AN: This is kinda slow-paced chapter with very few things going on. You can call it an interlude. Oh, gimme those powerstones.
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Jack closed the laptop with a satisfied nod after finishing 30% of the Zombieland script. He stretched his arms carefully and sighed. "So boring. I need something new..." He looked around the room. "Humm..."
He grabbed his crutches and carefully walked to the closet. He opened it. There it was, the guitar that the spoiled Jack bought years ago on a whim but never learned to play.
"There you are."
He grabbed the guitar case and carried it back to the bed. He sat down and placed the crutches on the side. He opened the box. "Oooh!" The strings were rusted. He stared at them for a second, then grabbed the replacement pack he bought along with the guitar.
Replacing the strings took longer than he expected. His hands moved slowly because of the shoulder strain, and the old ones kept slipping out of the tuning pegs before he could get the new ones seated right. After twenty minutes of quiet cursing and one near-miss where the high E snapped and stung his thumb, the guitar finally had fresh steel. He strummed once, winced at the sour clang, then spent another five minutes tuning by ear until the open chords sounded clean.
With the guitar balanced across his lap, he grabbed the instruction book from the nightstand drawer and propped his phone against a pillow. The YouTube tutorial loaded quickly, some calm-voiced guy in a flannel shirt promising that anyone could learn three basic chords in ten minutes. Jack hit play.
He had always trusted his photographic memory to carry him through anything visual or sequential. He watched the instructor's fingers once, then again at half speed, freezing frames when the camera angle changed. The shapes burned into his head instantly: G major looked like a perfect little claw, C felt open and friendly, D required that awkward stretch across three strings. He could see every position clearly, even after he closed his eyes.
"Alrighty then," Jack grinned confidently. "It's showtime!"
The problem arose the second he tried to make his left hand actually do what his brain remembered.
His fingers refused to land together. The ring finger flattened when it should have arched, the pinky curled uselessly instead of pressing down, and every time he tried to switch from G to C, the whole hand cramped like it had forgotten how to relax. The strings buzzed against the frets no matter how hard he pressed, and the sound came out thin and angry instead of warm.
"Ah, crap!" He sighed. "It's freakin' hard."
And he didn't sound confident anymore.
Jack took a deep breath and started over. "Not gonna give up now. Hard work always pays off..." He nodded to himself, but then remembered his past life, and quickly shrugged. "Well, sometimes..."
He played the G chord ten times in a row, lifting his hand completely between each one so he had to rebuild the shape from scratch. Then he tried the switch again. Buzz. Buzz. A clean note, finally, but only because he had slowed down to about one change every five seconds.
He kept at it.
The tutorial moved on to strumming patterns, simple down-down-up-up-down-up stuff that looked effortless on screen. Jack copied the motion with his right hand first, no strings, just air, until the rhythm felt natural. Then he brought the left hand back in. The first full strum produced something that almost resembled music, except the C chord sounded more like a dying cat because his middle finger had slipped off the string.
He chuckled, then reset his grip and tried again.
Time passed in small chunks measured by chord changes and failed strums. His shoulder throbbed dully from holding the neck at that angle, and his ankle protested every time he shifted weight on the bed, but he stayed with it. The tutorial looped the same section three times before he paused the video and just played the three chords in a slow circle: G, C, D, back to G. Each loop sounded a fraction less terrible than the one before.
Eventually, he called the caretaker to help him set up on the balcony.
A few minutes later...
He sat on the long chair, with his legs stretched, and rested the guitar across his thighs. The instruction book lay open beside him, phone propped on the armrest with the tutorial still paused on the screen.
He picked up where he left off.
G to C. Buzz. Reset. G to C again. One clean note, then two, then the full chord rang for half a second before his pinky gave out. He kept going, stubborn now, chasing that tiny improvement with every repetition.
An hour passed, but he barely noticed. His world narrowed to the feel of the strings under his fingertips and the slow stubborn progress of muscle memory finally starting to catch up to the perfect pictures in his head.
Somewhere in the middle of the tenth loop, the D chord came out clear for the first time, a solid warm sound that surprised him enough to make him stop and stare at his own hand as if it belonged to someone else.
"Huh?! I'm a genius." He smiled and then started the circle again from the top.
[2:05 PM]
The knock on his bedroom door came, but Jack was too busy fighting with his pinky to notice it.
Down, down, up, up, down, up.
The rhythm came out shaky, but closer to right than wrong. He transitioned from G to C without completely muting the strings, which felt like a small miracle considering how badly it had sounded an hour ago. His fingers still trembled when he lifted them, but now they landed almost where they were supposed to go.
After a few more unanswered knocks...
Dakota pushed the door open and stepped inside. She was wearing her favorite pink dress as usual and was carrying a paper bag. The guitar notes reached her. She stopped just inside the doorway as she noticed Jack.
He sat out on the balcony with a guitar. He strummed once, paused to adjust his ring finger, then strummed again. The notes floated back into the room, rough around the edges but unmistakably improving.
Dakota stayed quiet near the door. She set the bag down on the little coffee table in the corner of the room, without a sound and leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms crossed loosely.
"He's learning, huh?" She thought.
Jack had not noticed her at all.
His brows were pulled together in deep concentration. Every time he shifted the guitar slightly, his shoulder stiffened before he adjusted again. He looked focused in a way she had not seen since they were kids trying to nail complicated lines during late-night shoots.
He switched from C to D.
The first attempt buzzed.
He muttered something under his breath.
