Why Did New Wave Musique Decline In Popularity?

Having an Awakenist as my wife meant enduring her monkish attitude toward sex. We could only be intimate on the sixteenth of every month. Every detail—my position, rhythm, even my expression—had to follow her rigid rules. If I showed too much pleasure, she would immediately rise and leave. We had been married for five years. Was I ever tired of this? Yes. Still, I always gave in. I accepted these limitations because I loved her. "The Saintess loves me too," I told myself. That faith shattered the day I was sent to extinguish a hotel fire. Amid the flames, I found my wife pressed close to a man in disheveled clothes. Between their arms was a young boy.

At 20, I became known for two things. First, I weighed over 200 pounds, yet I still ended up dating Christian Fairmont, the coldest and most unattainable man in our circle. Second, I turned down Christian's proposal, changed my name, left the country, and became the one woman no one dared mention around him—the forbidden, unattainable love he could never let go. For the next five years, Christian shut himself away in a church and refused to see anyone. Just when everyone thought he was about to become a priest, he suddenly announced his engagement. He made such a spectacle of it that even I heard about it all the way in Goldridge. That alone showed how much he valued his bride-to-be. I booked the first flight home that same night. Everyone who saw me reacted the same way. First, they stared at how completely I had changed, how much weight I had lost, how I looked like a different person. Then they sighed. "Juliana, you came back too late." Even Christian looked at me with cold, distant eyes. "When you walked away and left me behind, did you ever think that five years later, you'd regret it?" Regret? I shook my head. "I don't regret it." I was already married and had a child.

"Please, stop pushing. I can't take this anymore." The concert venue is packed tight. A man behind me keeps pressing into my backside. I'm wearing a mini skirt today with a thong underneath, and it only makes the situation worse. He lifts my skirt and presses himself against my hips. As the atmosphere heats up, someone in front of me slams into me, and I stumble back a step. My body stiffens as I feel like something just slid inside me.

After I announced my exit from the music industry, the public response was overwhelmingly positive. The only person who voiced his objection was my girlfriend's rumored lover, the up-and-coming songwriter Lucas Zacker. He put on a show of sincerity in front of a crowd of reporters. "It's all a misunderstanding. Matthew is an irreplaceable talent in the music industry. I sincerely hope he returns to the stage." I shut off my phone and turned a blind eye to his public plea. In my past life, one of my songs had been identical to his supposedly original single. As such, netizens accused me of plagiarism, cursing me and wishing death upon my family. Frustrated, I posted the entire creation process online, but it couldn't stand up to the timeline. His new song had been released ten minutes ahead of mine. Just because of the ten-minute difference, netizens sent me photoshopped mourning portraits of myself and even went so far as to come to my house and vandalize it with paint. The relentless cyberbullying went on for years, and it drove me into a deep depression. My parents exhausted their life savings trying to clear my name, only for crazed fans to set our house on fire, causing my parents to burn to death. In the end, when his song won an award, I jumped off a building. But who would have guessed that when I opened my eyes again, I was reborn on the very day the new song was set to release.

"Please… stop pushing. I can't move." The concert crowd was packed and restless, bodies pressed tightly together. I found myself too close to the girl in front of me. She wore a short skirt that brushed against me every time the crowd surged. What caught my attention was how close we were: the faint warmth of her body through the thin fabric made my pulse quicken. For a brief moment, I thought I felt her react too, as if she sensed the same strange tension hanging between us.

Everyone in the circle called me the chatty woman around Wilson Lewis, who had poor hearing and was notoriously aloof. I would stand up for him, take drinks on his behalf, and accompany him to the hospital. When he had to get his hearing aid adjusted, I would crouch beside the table to replace its batteries for him, yet he never so much as looked up at me. One time, I drank on his behalf until I was dead drunk at a wine party, but he only glanced down at me calmly. Another time, I spent the entire morning waiting with him on the day of his follow-up checkup, but he texted his unattainable love, Noelle Surrey, instead. Wilson: [Have you eaten lunch yet?] During our three years of marriage, I became a joke in the eyes of others. On the night of our wedding anniversary, he wanted to make things up for the birthday celebration he owed me. When I was being dragged away through the back alley of a convenience store, I saw him sitting in the Maybach parked at the alley entrance through the half-open car window, unboxing a cake. I screamed until my throat bled, my fingernails digging into the wall. He glanced up at the alleyway entrance, took off his hearing aid, and put it in his pocket. When I got home in the wee hours, he was still helping Noelle with her resume. Seeing my disheveled state, he just frowned and said, "Jaclyn Scott, can you please stop making such a scene every time?" Noelle chuckled on the other end of the phone. "Wilson, is she playing victim again?" I pushed the divorce papers and a USB drive in front of him. "Wilson, I'm done making a scene. This time, it's your turn to listen."