This is just guilt.This is him trying to erase what he did.It doesn’t change the past.It doesn’t undo the fact that he stole my words and made them his.
My stomach twists as I set the contract aside.
I don’t want it.
I don’t want anything from him.
And yet, my hand moves back to the envelope, pulling out the next thing.
It’s a single sheet of lined paper, edges curled slightly, like it’s been handled too many times.
My breath catches.
I know this paper.
I know the way the ink bleeds at the edges, the way my own handwriting slants unevenly, the lyrics crammed into the margins because I never learned to write neatly in a notebook.
My original lyrics.
The ones I wrote before he ever touched them.
But they’re not just mine anymore.
Joel’s handwriting is all over them.
Messy scrawls in the empty spaces, words circled, lines rewritten.
His notes.
My throat closes up.
I scan them, my eyes catching on his edits, his thoughts?—
This line is perfect.
Feels raw, don’t change it.
What if this is the second verse instead?
I swallow hard.
I shouldn’t care.
I shouldn’t care that he cared.That he didn’t just steal it outright.
That he saw something in my words.
That he understood what they meant, even back then.
The ache in my chest sharpens, spreading like a bruise beneath my ribs.
I shove the lyrics aside before I can think too hard about them.
The last thing in the envelope is a letter.
The paper is smooth beneath my fingertips, heavier than the notebook paper, the kind of stationary that looks expensive but understated.
The date catches my eye before anything else.