I can’t quite believe that … Bolan is mine now. More than just a friend I keep a careful distance from, more than a first love that my heart could never shake. He’s mine. He’s always been mine.

He believes we’re soul bound. Carved from the same section of the universe and fated to search for each other in every lifetime.

I’m … I’m still concerned that I’ve somehow stolen that bond connection from Armin. But I want … I want to be Bolan’s … fate.

His fingers dance over the strings of the guitar, as quiet as he can be as he finds a rhythm that satisfies him, mouthing words as he reads from the notebook.

Trying to not wake me.

With the quilt still draped over my shoulders, I slip around the door as quietly as possible, bringing more of the room into view.

Dozens of notebooks have been pulled out of the worn steamer trunk that also serves as a coffee table in a seating area excavated from the rest of the box-and-furniture-filled attic.

The old brown corduroy couch slumps so deeply under Bolan’s weight that he’s practically sitting on the floor.

Bolan looks up, unsurprised at my approach. His expression is shockingly serious — not even a hint of a smirk in sight. Not until he runs his eyes over me. Twice. Then his gaze heats up, just a little pleased with himself.

“My clothes?” I ask.

“Laundry. Except the long sweater. Livi said it needed to be hand-washed and hung to dry, so I just spot-cleaned it.”

Unable to hide my surprise, I raise both eyebrows.

Bolan flashes me a grin, seemingly enamored with my bare legs.

Slightly flushed myself — he’s still wearing only the tight black sweatpants, and the lyric tattoos twining around his arms and chest, of course — I force myself to drop my gaze to the pile of notebooks.

Because more words between us, instead of giving in to the need to climb all over him, might be prudent.

We’ve known each other for almost two decades. So maybe the stages of our relationship are all actually moving glacially slow, and we’re just now at the point where I want to be constantly touching him.

“Sully texted,” Bolan says, seemingly oblivious to my train of thought. “Just checking in when he couldn’t reach you. I told him your phone was in your bag, that you were napping. But that we were okay. That we’d be back in London for dinner. Together.”

“Okay. Thank you.” I smile a little at the possessive inclusiveness in that ‘together.’ Sully and Bolan are going to have to navigate their own relationship now instead of just continually shoving Armin or me in the middle of it. But I’m glad Bolan wants to make the effort.

I catch myself staring at him again. And he, seemingly happy, stares right back. So I force my gaze back to his notebook. “You’re writing?”

“Playing around. It’s something old … that I …” Bolan swallows, dropping his gaze to the open page of the notebook as he teases notes from the guitar. Almost as if he’s nervous. Then he looks up at me with that serious expression etched across his face again. He’s not nervous. He’s worried.

“Can I … play it for you? It’s rough, but … ah … it’s for you. Always meant for you, but … trapped in the pages of this notebook.”

I understand the worry now. I reacted badly the last time he attempted to play for me, during the epically awkward matchmaking formal presentation of gifts.

I close the space between us, lowering myself into the dusty burnt-orange armchair across from him with the notebook-strewn steamer trunk between us.

I tuck my bare feet under me, pulling the T-shirt quilt snugly around me.

A smile ghosts over Bolan’s face. His still newly dyed black hair falls over his brow as he settles his cobalt eyes on the lyrics and musical notes scribbled across the page sitting open before him. Without looking up, he starts playing. Louder now that he’s not worried about waking me.

He works through the opening bars twice, as if still getting a feel for them. Then he starts to sing.

I’m in a magical trance

A mystic charm has filled my every sense

It’s a mystery to me

But all I see

Is her

I’m instantly frozen in place, but not in a suffocating way. No, I’m warmed from within, hanging in the moment and barely wanting to breathe for fear of it ending.

She cast a powerful spell

Every wall I’d built trembled and fell

Crumbling into dust on the earth between us

Me and my magic girl

The song is about me. He said it was so. A love song from teenaged him to teenaged me. Almost forever doomed to be hidden within the pages of an old notebook.

Because he didn’t kiss me back.

And no matter that he regretted it, he had let me pretend it never happened. He let me protect myself.

And we lost all those years.

We lost all those years and … maybe … maybe even Armin.

My magic girl manipulates time

I’ve seen it stop with a wink of her eye

My magic girl reads my mind

She knows my heart better than I

And now I find she’s made me blind to everyone but her

I confess I’m happily possessed by my magic girl

Maybe … maybe I was supposed to be more for both of them. Stronger, stable. Maybe I could have held Armin in this life.

If I’d been enough.

If we were actually soul bound, if I’d had Bolan, and even Sully … if I’d claimed them. Maybe I would have been — we would have been — enough to balance Armin.

Bolan looks up from the notebook. His eyes are red rimmed. He presses his hand against the strings to mute the guitar.

I take a shuddering breath, unable to stop the tears snaking down my cheeks.

“You hate it,” he whispers.

I shake my head, sobbing just once before I get it under control. “Armin,” I gasp. “I just … I just wish I’d been enough for Armin.”

Bolan’s chest heaves as he also strangles back a sob. “He wanted something we couldn’t give him. We, Mirth. It was just a stupid, fucked-up accident.”

“You don’t think … if he had the support of a fully realized bond group —”

“No!” Bolan says harshly. “He still would have made the same choice.”

I take another shuddering breath. I wipe my face with my borrowed tank top as I take a deeper breath. Then I whisper, “Play the rest for me?”

Bolan watches me for a moment. Then he nods and starts playing again.

She transformed my soul

Vanquished my fears and gave me strength unknown

My invisible shield

When life gets real

She is my magic girl

I rest my head back and just listen this time, willing my mind to empty, then to fill up with Bolan’s voice and words.

This was always enough for me. This was always where I ached to be. And I’m here now.

The last notes linger between us for a moment. Then Bolan leans over, plucks up his pen, and scribbles more notes across the page, crossing out lyrics and subbing in other thoughts.

“I haven’t written in over eighteen months,” he says, not looking up at me. “Haven’t played since Armin died.”

But he picked up the guitar for me. Once in an attempt to woo me, and now because he wanted to play. For me. For us. For our future.

I rise from the chair, leaving the quilt behind me.

I take those last couple of steps to Bolan.

He sets the guitar to the side, gazing up at me.

I place my hands on his shoulders.

I lean over him.

He lifts his face to mine.

I brush my lips against his, softly — a question.

He presses up into my kiss, sealing our lips together — an answer.

Mine.

Always and forever.