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CONGRATULATIONS

You found the unofficial soundtrack to the book.

I actually listened to a lot of these songs on MiniDisc while writing it in my walk-in closet.

What's a MiniDisc? Don't ask.

And definitely don't ask about my LaserDisc collection.

And yes, even though you didn't ask, I do have The Cure – Staring at the Sea • The Images on LaserDisc. Oh, but you don't care, I'm sure.

Anyway. Here are a few of the songs I listened to while writing the book. I've tried to break them down by character perspective, but some of them probably leak across, so don't take that too seriously… except maybe a tad bit in the case of Lukan's skateshop workplace playlist. He's way more punk than Eli and Mary, though maybe the Waybound as a collective could dispute his punk-rockedness.

Okay, that sounded too nerdy to contain the words "punk" or "rock." Let's just move on.

How about you just chill and stop asking questions like "why is this here" and just listen to it.

Hit play up there if you want to listen straight through. Or scroll down and be picky about it.

And also on YouTube if you don't want to have a Spotify account just to listen to it (hint: I only made one to make this playlist).

A note from the walk-in closet: I wrote most of this book between midnight and 3 AM with headphones on, sitting in a closet that smells faintly of cedar and regret. The music wasn't background noise. It was load-bearing architecture.

Mary's Post-Punk Essentials Goth rock, atmosphere, ritual. The tapes she dubbed for the Mercury Monarch.

"Candles, incense, and the conviction that if you scream loud enough into the void, something will answer."

Bela Lugosi's Dead

Bauhaus

"Nine minutes of dread and atmosphere. That's Mary's world. Her trailer, her altar, her absolute certainty that the darkness was listening. She was right."

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Spellbound

Siouxsie and the Banshees

"Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance. Mary didn't know what she was calling. She called it anyway. This is the song playing in her head when she dragged Eli to the mound."

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Walk Away

The Sisters of Mercy

"Andrew Eldritch's voice sounds like it's coming from the bottom of a cathedral. Mary would've sold her soul to sound like that. This is the last song playing in Eli's world before it cracks open."

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There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

The Smiths

"Take me out tonight. To the darkest bar. To the mound. To anywhere that isn't here. Mary burned this onto every tape she made for Eli. It wasn't a love song. It was an escape plan."

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Atmosphere

Joy Division

"Walk in silence. Don't walk away. Mary put this on every mixtape she ever made. It was always track four or five—the point where the tape gets serious and you realize she's trying to tell you something."

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A Forest

The Cure

"Come closer and see, see into the trees. Mary heard this song and decided the woods were holy. She wasn't wrong. Robert Smith has been warning us about the dark for forty years."

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Lukan's Work Playlist Skater punk, early '90s, West Coast. No brooding allowed.

"Eli's brother didn't do introspection. He did 200 BPM with the windows down."

We Are One

The Offspring

"Early Offspring—before Smash, before MTV, before any of it. Just speed and conviction. This is the sound leaking under Eli's bedroom door at 7 AM on a Saturday. Lukan in the driveway, stereo cranked, not caring who heard."

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Little Kings and Queens

The Odd Numbers

"The Odd Numbers made pop-punk that sounded like sunshine and bad decisions. Lukan played this on repeat. Eli pretended to hate it. He knew every word."

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Knowledge

Operation Ivy

"All I know is that I don't know nothing. Op Ivy crammed more philosophy into two minutes than most bands manage in a career. Lukan didn't read theory, but he absorbed it at 200 BPM through his car speakers."

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Wild in the Streets

Circle Jerks

"Forty-six seconds of beautiful anarchy. Every time Lukan cranked this, their mother closed a window. Every time she closed it, he turned it up. That's the whole relationship."

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Silly Girl

Descendents

"The Descendents wrote love songs like they were apologizing for having feelings. Lukan would rather have died than admit this one got to him. But he never skipped it."

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Eli's Middle Ground Caught between his brother's noise and Mary's darkness. Neither genre. Both.

"The kid who borrowed from everyone's record collection and ended up somewhere nobody else stood."

Twenty Four Hours

Joy Division

"Just for one moment, I thought I'd found my way. Then it slipped away. Curtis wrote this like he was running out of time to explain what it felt like inside his own head. Eli knows that feeling."

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Just Like Heaven

The Cure

"The first time two people recognize each other in a way that changes everything. This song sounds like that specific brand of terrified joy. The closet. Poe. Mary's voice in the dark."

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How Soon Is Now?

The Smiths

"I am human and I need to be loved. Just like everybody else does. The most desperate song Morrissey ever sang, and Eli's mother would never hear it. That's the whole tragedy right there."

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Punk Rock Girl

Dead Milkmen

"This is the song where goth meets punk and they go on a date. Eli heard it on Lukan's stereo and thought of Mary immediately. It's silly and sincere and a little bit heartbroken underneath the joke. Just like them."

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Brave Captain

fIREHOSE

"Mike Watt's bass sounds like someone deciding to stop being afraid. This isn't goth and it isn't skater punk—it's the weird, brave middle ground where Eli actually lives. The song you play when you're about to do something that can't be undone."

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Transmission

Joy Division

"Dance dance dance to the radio. Except Eli can't hear the same frequency as everyone else. That's the point. That was always the point."

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The Waybound When the bonds form, the music changes. Shoegaze, dreampop, and the sound of becoming.

"Bound to each other. Bound to a path. Waybound."

Ceremony

New Order

"Joy Division's last song, finished by the band that survived. It's about endings that become beginnings. Eli wouldn't understand that yet. He will."

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Sweetness and Light

Lush

"Pure shoegaze bliss—guitars that shimmer like heat haze over water. That's what Lyra feels like to Eli before he has language for it. Everything bright and blurred and just out of reach."

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The Killing Moon

Echo & the Bunnymen

"Fate up against your will. The Citadel has a plan for everyone. Eli's existence is the thing the plan didn't account for."

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Plainsong

The Cure

"The opening track of Disintegration is four minutes of atmosphere before Robert Smith sings a word. That's what trust feels like when you're building it from nothing—a long, uncertain approach that suddenly resolves into something enormous."

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So. Central Rain

R.E.M.

"I'm sorry. The two words Michael Stipe repeats like he's trying to apologize for something that can't be fixed. Gregor carries his sister's death like a stone inside a fortress. This song is what it sounds like when the wall gives."

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Bizarre Love Triangle

New Order

"Every time I see you falling, I get down on my knees and pray. The synths sound like trying to be happy for someone you love while your chest caves in. Jase knows that sound."

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Heaven or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

"The most beautiful song ever recorded, and it sounds like exactly what I imagine when four auras braid into one chord. Transcendence that still has a heartbeat."

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Under the Milky Way

The Church

"Wish I knew what you were looking for. Might have known what you would find. This one's for the moment two people stop translating themselves for each other."

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Love Will Tear Us Apart

Joy Division

"I put this song here and I'm not going to explain why. If you've read the book, you know. If you haven't, you will."

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