The first half of the year had been a relentless, high-velocity storm. A whirlwind of flashing lights, roaring crowds, and the impossible weight of three golden gramophones sitting on his shelf. The public performances—the tearful confession at the AMAs, the raw, aching medley at the Billboard Awards—had been necessary exorcisms. They were loud, public, and cathartic, a way to lance the most volatile, explosive parts of his grief and guilt on a global stage. He had taken the storm raging inside him and turned it into thunder that echoed around the world.
But storms pass.
Now, in the quiet aftermath of early June, the thunder had faded. The world had moved on to its next story, its next viral moment. The torrent of DMs had slowed to a trickle. The news cycle had spun away from him. And in the calm, settled quiet, Alex was left with a different feeling.
It wasn't the sharp, stabbing, questioning pain that had birthed "Before You Go." It wasn't the pleading, desperate, what-if agony that had fueled "How to Save a Life." This was something quieter, more pervasive. A dull, persistent ache that lived in his bones. It was the emotional equivalent of a phantom limb, a constant, low-grade awareness of a presence that was no longer there. It was the simple, profound, and unending loneliness of missing his friend.
He sat at the keyboard in his bedroom studio, the afternoon sun casting a warm, lazy glow across the room. The space felt less like a corporate headquarters and more like a sanctuary again. The manic energy had subsided. His purpose was still clear, his mission for Leo a constant, guiding star, but the frantic urgency had been replaced by a quiet, steady resolve.
He wasn't chasing a hit today. He wasn't thinking about a release schedule or a marketing plan. He was just a boy in a quiet room, feeling a specific shade of sad, and looking for a sound to match.
He closed his eyes and let himself drift into the ghost's vast, silent library. He bypassed the anthems, the radio-friendly hooks, the tracks designed for stadiums and sync licenses. He was searching for something intimate, something that understood the quiet, creeping nature of this new phase of grief. He let the feelings guide him—the dull ache in his chest, the heavy stillness of the air, the feeling of a room that is too big for one person.
He found it in a simple, mournful piano melody. It was a song he'd never paid much attention to in the ghost's archive, a quiet track that had been overshadowed by louder, more bombastic hits. But now, its gentle, heartbroken cadence was the only thing that made sense. He listened to the words in his head, and they resonated with a startling, painful accuracy.
"There must be something in the water, 'cause every day it's getting colder…"
The lyrics perfectly captured the slow, creeping chill of long-term grief, the way the world's colors seem to gradually fade to gray after a tragedy. It wasn't about the explosive moment of impact; it was about the long, cold winter that followed.
"And if only I could hold you, you'd keep my head from going under."
The line was a simple, direct, and devastatingly true statement of the void Leo had left behind. Leo had been his anchor, his hype man, the one who kept his head above water when the ghost's cynicism or the industry's pressure threatened to pull him down. Now, that anchor was gone, and he was learning to float on his own. The song wasn't a question or a plea. It was a statement of fact. This is what it feels like now. This is the bruise that remains.
This recording session would be a solitary affair. Finneas and Billie were rightly consumed with their own work, deep in the pre-production for Billie's debut EP. But more than that, Alex needed this one to be entirely his own. "Before You Go" had been his confession. "How to Save a Life" had been his eulogy for the world. This song, "Bruises," would be a private conversation with himself.
The creative process was the opposite of the obsessive, torturous deconstruction of the last session. It was gentle, meditative, an act of quiet reflection. He wasn't trying to capture the sound of a panic attack. He was trying to capture the sound of a quiet, rainy afternoon spent alone with a memory.
He started with the piano. He found the simple, repetitive four-chord progression and played it over and over, letting its heavy, looping quality become a form of meditation. It was the sound of a thought you can't shake, a memory that plays on a constant, quiet loop in the back of your mind. He recorded it with a single, close microphone, capturing the soft, felted thud of the hammers hitting the strings, the gentle creak of the sustain pedal. He wanted it to feel intimate, like someone was playing in the same room as the listener.
Next, the vocal. He set up the microphone, but instead of standing, he remained seated at the piano. He sang the lyrics quietly, his voice recorded close to the mic, full of breath and texture and the subtle, human imperfections that the ghost's producer-brain would have normally tried to erase. He wasn't performing; he was thinking out loud. He let his voice crack slightly, let the sadness color the notes, let the weariness show through.
As he worked, layering the simple elements of the track, his internal monologue revealed a new, more mature understanding of his own emotional landscape. The ghost was quiet, observing, its usual clinical analysis replaced by a kind of respectful stillness. The boy was in control, navigating his own pain with a new, quiet wisdom.
Grief isn't a single event, he thought, as he listened back to the first vocal take. It's a landscape. A place you learn to live in. "Before You Go" was the earthquake, the violent, ground-shattering moment when the world broke apart. "How to Save a Life" was the aftershock, the desperate, frantic search for answers in the immediate aftermath. But this… this was the long, quiet work of walking through the rubble. Of learning the new shape of the world. Of noticing the silence where there used to be a voice.
He decided the song needed one more layer. Not another instrument, but more of himself. He went back to the microphone and began to record backing vocals. He didn't create complex, soaring harmonies. He just sang simple, sustained notes, layering his own voice on top of itself again and again, pitching some tracks down, others up, until he had created a soft, ethereal choir of his own melancholy thoughts. It was a subtle, almost subliminal effect, a sonic representation of the internal nature of this new grief, of a loneliness that was populated only by the echoes of his own voice.
He spent the rest of the afternoon mixing the track, his movements slow and deliberate. He kept the arrangement stark, resisting every instinct to add more, to fill the empty spaces. The empty space was the point. The finished song was a study in minimalism: the looping piano, the breathy, intimate lead vocal, and the ghostly choir of his own layered voice breathing in the background. It didn't have the immediate, gut-punch impact of his previous tributes. It wasn't a song for the radio or for an awards show. It was a slow burn, a quiet, contemplative piece of music designed to be listened to alone, in a quiet room, on a rainy day.
When he was done, he uploaded it to the distribution portal without a second thought. He didn't text Claire for a press release. He didn't draft a social media announcement. He simply scheduled it to go live at midnight, with no promotion, no fanfare. It wasn't an event. It was a quiet offering, a page from his journal he was choosing to share.
He leaned back in his chair, the last rays of the afternoon sun slanting across the room, illuminating the dust motes still dancing in the air. The song was a true and honest reflection of where he was now: no longer drowning, no longer raging, just… bruised. And for the first time, he had the quiet, startling thought that maybe, just maybe, bruises could heal.