The Love Song Was Never Mine

To mark our thousandth day together, I wrote Benjamin a love song for the senior graduation gala. The first letters of each chorus line spelled a hidden message. Benjamin and Chloe, together forever.

Eager to rehearse, I went to the music room and stopped outside the half-open door. Benjamin held my best friend Nika in his arms, teaching her my song. His eyes held a tenderness I had never seen directed at me. This song only has soul if you sing it, he whispered.

Soon the setlist changed. Nika became the lead singer, and her name replaced mine as songwriter. Benjamins voice over the phone was gentle. Nika needs this to prove herself. Let her have the credit. Do not be petty about a name on a screen.

I rubbed the finger my guitar strings had bloodied and smiled. Okay. That night, Benjamin held Nikas hand on the glowing stage for their duet. I sat alone in the dark auditorium corner, listening to them sing my song with my hidden name inside it. As the final piano chord echoed, I blocked Benjamin everywhere.

...

"Chloe, are you seriously just going to sit there and let them steal your song?"

My roommate, Sarah, slammed her phone onto my desk.

The screen was looping the official livestream of the graduation gala.

Benjamin was holding Nika's hand under the spotlight.

The massive LED screen behind them clearly displayed the credits: Lyrics and Composition by Nika.

I didn't look up. I quietly pulled out my backup in-ear monitors.

The blood drawn by the steel guitar strings had already dried into dark scabs on my fingertips.

I took a wet wipe and carefully cleaned the metallic stains off the edges of the wire.

"Say something!"

Sarah was so frantic she physically spun my chair around to face her.

"You stayed up till 3 AM for two weeks straight! Your fingers are literally bleeding! And you just hand it over on a silver platter?"

"What right does Nika have to sing that? She can't even read sheet music!"

I dropped the bloody wipe into the trash can.

"The gala is over."

"Over? So you're just going to let it go?!" Sarah's eyes were wide with disbelief.

"That was supposed to be your one-thousand-day anniversary gift to him!"

I reached over and woke up my laptop screen.

The final, master audio file I was supposed to send to Benjamin was still sitting on my desktop.

The file name was Day One Thousand.

I gripped the mouse, right-clicked, and hit rename.

The clicking of the keyboard was razor-sharp in the dead-silent dorm room.

The file name changed to Trash.

I stared down at the deep cut on my right index finger.

I got that cut practicing the key change in the third verse of the chorus.

The transition I rewrote seventeen times before it was perfect.

Benjamin never once asked me which part of the song was the hardest to write.

He only asked if he could let Nika try singing it.

I pulled open my desk drawer and took out a small, black velvet box.

This was the physical gift I had prepared for our anniversary.

Inside was the handwritten sheet music, a custom guitar pick engraved with our initials, and a battered lyric notebook filled with crossed-out lines and frantic scribbles.

I shoved the box, along with my acoustic guitar, into the absolute back of my closet.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated against the desk.

It was an unknown number.

I hit accept but didn't say a word.

Benjamins exasperated sigh came through the speaker.

"Chloe, did you seriously block my number?"

I stared blankly at the closed closet door. My voice was incredibly light.

"Do you need something?"

"Stop throwing a tantrum." Benjamin groaned.

"The gala is over. Take me off your block list."

He didn't ask why I blocked him. He didn't ask how it felt to sit in the dark and watch him hold another girl.

He just assumed I was being a drama queen.

"We can talk about the credits later."

"Nika started crying the second we got off stage. She feels really guilty about taking your song."

"You blocking me is just making her feel worse."

A sudden, hollow laugh escaped my throat.

"She feels guilty? So you borrowed someone else's phone to call me, just so I can comfort her?"

Benjamin paused.

"Chloe, you never used to be this toxic."

"We've been together for a thousand days. Can't you show just a little bit of grace?"

"Nika has always had self-esteem issues. She desperately needed this validation."

"You're already a top student. Losing one song isn't going to affect your career."

He spoke with such absolute entitlement.

As if the nights I didn't sleep and the blood I bled were just loose change he could hand out to charity.

I asked him a very quiet question.

"Benjamin, when you were teaching her the chorus, did you know how many times I had to rewrite that melody?"

Dead silence on the other end.

I didn't wait for him to formulate a lie. I hung up.

I added the unknown number to the block list.

Sarah looked at me, her eyes completely red.

"Chloe, if you need to cry, just cry."

I shook my head.

"I'm not crying."

Crying over people who trampled my bleeding heart into the dirt was a waste of time.