Second attempt.
Clear.
He froze and stared at his fingers like they had just performed a magic trick.
"Huh. I am actually getting this," he said to himself with a quiet laugh.
Dakota smiled before she could stop herself.
He reset and tried the whole progression again.
G.
C.
D.
Back to G.
This time, it sounded rough, but recognizable like a beginner version of a real song trying to break through.
He missed a strum and groaned.
"Come on, brain, you literally memorized entire scripts in one read. Why are six strings winning right now?"
Dakota let out a small laugh before she could swallow it.
Jack's head snapped up.
He turned slightly and saw Dakota picking up the paper bag and walking toward him.
Dakota raised one hand in a small wave. "Hey, rock star. Didn't mean to sneak up on you. I knocked, but you didn't answer."
"No worries. How long have you been standing there?" he asked.
"Long enough to witness the birth of a future rock legend," she replied.
"That's a nice dream. Maybe one day, who knows? But right now, I think I'll stick to acting and writing," He replied, finally putting the guitar down. He looked at his phone's screen. "I kinda lost track of time." His stomach grumbled. "And I'm hungry."
Dakota walked over and sat on the empty chair next to him. She placed the paper bag on the small table between them and started unpacking it.
"Lucky you, I brought turkey sandwiches and chicken burritos," she said as she pulled out the wrapped food. "Figured you might want options."
Jack leaned back a little in the lounger and gave her a tired but grateful grin. "You just saved me from eating chicken soup and bread again. Seriously, thank you."
She handed him a turkey sandwich first, then set a burrito on the table for later. "No problem. I remembered you always went for turkey back on set when they had those crafty trays. Thought it might still be your safe choice."
"You remembered?" He asked.
"Yeah," She smiled a little. "Some things just stick with you."
He unwrapped the sandwich and took a big bite right away. The bread was soft, the turkey tasted fresh, and whatever sauce she picked actually worked. He chewed for a second before speaking again. "This is way better than anything I've had this week. You're officially my favorite visitor today."
Dakota laughed softly as she unwrapped her burrito. "So, guitar?"
Jack swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah. I decided today was the day I finally learn guitar. Bad idea with a busted shoulder, but I got stubborn about it."
Dakota took a small bite of her burrito and chewed slowly while she watched him flex his left hand a couple of times. She swallowed and said, "You really should not push too much with that shoulder right now. The doctor probably told you to take it easy. If you keep forcing the arm into weird positions like that, you are only going to make the strain worse and delay the whole healing process."
Jack looked down at his fingers, which still looked a little red from pressing on the strings. He gave a short laugh and rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand. "Yeah, you are right. It was a bad idea. I got caught up in the moment and figured I could muscle through it like everything else. Now, I need to pop a painkiller."
She nodded. "Exactly. You have six weeks to heal properly. Plenty of time to pick the guitar back up once the doctor clears you. No need to turn a sprain into something that keeps you off your feet even longer."
He took another bite of the turkey sandwich and chewed while he thought about it. "Fair point. I will put the guitar away for now and stick to stuff that does not involve twisting my arm into pretzels. Maybe I will just watch more tutorials and let my brain do the work until the body catches up."
After a few minutes of eating and silence...
Dakota said, "You know what the last three scripts I got were? One was about a high-school girl who discovers she's secretly a mermaid princess. Another had me playing a genius hacker who saves the world with her laptop in under ninety minutes. And the third one? A rom-com where the girl falls for her brother's best friend, but plot twist, the brother is actually the villain. I swear the writers must pull these out of the same dusty box labeled 'cliches nobody asked for'."
Jack laughed through a mouthful of turkey. "Mermaid princess sounds rough. Do they at least give you a cool tail or is it one of those cheap CGI ones that looks like plastic wrap?"
"Plastic wrap. Definitely plastic wrap." She took a sip from the water bottle she brought from the mini fridge a few minutes ago. "I keep saying yes to auditions because saying no feels like giving up, but then I read the pages and wonder why I'm still showing up. I want something with actual content. Something that doesn't make me roll my eyes every five lines."
They kept talking while the food slowly disappeared.
Dakota told him about the one decent script she had read in the last six months, a quiet coming-of-age story about sisters dealing with their mom's sudden move across the country. Jack shared how he planned the upcoming sequel to his book and that he plans to keep away from football. They swapped stories about bad auditions, worse directors, and the strange way random people now recognized him from the touchdown clip instead of the old kid movies.
Before either of them checked the time, the light outside had shifted and Dakota glanced at her phone. "Whoa. It's almost 4:30."
Jack blinked. "Already? That flew."
She stood up and started gathering the wrappers. "I have tuition at five, so I should probably head out..."
Jack pushed himself up carefully from the lounger. "Yeah, don't want you late."
Dakota grabbed the guitar first and carried it inside. Jack followed on the crutches, moving slowly. She set the guitar case down beside the bed, then turned to help him lower himself onto the mattress. He sat with a small grunt, then swung his legs up and leaned back against the pillows.
"Thanks for the assist," he said. "And for the food. And for keeping me company."
She smiled as she picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Heal up, okay? No more secret guitar hero sessions until the doctor gives the green light."
"Promise. Scout's honor."
"You were never a scout."
"How did you know?"
"Instinct..."
"Fair enough."
"Text me if you need anything. Or..." Dakota pressed her lips together.
Jack nodded. "Yeah, I'll text you."
Dakota nodded before walking out...
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...[POWERSTONES AND REVIEWS]...
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