Page 17 of Never Forever

“Yeah.”

“And you told me we couldn’t be friends.”

“Yeah,” I said, with real regret.

“I left New Moon on the boat for you.” She said it like I was an idiot. Like she’d been my friend all this time. If we were going to be friends, I had some work to do.

“I know. You’ve been a better friend than me,” I admitted. “Let me make it up to you.”

“You won’t laugh?”

“I make no promises,” I told her, and she glared at me until I smiled.

“Fine. Okay. But turn around.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. I can’t do this if you’re looking at me.”

I turned my back, and as soon as she started singing - what I thought might be a Taylor Swift song - I was grateful I had.

The sound was like if a cat could sing while also having its tail stepped on, while also being strangled.

“You hate it,” she said, cutting herself off.

“You don’t know that. I’m not even looking at you.”

“You flinched. With your shoulders.” She jerked her shoulders up by her ears.

“Okay,” I said quietly, the way I did when I had to calm down tourists who didn’t listen to me about taking their lunches out to the bird sanctuary and they came back traumatized and covered in bird shit. “I think maybe you need to drop down a key.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Just lower your voice. Like you would if you were talking normal. Don’t try to sing it as high as Taylor Swift-”

“It was a Pink song!”

“Okay. Don’t try and sing it as high as her. Don’t get fancy, either. Just sing it. Plain.”

“She doesn’t sing it plain,” Carrie argued.

“Well, she’s Pink.”

She looked like she wanted to fight me some more, but then shrugged. “Okay. Turn around again.”

This time when she sang, with her voice a little lower and not trying to hit all those high notes, it wasn’t as bad. It wasn’tgood.But it wasn’t the screaming strangled cat.

“Hey, that’s better,” I said when I turned around.

“Better but not good?”

“It was a solid…okay.”

She smiled. “I’ll take it. Thank you.” She looked me up and down like she just now realized I was dressed in a sweaty tee shirt and ratty shorts. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I run along here most nights.”

“Most nights? Even after you work?” she asked.

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