REMUS BENNET
The weeks after the shootings were filled with work.
Remus had school in the morning, and after that, he would spend much of his time editing the videos with Lexie or working on a few other songs.
He now had a hidden file on his computer with all of the lyrics and the stuff, while his diary was filled with tunes, and so forth.
He was busy, but he was enjoying himself.
Music had been one of his great passions, and now he was able to pursue it to his heart’s desire.
It took him two weeks to edit the video for the first song, and as he sat alone in his room, he played the video for himself and felt rather proud of his work.
The video was nothing special, though it had a rather dark and painful feel to it.
They had shot it in the studio, and it was just him sitting and singing with a guitar in his hand.
The color scheme was not exactly black-and-white, but the video lacked color.
It was mostly grey.
Still, the song sounded good.
He was certain of it.
Elliot had worked his magic, and now it was finally time for him to upload it.
Now, a little fun fact is that an artist cannot simply upload music directly to streaming apps like Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube Music.
There are many reasons for this, but one of the most significant ones is quality control.
These platforms have no desire to host music that is not up to a specific standard.
To upload one’s music, you have to go through a digital distributor who first deems your music ready to upload and then publishes it on all these platforms for you for a small price.
They were fairly cheap and offered aggregated statistics on your music, which was why he had spent the last few hours setting up his DistroKid account.
It was one of the three major such platforms, with ‘TuneCore’ and ‘Amuse’ making up the top three.
He stared at the screen for a few minutes before he finally gathered the courage and dragged the file into the upload section.
After that, he sent it forward and set a release time and date for twelve pm that day.
Now, it was done.
This was the beginning of his musical career.
Currently, Ariana Grande rules over the Billboard charts and holds all three spots.
He had no delusion of replacing her, but it was his hope that the song would do well.
He then opened up YouTube and TikTok.
The latter was just beginning to gain mainstream attraction and was yet to become the social media behemoth that he knew it would.
He uploaded the song on all three, and he had edited up special bits and pieces for TikTok to make them more palatable.
Honestly, he did not really know what he was doing, but he had to give it a try.
“Remus, Gia,” Leslie’s voice came from the floor below, just as he finished uploading.
“It’s time for dinner,” she added, and he quickly shut down the monitor as he pushed himself up from his chair.
“Coming,” he answered, and his sister was already down there helping their mother set up the table.
He joined in and began setting up the plates.
She had prepared a rather fancy roast, and five minutes later, the three of them were sitting together at the table eating food, while one chair sat empty.
“Rue’s coming back,” and he stilled at those words.
“When?” Gia asked excitedly, and he put down his fork as well.
“Tomorrow,” their mother answered with a stiff smile.
“I got a call from the rehab center earlier, and they say that they have done everything they could. She is better now, but she will need our help,” and she then looked at both of them.
“I know that she has let us all down, but she is your sister, and she needs your help right now,” and Gia was quick to answer.
“I will help her,” and Leslie smiled at her before her gaze turned towards him, and he gave her a nod as well.
“Sure,” and he had already spoken to Fezco about this, and he had promised him not to sell her any drugs at all.
He had also circulated the message to the other dealers that Rue was burned, but they both knew that such a thing was not truly effective.
Fezco would keep his word because, apart from being a dealer, he was a good friend.
But the other dealers in the area would not care at all.
To them, the only thing that mattered was profit, and they would be fools to turn away a customer.
“We leave early in the morning,” and he had no problem with that.
“And I was hoping that we could go to dinner later. As a family to welcome her back,” and Gia’s face lit up at that.
“I want to go to that fancy French place all my friends keep mentioning,” she added, and Leslie nodded.
“Sure, why not?” and they finished their meal, and Gia quickly ran up to her room as he stayed behind to help their mother with the dishes.
He was about to go up as well when she called him back.
“I was able to get an appointment with that therapist I told you about,” and he was hoping that this whole thing would fall apart on its own.
“I still hold that this is entirely unnecessary,” he countered, but Leslie’s eyes narrowed.
