“IT’S ME,” I say into the intercom outside Shannon’s building. Dan decided my album needed a “big-hit ballad,” so here we go again, back to the grind.
Shannon buzzes me in, and I make my way across the lobby to the elevator, surprised when it opens and I see Stella, Ty, and Erie.
“Oh, hey, y’all,” I say, wondering where they’re going and wishing I could go with. Stella came over for a while last night—she’s really been there for me with all of this Adam stuff—but seeing the sympathy on her face again now isn’t helping.
“You okay?” she asks, stopping me.
“No,” I answer honestly.
She pulls me aside and gives me a giant hug. “Stop torturing yourself, Bird. This really will get better.”
I don’t want to lose it in the lobby of her building, especially not with her friends watching, so I pull away and move toward the elevator.
“And use it,” she says, pointing to my heart and then upstairs. “You need another song, so use it.”
I wipe my nose and nod, waving to the group as they head out into the cold. I consider Stella’s advice. It’s not like Adam hasn’t been my muse before.
But an hour later, after thumbing through my songwriting journal over and over, trying to piece together scraps of different songs while adding verses that don’t really fit, I throw up my hands in frustration. Everything I’ve come up with has been total crap.
“You want to take a break?” Shannon asks.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, setting down my guitar.
I follow her into the kitchen, where she pours us both a cup of chamomile tea with honey. We sit together, neither saying a word, listening as the neighbors’ kids race across their floor upstairs.
“Is everything okay, Bird?” she finally asks, genuinely concerned. “You seem… distracted today.”
I take a sip of tea and finger the bamboo place mats. “I’m a little down, I guess. My brothers are moving away so that means, you know, the family band is officially splitting up.”
Shannon nods knowingly. “That’s tough.”
“Yeah.” I take another drink, follow its warmth to my belly, and sigh heavily. Everything feels fuzzy, out of control, wrong.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asks.
I smile at her. My relationship with the Crossleys is one of the best parts about landing my record deal. “It just feels like everything in my life is going wrong except for the music, you know? And now, I can’t even get that right.”
I grab my lucky rock, rolling the pendant between my thumb and index finger, but I don’t feel any better.
“Bird, has there ever been a day, through all of this, when you’ve gone to the studio or come over here and haven’t felt like singing?” Shannon asks.
“Yeah,” I admit.
“And what did you do?” she asks.
“I sang anyway.”
Shannon smiles. “Exactly.”
I feel a spark. My mind clears. I get up from the counter and walk briskly into the living room. I grab my guitar and my journal, scribbling across the page and picking out a few chords. The chorus writes itself before Shannon can even get back into her chair. I sing, I play, and my world regains clarity—thanks to the music. Always thanks to the music.
“You ready, Bird?” Jack calls from the booth.
I pull on my headphones in the live room and give him a thumbs-up. Dan and Anita are here today, along with my dad and Shannon. Usually, I would be nervous about the crowd, about the fact that the president of my label is itching for another hit to finish my album, but I’m not nervous. I’m confident.
We’re calling the album Wildflower. It was my idea. A nod to my mom, who loves wildflowers so much that she named me after a random president’s wife, but also a nod to Adam, who saw the sweetness in that, even if it makes me heartbroken now.
I don’t know what this year will hold, I don’t know how Wildflower will sell, and I don’t know when my heart will mend. But I do know now that through it all, I’ll “Sing Anyway.”
The music flows through my headphones, and I step up to the mic. I close my eyes and sing:
“I shake the sleep from my head,
I drag myself out of bed,
My heart can’t handle this pain,
How do I sing in the rain?
The mic’s on.”
Jack doesn’t stop me, so I keep going. I sing for what I almost had with Adam but lost. I sing for the years when I lived on the road with my family and for the months to come, on the road with a whole new family of sorts. And for once, instead of worrying about what the label will think, I sing for me.
“All right,” Jack says as the last notes of the song fade out. I open my eyes and look at him through the glass, waiting for direction. “That’s a wrap.”
Confused, I ask, “That’s it?” There are usually so many more takes.
“You nailed it,” he answers simply. “Sometimes it happens that way.”
Anita and Dan are talking enthusiastically behind him, already plotting the next steps for the rise of Bird Barrett, I’m sure. Jack grins up at me and plays my song back over the speakers, nodding along as if it were his baby. My dad and Shannon smile proudly at me from behind the glass and gesture for me to join them.
I take off my headphones and hook them over the music stand for the last time for a while, a bittersweet feeling as I prepare to leave the studio. Such a short time ago, this was all new to me: the fancy mic, the booth, the mixing, all the opinions. Now the studio feels like a refuge, and if what Anita tells me is true, things are about to get a whole lot crazier: sold-out arenas, screaming fans. It sounds intense, but I’m excited about sharing my music with the world.
And as much as I love Nashville, it’s time to get back on the road.
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