Riven (Riven 1)

No, I’d given up on making friends in high school. It had been easier to just throw myself into music, the one thing I enjoyed.

I hadn’t wanted to go to college and become a doctor, like my parents had expected, but I’d jumped at the chance to leave. I never told them that I only applied to schools in New York because it was where I wanted to do music.

As it turned out, a fight with my parents over leaving school had been the catalyst for everything that came after, with Riven.

It was the summer before my senior year, and I’d called them to say that I wasn’t going back to school, and that I was staying in New York City. They were disgusted with me. My mother was cold and fretful, but beneath it was the clear message that I’d failed at the one thing she wanted of me: to do something useful with myself. To make her look good. My father raged. What the hell did I think I was going to do now? How did I think I’d survive without a college education? What kind of life could I possibly make for myself when I had no skills, no training, and nothing to offer?

I hung up the phone vibrating with shame and fury and the need to push it out of me somehow—wishing I were someone who got into fights because I just wanted to slam into something.

Instead, I took my guitar, went to the open mic night at Sushi Bar, like I had nearly every Thursday night for the last two months. I got up on the rickety stage, tacky with spilled beer and soda, and I twisted my song into something violent. I pushed it out of me and into the drunk, distracted audience. I made my song into a fist, and I punched the only way I knew how.

I’d just elbowed up to the bar, having decided that I would like to get epically drunk, when Ethan approached me. I recognized him from other open mic nights. He was handsome and when he watched people play, he always looked like he knew a secret. Like he was hearing something that the rest of the audience couldn’t.

“Did you write that song?” he asked me, with no preamble. When I nodded, he led me to a table in the corner and made me a proposition.

The rest, as they say, was history.

I shuddered. I heard the snick of Caleb’s lighter and his long exhale and took the opportunity to change the subject. I didn’t want to think about Riven any more than I wanted to think about high school. “Hey, you still in the pumpkin patch, Cinderella?”

“Nope, moved to the porch. It’s nice out tonight. Clear. You can see all the stars. Saw deer earlier.”

It was so comfortable, talking to him. Whether it was about music, or real-life shit, or just narrating what we were looking at, I just wanted to hear everything he had to say.

“I want to hear about your parents next time,” Caleb said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how freaky you got about Ohio. Bookmark that.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“Night, Theo.” Caleb’s sign-off was a rumble of smoke and sound that I felt in my stomach and down to my toes. His voice in my ear in the middle of the night, me high in my apartment as the city glittered beneath me, him on his porch with the scent of dirt and trees—it was intimate, and I held on to it as I murmured my own good night and curled up in bed.

* * *

—

A few days later, I got a text from Caleb saying he would be in the city that evening to see a show a friend of his was playing.

That an invitation? I wrote back.

Do you know their stuff?

Lion’s Share was a local NYC band I’d always known of but never followed. They played deep, folky blues, and they’d been around long enough that they had a loyal following, especially in the city. I wasn’t sure I could hum a single song, but I respected the hell out of any band that had been together that long and was still making it happen.

Not really, but i know of them and i’d like to hear…if you don’t want me to thats cool tho—they’re yr friends so yr call.

Happy for you to come, Theo, just not sure it’s really your scene.

Well that was vague and unhelpful.

Uh, that was vague & unhelpful

Sorry. Yeah, come with. Just keep a low profile ok? Don’t want to pull focus from the show.

Shit. That made sense.

Sorry, i didn’t think abt that :\ i don’t wanna fuck things up for them

It was a testament to how comfortable I’d felt with Caleb, since keeping a low profile was something I spent most of the time I wasn’t onstage doing.