sunglasses, the cast on her broken wrist, and the way she gingerly held her hand against her side to protect her two broken ribs threw me into a murderous rage. Not to mention the curly-haired, towheaded six-year-old little girl that stood next to her sucking her thumb and looking up at me with the same big, bright, curious blue eyes my sister used to have before that asshole broke her.
To ward off the memories of that dark night, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The guilt still overwhelms me every time I think about all of those phone calls I never returned and voice mails I deleted without listening all the way through. If I only got off my high horse and returned just one of those calls, I might have been able to save Gwen from the monster she married. If I’d listened to her voice mails, I might have been able to prevent my niece from witnessing her mother having the shit kicked out of her on a weekly basis for the first six years of her life.
I open my eyes and stare across the room at Gwen as she mirrors me, drumming her own fingers on top of her desk. She still isn't one hundred percent healed from her years in an abusive marriage, and I fear she might never be, but at least the spark is back in her eyes. I would do anything to make sure it remained there.
“Fine. Whatever they offered for this stupid ass job, call them back and add twenty percent. If they agree, I’ll do it.”
I rock back in my chair, confident in the fact that they'll turn down my obscenely high request. I mentally calculate how much money I have left in my savings and how long it will last while Gwen lets out a squeal of delight, turns around in her chair, and pulls out her cell phone to make the call.
With my eyes closed, I reverently wrap my left hand around the neck of the guitar, letting the weight of the instrument rest gently on top of my jean-clad thighs. I drape my right arm over the wide, flat side of the hollow piece of wood and rest my palm against the strings. With my head tilted to the side, I listen quietly, half expecting to hear a pulse or some other sign of life—something to break me out of this funk I’m in.
My name, Layla Page Carlysle, practically screams amazing musician thanks to my father naming me after his favorite Eric Clapton song and his most beloved guitarist, Jimmy Page, twenty-four years ago. Lately, I’ve spent most of my alone time pulling this guitar out of its hiding spot from the back of my walk-in closet, buried underneath clothes and boxes of shoes, and cradling it to my body in the hopes that the nineteen-sixty Gibson Hummingbird will bring me back to life, breathe something back into me so I don’t feel so empty. I long for the sixteen inch wide, flat top, mahogany acoustic guitar to play something with meaning, something with substance. Something to help me belt out the chords of a song I wrote that will shake my fans to their cores and call to their souls.
But just like every other time I have a few minutes to myself without the shrill, ear-piercing scream of adoring fans, the incessant questions thrown at me from curious journalists, or two dozen members of my management team, production team, wardrobe consultants, and every other well-meaning member of the entourage that's paid to hover over me, the guitar won’t do anything other than sit in my lap waiting for me to wake it up.
I can’t do it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get my fingers to strum the Hummingbird. I can’t produce even one note and haven’t been able to since my father, Jack, walked out the door. The guitar had been a gift from him on my tenth birthday. That was the year I discovered the one thing in the world that made me happy, aside from him.
“Where’s my little hummingbird?!”
My dad’s booming, happy voice carried through the house even though I was down in the basement in his home recording studio.
Despite the fact he knew exactly where I was, he'd still shout for me when he came home from work and walked through the door. Every day since my birthday, I'd go straight to the studio and play the guitar