“You promised me, Remus,” she countered quickly.
“I did not say that I am not going. I just want it on the record that I don’t think that such a thing is necessary,” and she smiled at his antics.
“Then I maintain that you are wrong,” she used his own words against him.
“I think he had a slot open in ten days. I will send you the details,” and he washed his hands.
“I will take a look,” but she stepped into his path once more with a rather serious look.
“I know I am asking too much of you, but I am going to need your help with Rue,” and his shoulders sagged.
“I know you two haven’t always gotten along, and I did not listen to you before when you asked me to send Rue to rehab, but I can’t do this alone,” and he sighed and cut in before she could continue.
“You won’t have to. I will keep an eye on Rue. I promise,” and he would.
“I noticed that you have taken up music again,” and he had ordered some sound dampeners already, but he had yet to put them on the walls of his room.
“Yeah,” he answered awkwardly.
“Lexie even told me that you have written up a few songs,” and he stilled as he saw that smile.
“That traitor,” he cursed, as she laughed.
“Don’t blame her. It was obvious enough given that your room is right above mine,” and he had never noticed that, but as he looked at the location of the room, he noticed that she was right indeed.
“Yeah,” there was no need to deny it anymore.
“I wanted to at least give it a go,” and she smiled.
“You should,” she agreed.
“Still, when are you going to show me one of your songs?” she questioned, and he made a face.
“Never,” he answered like an annoyed child.
“We will see about that,” and she slid under her arm and ran towards the stairs and headed up to his room.
It was Sunday tomorrow, and he did not have much to do.
And so he chose to go to bed.
But as the clock hit twelve, and the days changed, a storm began to brew up in the underbelly of East Highland’s society.
.
.
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Still, the person at the center of the storm woke lazily at the sound of his alarm.
He got up and saw that there were a few texts on his phone from Elliot and Lexie, about how good the songs sounded.
He gave them a reply, and then all three of them rode to the rehab center to pick up Rue.
The journey back was quiet at first, before laughs and jokes filled the car.
Rue broke the tension with her quick humor.
She seemed fine, but a part of him knew that it was all a ruse.
Still, he hoped that it was not really.
They reached home an hour later, and he finally gathered the courage to open the statistics page.
The song had not blown up, of course, but he saw that it had over several thousand streams already.
It was gaining momentum, and that was all he could hope for.
Still, he shut down the page and decided to waste his time by playing a few games until it was time for dinner.
Their mother had already told Rue about their plans for the day, and she had also made the reservation.
By eight thirty, all three of them were in a rather posh French place with melodic music playing in the background.
One of their mother’s friends was the manager at the place and had been rather happy to save them a table.
They talked about many things, school, plans, the food.
For a few seconds they were the picture of a perfect family.
“Lexie told me that there is a new girl in your class,” and Rue raised a brow.
“You are talking to Lexie?” she seemed surprised.
“They are doing more than just talking,” their mother cut in, as Rue made a nauseating face at that.
“Eugh,” he shook his head.
“She is wrong. There is nothing going on between us,” he clarified, while their mother shrugged.
“It does not seem like it,” she answered, sipping her wine.
“She was just helping me with something,” he cut in before looking at Rue.
“Her name is Jules. Lexie thinks that you two could be good friends,” and Rue frowned at that.
“Sure,” she answered strangely, but that was expected.
“Speaking of that, I have another surprise for you,” their mother added, and now she was looking directly at him as suddenly the music around them died out and the manager stepped towards the stage.
“Now, we have a little surprise for our guests,” the manager said, and immediately he felt his heart drop as she looked directly at their table.
“Tonight, we have a very special guest performing for us,” and he looked at his mother, and leveled his accusation.
“You planned this,” and she simply looked away.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she answered coolly as the manager turned towards him.
“Please, welcome to the stage, Remus Bennet,” and there were a few isolated claps while most of the people remained busy with their food, while Gia cheered him on.
