Page 29 of Sounds Like Love

Was it that simple? My brain was just too loud? Because itwasloud—so very loud all the time. Full of anxieties and what-ifs and reminders of things I needed to do and hadn’t done and wanted to,haunted by the ever-nearing deadline of whatever I had to write next.

“I envy you, then,” I admitted quietly, sitting down on the edge of the loading dock to wait for the Rocket Men. A truck went by blaring country music.

“I was about to say the same—I can’t stand it when my head is empty. The silence feels crushing.”

“So does all the noise,” I whispered. “Wanna trade lives?”

“I don’t think you’d want mine.”

I stared out toward the ocean, where a flock of seagulls circled, diving and coming back up, probably after some poor tourist with a bag of fries from the corn dog stand.

In a month I would leave Vienna Shores and say goodbye to everything I remembered, everything I loved, because time was swiftly washing it all away like sand back out into the sea. The next time I came back, the Revelry wouldn’t exist, and Mom would be a little less than who she was before, and I would be …

I didn’t know. Thinking that far ahead felt terrifying, like facing a monstrous hurricane as it neared land.

“I don’t think you’d want my life, either,” I replied.

“I guess we’re stuck, then. Do you—would you want to talk about it?”

“No. Having you in my head is intimate enough. It feels less weird if I don’t know you. If you’re just a stranger. But …” I thought for a moment. “I don’t want to keep calling you ‘that voice in my head.’ Do you have a nickname?”

I could hear him shuffling through a Rolodex of names, all too fast to catch completely. What kind of life did he have, to have so many of them? Finally he settled on“Sasha.”

Sasha.I didn’t know anyone named Sasha, famous or otherwise.What was Sasha short for—Alexander, I think? I didn’t know anyone named that, either. My anxiety eased a little bit. “Friends call me Jo. It’s nice to meet you, Sasha.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Jo,”he greeted me, his voice warm like fresh cinnamon rolls. I liked it—the way he said my name, kind of like he had a honeyed piece of candy tucked under his tongue.

A minivan pulled off the main road and up to the loading dock ramp, blaring Celine Dion. The license plate readcrocrok. This had to be tonight’s cover band. The driver kicked the minivan door open, and five middle-aged men with receding hairlines spilled out in football jerseys and swim trunks.

It was go time.

I popped to my feet and gave them a winning smile. “Y’all must be the Rocket Men. Need help carrying anything inside?”

Chapter12(You Can Call Me a Fool) I Only Wanna Be with You

UNCLE RICK’S MARGARITABarge, the “Marge,” bobbed over the waves as it headed toward the pier. I watched from the breakfast nook in the kitchen while Mom flipped pancakes over the stove, humming “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. The pancakes smelled burnt, but she didn’t seem to notice. She had burned them before, but not often. Not in years.

Mom talked as she cooked. “Andapparentlythe wild horses are on the move again. I was just at the sanctuary last week. One of the speckled ones had a—oh, it’s not a calf. It’s a—whatever. She’s so adorable—I know we aren’t supposed to name them, but Cher is just like her mom.”

Vienna Shores was little known in the world, except among certain circles: the music buffs because of the Revelry, and horse girls because of the wild horses that wandered the beaches and dunes. At the end of every summer, the horses made their yearly pilgrimage through the town and down Main Street to the beach,where they would turn at the waves and gallop back to the wildlife sanctuary where they normally roamed.

No one really knew why they did it, but ever since Mom came to Vienna Shores, she’d religiously volunteered at the sanctuary.

Sometimes the Venn diagram between music girls and horse girls was a circle.

“So,” she asked as she cooked, “what do you have planned today, heart?”

I thought about it. “I dunno. Maybe … I could hang out with you today?”

Mom whirled to me, surprised. “Me?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, the other mother. What do you think? Can I tag along with you?”

She gave it a thought, flipping a pancake. It was almost as black as a hockey puck. “Idohave to deliver a new mixtape to Ricky today …”

I perked. “Yeah, let’s do that!”

She brought over the plate to the breakfast nook, along with a bottle of syrup, and sat down on the bench beside me. “That settles it, then. It’s going to be a good day.”

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