I stayed up the entire night, meticulously backing up every single audio file, lyric sheet, and voice memo from the last six months into a heavily encrypted hard drive.

At 2:00 AM, Nika sent me a text.

"Chloe, are you asleep?"

"I know what happened tonight wasn't fair to you. It's totally okay if you're mad at me."

"We've been best friends for so long, and I've always been so jealous of how you just shine on stage. Just think of this as you doing a favor for your bestie."

"Could you just post a quick status on your socials saying you voluntarily gave me the song?"

I stared at the words voluntarily gave me. My thumb hovered over the keyboard for three seconds.

I didn't reply. I locked the screen.

The next morning, the second I stepped out of the dorm building, Benjamin blocked my path.

He was wearing a crisp white button-down. His eyes were bloodshot.

"Chloe."

He stepped directly in front of me, refusing to let me pass.

"The video from the gala is going viral on campus. If we change the credits back to your name now, it's going to ruin Nika's reputation."

"Just... don't go running your mouth to people, okay?"

I looked up at his handsome, entirely unapologetic face.

"Run my mouth about what?"

"That I wrote my own song?"

Benjamin sighed heavily, reaching out to grab my wrist.

I took a sharp step back, completely avoiding his touch.

His hand froze in mid-air. His face darkened.

"Yes, you wrote the lyrics. But without my arrangement and production, it never would have sounded that good last night."

"Nika's voice is objectively a better fit for the track."

"You barely ever perform live. You have no stage presence. You wouldn't know how to handle a crowd that size."

"I made a professional call for the sake of the music."

He was meticulously stripping away my blood, sweat, and tears, dividing the credit entirely between himself and Nika.

My voice was dead calm.

"So when she texted me last night asking me to publicly sign away my rights, that was your idea too?"

Benjamin didn't deny it.

"Just post the statement and we can all move on."

"A thousand days together, Chloe. Can't you just trust me on this?"

I laughed.

"A thousand days."

"Benjamin, do you even remember what that song was supposed to commemorate?"

He flinched, his eyes darting away from mine.

"Of course I do."

"If you remember, how could you look me in the eye and put another girl's name on it?"

I stared dead into his pupils.

"I'm not writing a statement."

I stepped around him and walked straight toward the lecture hall.

Benjamin yelled my name across the quad. I didn't turn around.

I didn't have any classes that afternoon.

I walked straight to the university's professional recording studio.

I had gotten a text from Liam, a senior composition major and the head engineer of the studio.

A month ago, I had recorded the very first, raw acoustic demo of Day One Thousand in this exact booth.

Liam was in the next room running cables. He heard the entire thing.

Last night, he had sent me a voice note.

"The song from the gala. That was yours, wasn't it?"

I had replied: Yes.

He responded immediately.

"I knew it."

"Benjamin overproduced it. He layered way too much synthetic garbage over a track that was supposed to be acoustic and raw."

"Nika's vocals are too breathy. She doesn't have the emotional depth to anchor your lyrics."

"The Annual Indie Music Showcase submissions open next week."

"If you're down, I'll help you track the real version. The way it was supposed to sound."

I pushed the heavy, soundproof door open.

Liam was sitting at the massive mixing console, a pair of studio headphones clamped over his ears.

When he saw me, he slid the headphones down to his neck and kicked a rolling chair in my direction.

"Sit."

He slid a manila folder across the console.

"Registration forms for the Indie Showcase."

"Have you decided?"

I looked down at the blank fields on the paper.

Benjamin told me I had no stage presence.

Nika told me she desperately needed the validation.

They both told me to step aside and disappear.

I picked up the black pen off the console.

In the Original Artist field, for the very first time in my life, I didn't hesitate.

I pressed the ink into the paper and wrote my name.

Chloe.

Liam slid the form back and filed it away.

"What title are we submitting?"

"Still going with 'Day One Thousand'?"

"No."

I looked at Liam, my voice hollow.

"That song is tainted."

"I'm writing a new one."

Liams hand paused over the file cabinet.

He didn't ask why. He didn't tell me I should fight to take back what was stolen.

He simply dropped the form into the folder and closed the drawer.

"You can fight to clear your name, and you can start completely over."

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive."

I nodded.

When I finally walked out of the studio, the sun had already set.

As I passed the practice rooms on the second floor, my feet suddenly stopped.

A door was cracked open. The familiar piano intro of Day One Thousand was drifting out into the hallway.

"Soften up on the transition here," Benjamins voice echoed from the room.

