velvet underground

Stevie’s eyes scan the letter that was written to her almost four years ago, the letter that inspired this song, the letter that inspired her to make a phone call after three years of silence following the events of “The Dance”. A phone call to the man she wants to hate wants to lothe, wants to never have anything to do with until the end of her career, and honestly her life, but the way he could bring out the emotions that she had when she was writing the song through the guitar was something that couldn’t be matched. A call that she couldn’t dare make herself, her producer Danny ended up doing so because she just couldn’t bear to hear the sound of his voice without wanting to curl up into a ball. The letter she has read a million times between when it was written and this moment when she’s sitting in the sound booth of a studio in Hawaii resting in her hands as her eyes scanned over the paper. Her eyes kept going down to focus on six words, the six words she wrote this entire song around, did he put them down knowing that’s exactly what she’d do? After all, even though they had never written a song together, he knew better than anyone how she’d go into writing a song, and how to inspire her to take a simple line and make a song around it.

”Yo, Stevie, are you ready?”

Being snapped out of her thoughts by Danny practically yelling into the microphone that echoed in the sound booth, Stevie slowly nodded her head before placing the letter down on the music stand beside the lyrics to the song she was recording. Letting her fingers run over the faded ink on the paper from the letter, her mind briefly pictured him sitting on a balcony overlooking the Efile Tower in Paris writing the letter, her mind remembering the night they said goodbye so well, the tears Stevie shed as she begged him to come home with her. The softness in his voice as he tried to explain why he couldn’t go back to Phoenix with her, the way he was so gentle with her emotions as he hugged her until she was able to calm down enough to where she could see straight her bloodshot eyes. The way she ran through the streets of the city of love with her bags in her hand, the rain bouncing off everything while she felt like the sky was crying the same way she was no longer able to.

Looking at Danny as he played some guitar recording Waddy had did to fill in so she could record the lyrics until he arrived to do the guitar parts of the song, Stevie would take a deep breath as her chocolate brown orbs would shift from the letter to the right to looks at the lyrics of the song. ”When I think about you, I think about how much I miss you when you're not around. When I think about you I think about how much I can't wait to hear the sound of your laughter. Time and distance never matter” Stevie took the few seconds between the first verse and the chorus to take a silent but deep breath, closing her eyes for a few moments to keep her composure under control. It wasn’t the first time she had recorded a song that meant a lot to her, a song she wrote on sheer emotion and could feel the same emotion that she felt the night she had the pen hit the paper. But, this time it felt different, this time it was built around six words, six words that played throughout her mind so many times in the four years since she randomly received the letter in the mail. The six words that played in her head during a tour that would change her life, a tour that gave her the highest she had ever felt in her life before kicking everything out from underneath her and she had hit rock bottom all over again. The same six words that echoed in her mind whenever she wanted to throw in the towel, whenever she wanted to do a line of cocaine and hope it was the last thing she ever did, whenever she wanted to get another bottle of Klonopin and not care what happens to her. The same six words that have gotten her through the worst times of the last four years are also the six words that had once given her hope.

"Well, I miss you now, I have so many questions. About love and about pain about strained relationships. about fame as only he could explain it to me. Seems like yesterday I think about how much I wish that you were here with me now. The invisible girl that was my name, she walks in and walks out. And I'm sorry now, I'm sorry now. Well, I miss you now, I have so many questions. About love and about pain, about strained relationships, about fame as only he could explain it to me. Tell me again" the brief pause before she had to record another verse let her fingertips once again dance across the faded ink of the letter, her red nails playing special focus to the six words that inspired the song, the six words that have gotten her through so much in the last four years - and he has absolutely no idea. ”Paris to Rome, London to Paris…” Stevie’s eyes briefly shifted up to look into the studio as she kept singing the lyrics, her eyes focused on someone who wasn’t there when she started recording the song a few minutes ago. His guitar case was in his hand as there was the slightest smile on the right side of his face, that smile that still makes her heart melt as it did many moons ago. Her eyes got lost in his icy blues like they had so many times before. "Always goodbye, I nearly couldn't bear it. Her heart settles down she's back on that staircase on the way up to her place. Well I miss you now I have so many questions about love and about pain, about strained relationships, about fame as only he could explain it to me"

Before Danny could even turn off the pre-recorded guitar Stevie had already ripped the headphones off her head and tossing them onto the chair she had been sitting in, rushing towards the door to the studio as she swung it open. Looking at him in the room instead of through a glass window made tears form in her eyes, the woman biting her bottom lip slightly as she slowly walked over to him. Suddenly the almost four years apart and the reason why she couldn’t speak to him didn’t matter at the moment, the reason he up and chose another woman didn’t matter because she had someone call to fly here to help with a song and he came like he always does when Stevie calls. Lifting her hand up, she gently places it on his right cheek as her thumb runs over his cheekbone, the room seemed silent, it seemed as if no one else was there but the two of them. ”Lindsey…”  

”Stephanie..”

Stevie saw him sit the guitar case down before opening his arms for her to walk into, her arms wrapping around his waist as her head rested on the left side of his chest as she had done for so many years while her eyes slowly closed. Feeling his arms around her was a bittersweet feeling, her mind remembering that night in Paris as he held her while the rain slammed against the window of his hotel. Feeling her fingers gripping his shirt, Stevie opened her eyes and rolled them up to see him looking down at her with that smile that’s gotten her so many times over the years. And, at the moment, the heartache he caused her almost four years ago didn’t matter, the complications of their romance were out the window, and at the moment it felt like it was just him and her -- how it was always supposed to be.