Page 40 of Sounds Like Love

I concentrated on harmonizing with him. On the dissonance when he changed keys, feeling our way through a melody in our heads. And the little knot of dread wound tight in my chest slowly began to ebb, or maybe I was getting used to the tightness. Maybe I was just learning to cope.

He never said anything else.

He just hummed, and hummed, and hummed, until his voice finally faded in my head and my eyes were no longer watery, and the Subaru pulled back up into the driveway. I heard the car doors open as I stood from the top of the stairs and returned to my room at the end of the hallway, closing the door quietly as my parents came into the house, whispering, and I returned to bed.

Thank you, I thought as I slipped back into the bed I’d slept in as a teenager. My posters still on the walls, wilted at the corners with age.

“Do you want to talk about it?”he ventured gently.

I sighed. “No.” Besides, he had a front-row seat to my spiraling tonight, anyway. I’m sure he was only asking to be polite.

“I know it’s corny for someone to say they know how you feel, but—I really do know how you feel.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because you’re in my head.”

“No, I mean—I loved my mom a lot. She was my entire world. She was smart and funny … and I couldn’t imagine a world without her. Until I had to live in it.”

“Oh.” I put my arm over my eyes. I felt like an idiot. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know …”

“It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to—but I promise you, I get it.”

My throat tightened. “I feel so helpless.”

“I know.”And it really felt like he did. There was this warm, soft comfort in the back of my head where his voice echoed, like a well-loved woolen blanket. I just wanted to curl up in that spot in the back of my head.

I felt safe there. Safe to think all the terrible thoughts I could never say aloud.

I thought about the end of this last good summer. I thought about what this autumn would look like. This winter. I thought about how close it all seemed so suddenly. How the days just seemed to go by faster and faster and I couldn’t stop them. They slipped through my fingers like sand. I wanted to ask how badly it would hurt when I lost her. I wanted to ask if it felt like losing a limb or losing a part of your soul. But the person I wanted to ask, I was afraid I never could.

So, instead, as I lay awake in bed, I ventured in a prodding whisper, “Hey, Sasha?”

“Yes, bird?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

I bit my lip to keep it from wobbling, and turned over onto my side, curling my arms around my chest tightly to stay together, to keep myself intact, as that knotted ball of dread grew in my middle, cold and heavy and hurting.

For not letting me be alone, I thought, and closed my eyes, and hoped for sleep.

Chapter17(I See the) Bad Moon Rising

THE NEXT MORNING,Mom was at the breakfast nook sipping her coffee and helping Dad with the Thursday crossword puzzle as if last night hadn’t happened at all. I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl, got a cup of coffee, and went to sit beside them, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment.

But Dad just asked me, “What’s a nostalgic term for a romance book? Twelve letters. Ends in anR, I’m sure.”

“Something about historical?” I guessed.

Mom scrunched her nose. “Smutty something? A one-hander? Fabio’s paycheck?”

I snorted a laugh. “A one-hander?”

“You know, the dainty little bodice rippers you can read with one hand—ooh! That’s it! Try that, Hank,” she said, tapping the newspaper. “Try that one.”

“One-handerdoesn’t fit …”

“Bodice ripper,” she said. He looked doubtful, but as he scratched in the letters,it fit. Mom beamed. “Takethat. It’s going to be a good day.”

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