Page 13 of Our Final Encore

I couldn’t do it for him, but god I wish I could

His face is pinched, his eyes closed. A lump forms in my throat, and I feel tears prick at the back of my eyes. There’s so much emotion and pain in his words, it makes me feel like the silly words I write are just meaningless ramblings.

Alex never talks about his brother. The couple times he has mentioned him, he didn’t give any details about his death. Sometimes it almost seems like he tries to pretend he never died.

He plays the last note and I’m breathless, unsure what to say. “Wow, Alex, that was…really good.” It’s an understatement, but I’m too stunned to come up with anything clever, and I don’t want to embarrass him.

He smiles and sets the guitar down beside him, he looks to be out of breath too, like singing the song took a lot out of him.

“It needs more work.”

He’s always modest, but I think deep down he knows how good he is. I don’t know many guitar players…okay, I don’t know any other guitar players, but it’s pretty obvious that he has a natural talent for music that most people don’t have.

“So, you gonna show me something you wrote now?” He smirks.

My heart beats faster, and I feel a tiny bead of sweat form on my brow. I’ve never showed anyone anything I’ve written, minus school essays. Teachers have always complimented my writing. In elementary school I even won an award for a short story I wrote, but I don’t know if that translates to me being a good writer or just being able to follow directions well.

I sigh and pick up my journal, flipping through it to try and find something that isn’t totally embarrassing. It isn’t lost on me that at least a few of these pages are things I’ve written about Alex specifically. Definitely not showing him those.

After a minute or so I realize I’m going to be embarrassed no matter which one he reads, so I just pick one.

“It’s dumb, but here.” I hand him the journal. “Don’t read any of the others.”

I have your eyes, I have your hair,

But I look around, you’re never there.

There’s a hole in my chest where you would go,

But the person you are I’ll never know.

His eyes thoughtfully graze over the page several times. “Is it about your dad?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, I guess.” Obviously it is, but I don’t want to say that.

“I like it. Do you ever think about writing songs?” he asks before handing back my journal.

Shaking my head, a small laugh escapes me. “I can’t sing.”

“That doesn’t matter. I could sing them for you.”

The idea instantly makes me smile, but also I don’t feel like my writing is good enough for that. “I don’t know. That seems hard.”

“You should try it. We could be a team.”

The fact that he wants to do anything like that with me sends a thrill through my body. “Maybe.”

He grins. “Thanks for showing me, best friend.”

He started calling me his best friend a few months ago, and it makes me smile every time. I’m surprised that he doesn’t have a huge group of friends by now. I’ll never understand why he chose me to be his friend out of all the people, especially girls, that try to get his attention.

But I’m glad he did.

EIGHT

Opal

Age Fourteen

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