Page 60 of Heartstring

Ultimately the guilt wins every time, and I tell myself I’ll know when and if I should do it.

“Look, there’s an open mic night at that club,” Stone says. “We should go in and pretend we’re Hall of Fame.”

I can see Fox rolling his eyes from the front seat. “WeareHall of Fame.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that,” Stone says.

“Remember when Dolly Parton lost a drag queen celebrity lookalike competition?”

“Dolly is a legend.”

I keep quiet, hoping they decide against it, but I have no such luck.

“I say we check it out. Not to play, but to see if there’s any good talent out there.” Again, all eyes are on me. I raise my hands. “Who’s to say the same place that raised Mik ‘Thor’ Nilsson can’t strike twice?”

Within a few minutes, we’re parking. Everyone grabs a baseball cap, fake glasses, or anything that makes them look less like them, and we spill out of the van toward the club.

My hands feel clammy at the thought of going inside, but if I hadn’t suggested this, we’d have continued to Port Haven. I am not in the mood to turn up at my parents’ place. Or worse, bump into Tyler.

No, that would be too painful.

Even after six years, the dagger he stuck in my heart remains firmly in place. Whenever the cruel world reminds me of his brown eyes, his smile with the slightly longer front teeth, or the way he laughed, it’s like the knife twists a little.

I put my hand to my chest. There’s no dagger. No blood on my shirt. It still fucking hurts like the day I opened the letter.

Mik,

People come into your life at the right time.

Sometimes they’re there for a long time.

Sometimes they’re there for a fleeting moment.

I can no longer be the person you need me to be.

We were a fleeting moment, and it’s time for us to fly in different directions.

Don’t call me.

Don’t come back for me.

Tyler

I intake a breath as each word comes back to me like I’m reading it for the first time.

“You okay, man?” Fox asks, and I nod.

Bastian sidles up to me and whispers, “I’m sorry, Mik. I shouldn’t have left the highway. I don't know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay. We can have a good time tonight. We’ve all earned it,” I say.

Bastian is the only one who knows about Tyler. He was there when I got the letter after weeks of trying to contact Tyler.

The guys spot a table in the corner of the room that looks fairly discreet. Bastian tells us to grab a seat while he orders drinks and some food at the bar.

As expected, there are a few looks thrown our way. The usualare theyoraren’t theyHall of Fame? The longer we ignore the looks, the more we blend into the background.

The bands playing tonight are much better than I expected. I don’t remember this kind of competition in my time. Then again, I was always so wrapped up in playing with Tyler that I barely paid attention to other bands.