Page 22 of Sounds Like Love

“This—this isn’t real,” I said, though the conviction in my voice wavered. Because this was an elaborate prank, even for Mitch, because Dad couldn’t lie to save his life—and he certainly hadn’t lied to me about hearing the voice.

“Try it—think anything in your head. I’ll hear it.”

“I’mnotgoing to talk to myself.”

“You already are. Just try it,”he repeated,“and I’ll tell you what song you sang on the way home last night.”

Incentive. Which always worked on me, sadly. I chewed on my bottom lip. If I tried it and nothing happened, no one would know. I didn’t have anything to lose—because this wasn’t going to work. And I was simply going insane. “Fine.” I closed my eyes, and thought,I take back what I said—you don’t sound handsome at all.

The voice snorted.“Wow, really?”

My eyes flew open. A chill raced down my spine. “You don’t know what I thought.”

“You doubt I’m handsome!”

You don’tsoundhandsome.

“Same thing! I’m hurt, truly. And after I sang along with you last night on your way home—”

“So what was it?” I asked aloud, because thinking with a throbbing headache was hard. “What did I sing?” Because there was only one song I’d sing that drunk at night.

“Oh, no, you said I wasn’t handsome.”

“You told me to think anything!”

He gave it a thought.“That’s fair. I did. You sang ‘Wherever’ by Roman Fell.”

That was it. The only song I sang drunk.

I returned to the breakfast table and slid into the end seat. My coffee was lukewarm as I sipped it.

I had to be losing it. This last year had just been too much, and I’d snapped. Either that or I had suddenly come into a strange superpower passed down from grandmother to grandchild that no one had warned me about. Or an alien had impregnated me with telepathic squid babies. Or I’d fallen off the stage last night and cracked my skull and this was just some long hallucination while my parents cried over my prone body in a hospital bed—

“You are incredibly dramatic when you’re spiraling.”

“I’m not dramatic,” I defended. “And I’mnotspiraling.”

But oh, we both knew I was. Spiraling all the way down. I could hear myself and he could hear me, too.

“How are younotspiraling?” I asked.

“Up all night, remember? My panic and disbelief have been exhausted. I’ve come to terms with it.”

Well, that wasn’t very fair.

“Here, I think I should call you.”

That startled me out of my spiral. “Call me?”

“So you know that I’m a real person and you’re not infested with squid babies.”

I burrowed my head into my hands in mortification. He could hear that, too? “Oh my god.”

“You sound too pretty for that.”

Despite myself, I perked. “Pretty?”

“What’s your number?”he asked instead, dodging the answer like aMatrixslo-mo moment. He sounded like he’d asked that question one too many times in his life, so smooth it resembled a pickup line. It was almost impressive.

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