Dead Man's Playlist: Chapter 7

The city looked different coming back.

Not bigger or smaller. Just...duller. Like someone had turned the saturation down on everything. The neon signs she used to find charming buzzed too loud. The sidewalks felt sticky. Everything smelled like bus brakes and too many people pretending to be somewhere else.

Junie stood outside her apartment for a long moment, keys cold in her hand. The metal door buzzed like a warning. She braced herself and stepped inside. It was just past 10 PM when she opened the door. The apartment was dim, only the flicker of the hallway light and the bluish haze of the living room TV filling the space. Empty mugs littered the coffee table. One of Mira's plants had wilted, though that in of itself was not unusual. The placed smelled faintly of curry and lavender oil.

She was halfway through dropping her bag by the door and leaning down to take off her shoes when heard the voice.

"Well, look who remembered she lives here." Junie turned.

Sasha was curled on the couch, legs tucked under her, wine glass in hand. Her dark eyes were sharp, tired, and full of something brittle.

"Hey," Junie said.

"That's it? 'Hey?'" Sasha stood. "You disappear for how long, 2 weeks? No text, no call, not even a freaking post-it. And you just...what? Stroll in like this is normal?" Junie swallowed, suddenly bone-tired.

"I didn't mean to be gone that long."

"Oh, cool," Sasha snapped. "So you meant to ghost us for some amount of time. Good to know."

"Sash-" Mira's voice came from the kitchen. She stepped into the light, wearing one of Junie's oversized flannels, stolen from the laundry no doubt. Her face was soft, but guarded.

"It's fine," Sasha cut in. "She's back. Great. Now maybe I can stop being the one calling your mom every three days pretending not to be worried." Junie blinked.

"You called my mom? Really?"

"She thought you were dead." Junie's jaw tightened.

"I just needed space."

"Bullshit," Sasha said. "You needed to run away. There's a difference." Junie felt something in her snap. Red, electric and tingling.

"You don't know what I needed."

"Right, because you didn't tell anyone." Mira stepped between them.

"Okay, this isn't helping," Mira said. Her hands raised as if she was calming two agitated animals. But Sasha didn't back down.

"You're right. I don't know. I don't know anything because you don't say anything, Junie. You move through life like everyone else is a stranger, even the people who've been here. Right fucking here." Junie's voice shook.

"I didn't ask you to care." Sasha's face snapped back like she'd been slapped. The fury in her face was real now, Junie had seen her temper flare like this before.

"Well, we did. We all did. And you threw that in the trash like it meant nothing." Sasha spat the words at her. Junie felt the heat rise behind her eyes. She shook her head.

"I didn't throw anything away. I just..." Her throat caught. "My dad died. I needed time." Sasha stared.

"He didn't die Junie. He killed himself. You don't get to act like he was taken from you. He was never in your life. You haven't spoken to him in a decade except to shit on him when you're mad or frustrated and now you care? Now everything's different?" The silence that followed was like a vacuum in the room. Even Mira looked stunned. Junie stepped back like the words physically struck her in the stomach. Her voice came out so much quieter than she'd meant.

"I know that."

"Then maybe stop acting like the world should mourn a man who didn't even want to be in it." Mira's voice snapped,

"Sasha."

"No, I'm serious," Sasha said, turning on her heel. "I'm done. I'm not walking on eggshells because she can't figure out how to talk to the people who actually stayed." And with that, she disappeared into her room, door slamming like a gunshot. Junie just stood there. Her ears buzzed. Her throat felt like it had swallowed sandpaper. Her hands were clenched so tightly around her keys that they left crescent moons in her palm.

Mira stepped closer, "That wasn't fair." Junie shook her head.

"No. But it wasn't wrong either."

"Don't do that."

"What?" Junie asked, turning to look at Mira as she leaned in the doorway.

"Take her cruelty and twist it into truth." Junie blinked fast, but the tears came anyway. She swiped them away.

"I didn't mean to scare anyone," she said, voice small. "I didn't mean to disappear. I just...I got stuck in the middle of something and it felt like if I said it out loud, it wouldn't be mine anymore." Mire didn't say anything right away. She just nodded and opened her arms. Junie fell into them. They stood like that for a long time, breathing each other in, the city noise muted beyond the windows.

"Come on," Mira said gently. "Let's get you some tea."

-

Later, Junie sat at the kitchen table, fingers wrapped around a chipped mug. The steam rising smelled like mint and honey and the quiet moments she and Mira had always had before everything got hard. Mira sat across from her, legs tucked under her chair.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. Junie stared into her tea.

"There's this cabin," she said. "Somewhere near a lake in Northern California. He left it to me. Not legally, at least I don't think. Just in a letter. Said it was where he went when the world got too loud. Don't know if it's even worth looking into." Mira waited. "He left me these records. A ton of them. He made a kind of, audio will, I guess? Some are just songs, but some are confessions, or a memory, or something he thought he couldn't say to me. When he was...you know?" Junie looked up. "It was the first time I ever heard him talk for more than a minute."

Mira's eyes softened. She opened her mouth but Junie continued, the words pouring out now,

"Some of it was beautiful I think. Some of it was garbage. And some of it..." She shook her head. "Some of it was like getting handed the key to a house you didn't know you'd been locked out of, but then when you go in it's just a mess. Like a hoarder had been squirreled away in there for a decade." She paused. "Does any of that make sense?" Mira laughed,

"Are you glad you went?" Mira asked, not answering the question. Junie thought about it.

"I think I'm glad I listened. I don't know yet if I'm glad I heard." Mira nodded, as if that made perfect sense. And who knows, maybe to Mira it did. They sat for a while longer. The kitchen light buzzing. Somewhere in the walls, the old plumbing rattled like a forgotten song. Finally, Junie said,

"I'm tired of pretending I'm okay."

"You don't have to pretend with me." Junie met her eyes,

"I know." Junie reached into her bag and pulled out the leather notebook. Placed it on the table like a challenge. Mira raised an eyebrow at it.

"That's it?" Junie nodded. Mira reached out but didn't touch it. "Can I?"

Junie hesitated, then pushed it toward her. Mira flipped through the pages, brow furrowing as she scanned the careful handwriting, the tracks, the names, the artists, the scribbled notes in the margins. She stopped at the end.

"'Wish You Were Here.' Track #18." She looked up. "That's the last one?" Junie nodded. "Have you listened to it yet," Mira asked?

"No. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because I think I'm scared of it being over," Junie said, voice soft. They sat in silence. Then Mira reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

"It's not over, Junie. It's just the end of one side." Junie smiled faintly.

"That was cheesy as hell."

"Yeah," Mira said. "But you liked it." Junie looked down at the notebook again. The weight of it. The weight of him. The weight of absence and what it leaves behind. She still didn't know what she wanted to say. But she was starting to figure out what listening meant.

Want to Read More?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10