Chapter 1: It's Always Selene
Audrey hit the drums as she glanced over at Maeve who stood around, still feeling the unease from a year ago, when Selene scarred Clara across her eye. She still felt mixed feelings, still couldn’t shake it off, and Clara has been trying not to pry into others' emotions.
She took it into advantage, letting herself feel things, contemplate on them, and refocus.
Maeve held her hand over the bass guitar, right as she was about to strum, she stopped, laying a few fingers on the strings.
“Do it again, Audrey.” She asked, calmly. that’s what made them listen.
Audrey held the drumsticks tighter in her hands. “Got it boss woman.” She muttered to herself, a slight grin on her face at the thought of how serious she was acting.
Maeve immediately noticed, her eyes noticed before her body moved. “Just... let’s get it together, yeah?” Maeve implied as Audrey nodded, seriously this time.
Then a one, two, then bam.
They both started playing in unison. This time the sound came out a little clearer in Maeve’s mind; knowing she had to prepare for when Clara eventually arrived.
Maeve slowed down the tempo, and so did Audrey. Audrey looked on, scoffing, almost realizing the tension in the room.
“Maeve, you’ve been off lately.” Audrey admitted, quietly getting up from her seat.
Maeve groaned, grabbing the guitar straps and throwing it over her head almost frustrated. “Yeah, that’s what happens when everything sits in my head for too long.”
Audrey’s eyes fell to meet hers. “It’s still about Willowbend? Or is it still about Selene?”
Then silence fell, a little too heavy.
“It was always about Selene.”
Maeve admitted, putting the guitar directly on the floor. She paced toward the back, shaking her head, almost as if she hated to admit to it.
Audrey looked on in disappointment but didn’t let it get to her.
“I’m more understanding than Clara would be.” Audrey said calmly, her words drifting toward Maeve who stood still by the doorway.
“It’s not about understanding what’s in my head.” Maeve let out, her eyes glancing at every corner of the room ahead. “It’s about me dwelling on how Selene looked that day.”
Maeve went right toward the back without another comment from Audrey. She knew she needed a while to think again, like she has been for the past few months, but she always ended up nowhere.
Then, she thought of something. A quick call to Jade, who she knew was still new to the band dynamics, but for some reason she felt like she could trust in the words she said.
She sat right on the couch, her eyes facing the band photo hung up on the wall with the band’s name above it all-in spaced-out letters.
It rang and rang for a while, until Jade picked up.
Maeve gathered the words in her head, spilling it out quickly all at once. “Jade, can you head to the back of the record store so we can talk about things?” Then she took a deep breath.
“Well, of course! I’m not too busy right now.”
“Perfect, thanks.” Maeve quickly hung up.
She held both palms on her face, shaking her head almost like she hated the way she spoke to Audrey, and how dismissive she was of Jade.
She’d stay in, waiting for someone to come knocking, whether it was Clara, she wasn’t opposed. But a distinct knock on the door minutes later confirmed it was Jade’s.
She always had a soft knock compared to the others, like she didn’t want to break the door down.
“Come in.” Maeve alerted her as the door opened slowly.
Jade looked at Maeve who sat with her makeup half done, her hair a mess, and clothes just thrown together last minute.
“Let me guess, judging from the look I’m seeing, you’re grieving.” Jade pointed almost nonchalant, like she knew the moment she glanced at her.
Maeve nodded, almost letting the tears flow but she held it together still.
Jade sat right beside her, Maeve giving her the go ahead. She slowly sat down, scooting over so they weren’t so close together.
“I know what you’re going through.” Jade admitted. “I also had a girlfriend who... went missing, we should say.”
It quickly caught Maeve’s attention.
“You did?”
“Well... missing is a broad term.”
Then the silence settled in for the moments that followed, until Jade broke the silence.
“What I’m saying is, you will find the one for you... Selene clawed your sister’s face.”
Maeve scoffed, almost like she was frustrated with herself for still grieving over someone who she knew did the things she did. But she still could see the good in her, for the moments she had with her.
“I know what she did,” Maeve said quietly, almost to herself.
Jade didn’t interrupt. She just waited.
Maeve’s hands dropped from her face, resting on her knees. Her nails dug lightly into her palms like she needed something to grip onto.
“It doesn’t switch off,” she added. “That’s the problem. It’s not like, one day you decide someone becomes a different person in your head.”
Jade nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
Maeve exhaled through her nose, shaking her head like she tried to reset something that just couldn’t.
“She looked at Clara like she didn’t even hesitate,” Maeve said. The words came out sharper. “Like it was nothing.”
The room felt smaller after that.
Jade shifted slightly, her voice softer now. “And you still think about the version of her you met that day on the river path.”
Maeve didn’t answer right away, just slightly nodded her head.
Silence stretched between them again, but it wasn’t empty, it was heavy, like silence that comes after too many things were already said in someone’s head.
Maeve finally spoke.
“I keep trying to separate it,” she admitted. “Like there’s Selene, and then there’s... whoever that was.”
Jade tilted her head slightly. “But they’re the same person, even if she was corrupted by society.”
Maeve flinched at that. Not visibly, but enough for Jade to know it stung.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “That’s the part I don’t like.”
A faint knock sounded from the front of the building, distant, almost like it was in Maeve’s head, but it made her posture tighten instinctively anyway.
She didn’t move for a moment.
Jade quickly noticed. “Did you... expect someone else?”
Maeve hesitated, hearing faint voices in her head that she thought were real.
“No,” she said, but it wasn’t the truth.
Her eyes drifted toward the band photo on the wall again. All of them frozen in a time that felt far away to belong to her anymore.
“I’m just tired,” Maeve added.
But that wasn’t fully true.
Because being tired didn’t explain the way her thoughts kept circling all around the same name.
Selene’s. Again. It’s always again, always in a circle.