"Nika, your emotion was good last night, but we need it to hit harder."

"If we want to win the Indie Showcase next week, we have to polish this until it's flawless."

I stood alone in the dark corridor, my fingernails digging into my palms.

They didn't just steal it for the gala. They were taking my song into the biggest competition of the year.

I didn't push the door open. I didn't scream at them.

I just stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked away.

The next morning, the Indie Showcase group chat was absolutely exploding.

Someone posted a screenshot of Nika's official submission.

"Wait, she's entering 'Day One Thousand'?"

"The song that went viral last night? Bro, she's guaranteed to win."

A minute later, someone else noticed my name on the roster.

"Hold up. Chloe entered too?"

"Can she even sing?"

"I've literally never seen her on a stage."

I locked my phone screen and opened my blank composition notebook.

At noon, when I walked into the cafeteria, Benjamin intercepted me.

His brow was furrowed in heavy frustration.

"Are you seriously entering the Showcase?"

I held my plastic lunch tray, looking at him with dead eyes.

"Is it against the rules?"

"Chloe, you can't just write a song out of spite," Benjamin hissed, lowering his voice so people wouldn't stare.

"Without me producing your tracks, your acoustic stuff is way too weak for a professional stage."

I looked at him.

"Benjamin."

"I am not writing music to make you feel bad."

"When I'm creating art, you don't even have the right to exist in my head."

Benjamin froze. He had never heard me speak to him with absolute zero respect.

Just then, Nika walked out of the food line.

Seeing the tension, her eyes immediately welled up with tears as she hurried over.

"Chloe."

Her voice was trembling, small and fragile.

"If you're really that mad at me, I can withdraw from the Showcase. I won't sing 'Day One Thousand'."

She kept her eyes glued to the floor, playing the ultimate victim.

But I saw her fingers reach down and lightly tug on the edge of her skirt.

It was her silent signal. The physical cue she always used because she knew Benjamin would instantly jump in to defend her.

Right on cue, Benjamin stepped firmly between us, shielding her from me.

"Nika is already offering to back out. What more do you want?"

"I rearranged the entire track. It represents Nika's artistic vision now."

"Stop acting like a bitter ex and let it go."

I looked at the two of them.

One stole from me with absolute entitlement, the other defended the thief with absolute arrogance.

"Don't withdraw."

My tone was completely flat.

"Sing it all you want."

Without another word, I walked around them and found an empty table.

For the next four days, I practically lived inside the vocal booth.

Liam manned the console, adjusting my levels and listening to the raw cuts.

"You have a bad habit with your melodies," he noted, leaning back in his leather chair.

"Right before the chorus peaks, you always pull back."

"It's exactly how you act in real life. You want to scream, but at the last second, you swallow it."

I stared at him through the soundproof glass, staying totally silent.

"Don't swallow it this time."

Liam pushed the master fader all the way up.

"Let it rip."

Three days later, the master track was finished.

I exported the audio file and saved it to the studio desktop.

Liam glanced at the monitor.

The file name was just five words.

The Moon Doesn't Wait.

Two days before the preliminary rounds, a massive thread blew up on the campus forum.

INSANE DRAMA AT THE INDIE SHOWCASE! Is Chloe trying to leech off Nika's fame?

The post went viral instantly.

The original poster attached screenshots from the gala and the Showcase roster, breaking it down like a conspiracy theorist.

"Nika obviously wrote 'Day One Thousand.' The live performance was legendary."

"Chloe suddenly entering the competition is definitely just her throwing a toxic fit because Benjamin dumped her."

"I heard she's writing an original. Probably just going to rip off Nika's acoustic style."

The comment section was a literal bloodbath.

"Imagine having zero talent and trying to leech off the popular girl."

"Nika is way too nice. She wrote a masterpiece and now her psycho ex-bestie is trying to drag her down."

I stood in the dark hallway outside the studio, the harsh blue light of my phone screen illuminating my face.

The vicious comments felt like needles sliding into my ribs.

I locked the phone, gripping it so hard my knuckles turned white.

I stared at the glowing exit sign at the end of the hall for a very, very long time.

I didn't push the heavy studio door open until my hands finally stopped shaking.

Liam was patching cables. He stopped when he saw my face.

"You saw the forum?"

I nodded.

"Keep rolling."

I walked straight to the condenser mic and pulled the headphones over my ears.

In my pocket, my phone vibrated.

It was a text from Benjamin.

"I saw the thread on the forum."

"Stop causing drama. Nika saw the comments and she's literally having a panic attack."