“Go. Go. It’s not good to keep the guests waiting,” she egged him on, and he couldn’t quite refuse to sit down.
So, he rose from the chair slowly and walked up to the stage.
It was nothing elaborate, and had a piano and a mic.
The restaurant employed a proper musician, and the man shook his hand warmly.
“I listened to your song,” he began, much to his surprise.
“It was very good,” and he did not know how to react to that, except to say thank you.
The older man helped him adjust the mic, as the manager came by and slapped him on the back.
“My mother put you up to this, didn’t she?” Remus asked, and the man shrugged.
“Guilty as charged,” and once they had set up the mic and he had acclimated himself to his seat, he drew in a nervous breath.
The anxiety must have been apparent, and the older musician whispered from the side. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“Don’t look at the crowd,” he offered his advice.
“Just keep your head down, and sing. Don’t do anything else,” and he gave the man a nod, and turned his gaze towards the keys.
Using his advice, he gulped down before he began speaking into the mic.
‘I fell by the wayside like everyone else.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you
But I was just kidding myself
Our every moment, I start to replace
‘Cause now that they’re gone
All I hear are the words that I needed to say.’
And the shift in the mood was palpable.
He could feel the chatter in the room die down, and it took great discipline not to just turn and look at their reactions as he continued singing.
‘When you hurt under the surface
Like troubled water running cold
Well, time can heal but this won’t.’
And by now he was done with his early jitters, and he was fully ready.
‘So, before you go
Was there something I could’ve said to make your heart beat better?
If only I’d have known you had a storm to weather
So, before you go
Was there something I could’ve said to make it all stop hurting?
It kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless.
So, before you go.’
Now, the room was dead, and the chatter was all gone.
He could feel a hundred eyes locked onto himself as he continued singing.
The song sped up slightly, as his fingers moved across the board with extreme care, as he sang into the mic.
‘So, before you go
Was there something I could’ve said to make it all stop hurting?
It kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless.
So, before you go.’
And with that, the song was finished, and as he drew in a breath, he finally turned towards the crowd, and it began with a single clap from his mother, who had a tear running down her cheek, before the entire room broke out in applause.
“Thank you,” he spoke into the mic, as he saw a few cameras flash and then, slowly, a chant began from one of the corners.
“Encore!” “Encore!”
He looked towards the manager, who shrugged.
“You have to respect the audience,” and he did not know what to do.
Still, this seemed like good marketing to him, so he turned towards the piano once more, and the people clapped and wooed, as he drew in a deep breath and began once more.
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.
.
In the end, he was forced to sing the song three times before he was finally able to wiggle his way out of the whole thing.
Someone in the crowd even paid for their meal, and some people even came to ask him for his name and autograph, which was rather strange.
Gia and Rue made fun of him while they were coming back.
Still, the entire affair made it so that he did not need to tell Leslie about his plans, for she seemed aware of them already.
He was back in his room when suddenly he heard a faint knock at the door.
“Who is it?” he asked, and Gia was not polite enough to knock, and he would have heard their mother coming up the stairs.
“It’s me, Rue,” and he was a bit surprised by that voice.
“Come in,” he said, pushing himself up from the bed, as Rue walked into his room.
Her hair was a mess, and she wore a flannel buttoned shirt over a white vest.
She seemed a bit nervous as she walked into the room.
“Is everything ok?” he asked, and she nodded.
“I just wanted to talk,” and she seemed rather nervous and anxious as her eyes darted to the floor.
“Of course,” and he slid away, opening up space for her to sit on the bed.
She came and sat down beside him, yet she refused to say anything at first.
“I saw you in the Hospital,” she began, after a few minutes, and her voice shook as she said those words.
“For a second there, we all thought that we had lost you,” and Remus did not know how to react to that.
“Well, I am fine,” he consoled her as they sat side by side.
“I know,” and then she looked at him before she wrapped her arms around him.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry,” she whispered into his ear, and he smiled as he wrapped his own arm around her softly.
“It’s okay. It’s all okay….”
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