He knew exactly who wrote the song. He knew the absolute truth. And he chose to let the entire school publicly execute my character.

I typed back.

"Did you write the post?"

Benjamin replied instantly.

"I have nothing to do with that post."

"But the reality is, the production of that song was a collaborative effort."

"There's no reason to let a cyberbullying mob attack Nika over this."

"You can compete, but leave 'Day One Thousand' out of it."

"The song is out in the world. Dragging this out is completely pointless."

Collaborative effort.

Completely pointless.

With a few keystrokes, he effortlessly erased my existence.

That afternoon, my academic advisor called me.

"Chloe, I need you in my office. We're launching an official review of the songwriting credits for the Showcase."

I packed my bag to head over.

Liam stopped me before I hit the door.

"Don't try to prove you wrote it by crying or screaming," he said, his dark eyes absolutely steady.

"Use the evidence."

When I walked into the advisor's office, Benjamin and Nika were already sitting on the leather couch.

Nika was quietly sobbing into a tissue.

Benjamin was rubbing her back, glaring at me.

The advisor tapped his pen against his desk.

"Have a seat, Chloe."

"Regarding the dispute over 'Day One Thousand,' the university requires an official resolution before the Showcase."

Nika choked out a sob.

"Professor, I swear I didn't know Chloe cared this much."

"Benjamin gave me the song. He promised me Chloe had agreed to let me sing it. I would never have performed it otherwise."

Benjamin immediately stepped in to protect her.

"Professor, this whole thing is just a toxic misunderstanding."

"Yes, Chloe was involved in drafting some of the early lyrics. But the entire post-production, the instrumental arrangement, and the actual stage performance were built entirely by me and Nika."

"Who wrote the original draft doesn't even matter anymore."

The advisor looked at me over his glasses.

"Chloe. Do you have a response?"

I looked at Benjamin and Nika.

"I do."

I pulled a massive, encrypted external hard drive out of my bag and dropped it onto the glass desk.

"This drive contains every single second of the developmental process for that track."

Benjamins face visibly tightened.

"Chloe, are you seriously going to humiliate everyone over this?"

I ignored him entirely and looked toward the door.

Liam pushed the door open and walked in.

He placed a printed, timestamped log onto the advisor's desk.

"Professor. My name is Liam, Head Engineer of the campus studio."

"A month ago, Chloe booked booth three to track the original acoustic demo of this song. I was patching the main board next door."

He looked dead at Benjamin.

"I pulled the raw, unedited vocal stems from the server."

The advisor plugged my hard drive into his iMac and double-clicked the first audio file.

My raw, unedited voice filled the office.

It was a rough cut. But the core melody, the acoustic progression, and the emotional build of the chorus were absolutely identical to the song Nika performed at the gala.

"File two is a high-res scan of her original handwritten lyrics."

"File three contains the metadata and timestamp of the first ProTools session."

The advisor scrolled through the files, his brow furrowing deeper with every click.

Benjamins jaw clenched tight.

"This only proves she made a demo!" he argued aggressively.

"The post-production edits"

"The post-production edits were just you swapping out four chords," I cut him off sharply.

Benjamin had chopped up the intro and rearranged some of the phrasing.

The official subtitles at the gala were a jumbled mess of lyrics that barely made sense.

But my original handwritten sheet? I hadn't moved a single syllable.

"Benjamin, you didn't even notice the acrostic poem hidden in the chorus. And you have the nerve to sit here and claim this song is your masterpiece?"

Benjamin froze, looking totally blindsided.

"What acrostic poem?"

I looked at him, feeling a sudden, intense wave of sheer disgust.

"Look at the scanned lyric sheet on the monitor."

The advisor maximized the image on the iMac.

I stared at Benjamin, reciting the first letter of every single line in the original chorus.

"Just when the wind loses its way."

"Under the silent, heavy gray."

"Leaving the dark without a trace."

"I'll wait for you in this empty space."

"And when the stars begin to fall."

"Nothing will matter to me at all."

"And you'll be the one to hear my call."

"Nothing can break this, we'll stand tall."

"Deep in the night, the shadows fade."

"Chasing the light we finally made."

"Holding on tight, we won't be swayed."

"Leaving behind the fears we laid."

"Over the mountains, far away."

"Endless horizons where we play."

"Together forever, come what may."

I stared dead into his eyes, my voice absolute ice.

"Put the first letter of every line together."

"It spells: BENJAMIN AND CHLOE TOGETHER."