Page 17 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

I need to get over that night. I need to get over this fixation onherand who I was with her. Today was a perfect reminder of who I actually am and how the people in my life will always see me.

But as I watch the video of her performing again, I know I’m not ready to get over her. Not yet.

Delilah

“You’re going to wear that?”

I look behind me in the mirror to see Georgia perched on her bed like a throne, wrinkling her nose at the dress I put on.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s fine,” she says, looking me up and down. I keep staring at her because with Georgia, I know that’s only the appetizer in a five-course meal of opinions.

“It’s just that, well, you don’t really look like yourself. Or, you look like yourself, but, like, yourself if you were the nerd girl in a CW show who goes through a makeover to try and get a boyfriend. But the makeover is just, you know, her taking off her glasses and putting on a dress like that. Not that you are a nerd. I mean, your grades aren’t good enough for that. But that’s what the dress reminds me of... one of those dramatic makeover dresses that are, like, all about the male gaze. Where did you get it, anyway? Is that from eighth-grade graduation?”

I decide to focus on the final question. “No.”

I pull down the hem of the spaghetti strap black slip dress that isactuallyfrom the eighth-grade farewell dance. It’s suddenly feeling a lot shorter.

“Hmm.” She manages to say just as much in that single noise as she did in her rambly dragging of my outfit choice. And also entire identity.

“Okay, I’m going to save you here. Please remember this tremendous act of kindness when Mom asks you what time I got in from the cast party last night.” Georgia pops off her bed and goes to our shared closet, maneuvering around a pile of scarves, the teetering tower of her playbill collection, and a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal (minus the marshmallows) even though I’m pretty sure we ran out last week. We don’t have a line of blue painter’s tape across the floor of our room like we did in middle school, but it still feels like it’s there. My side is clean, organized. The walls are empty and my schoolbooks (for the classes that, yeah, I dojust okayin) sit in a tidy stack at the foot of the bed that is always made unless I’m lying in it. Georgia’s side is an explosion, right up to the very edge of our imaginary line.

“So I’m going to assume that this sudden interest in your appearance is because of Charlie,” she says, flipping between two puff-sleeved cottage core dresses that I’m definitely not going to wear. “Not that I’m trying to shame you or stop this journey of self-actualization, D! Lord knows I’ve been trying to get you in something other than your flannels and dirty sneakers for years.”

“No, it’s not,” I sigh. Why didn’t I wait until she was out of theroom? “I was just... trying something new.”

Her eyes narrow. “So you’re not hanging out with Charlie tonight?”

I feel my cheeks heating up. “I am, but—”

“And correct me if I’m wrong, but is itnotValentine’s Day?”

“Okay, yeah, except—”

“So, you’re going to be with Charlie, the boy that makes your cheeks look like you took a red Sharpie to ’em every time his name is even spoken aloud, on a holiday explicitly created to celebrate love or at least, like, making out.”

I consider protesting some more, but instead I just shrug. There’s no fighting this.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, turning back to the closet.

Usually it’s the little sister that’s the follower, the one trailing after and annoying and imitating, but with us it’s the opposite. I’ve always had to hop on Georgia’s train, or get run over in the process.

“So, is this actually a date?” she asks, pulling out a dress that I’m pretty sure she wore in a summer camp production ofHairspray.“Or are you two still doing that friends with benefits thing.”

“Oh my god, Georgia! There are no benefits.” I feel myself blush again and check to make sure the door is closed. Mom would lose her mind.

“Hmm.” Another one of her annoying judgey noises. She throws in a side-eye because she’s dramatic as hell. “I mean, he’s always so touchy with you at lunch. I figured there was more going on in these... band practices.”

“That’s just how he is. And the only thing going on in our bandpractices is practicing. For our shows.” We’ve had two more since the New Year’s Eve performance—another one at The Mode and one at this senior kid’s house party in Belmont Shore. I was worried that the magic would wear off. That my first performance was all a fluke. Or—no longer distracted by an impending migraine—I would realize that my singing was really a cringey, screechy mess and everyone was just humoring me. But instead I’m really loving it... leaning in to this person that’s not me, but me-adjacent, who has the freedom to scream and dance and own it on stage. At night before I go to sleep, I watch videos of Poly Styrene on my phone, replaying the ones that have quickly become favorites and searching for footage I haven’t seen yet. And instead of being filled with terror like I was before that first show, I only see the possibility of what I could be.

And the audiences have been right there with me. I can see their faces sparking with interest and then excitement—it’s a thrill unlike anything I’ve experienced before. We’re up to a few thousand followers on IG, even more on TikTok, and our streams on Spotify have doubled (along with the DMs on our socials asking where the girl’s—this girl’s—voice is on those recordings). People are liking what they hear, telling their friends.

So the guys are happy. Charlie is happy. I can tell by the way he looks at me, leads me around with his hand on my lower back, like I’m someone special, important. He hasn’t kissed me on the cheek again like he did that night, and that makes sense. We’re just friends.

But... I guess Iamhoping that maybe this is the night whenall that finally changes. He asked me—and only me—what I was doing tonight at lunch today, said he’d pick me up later so we could “chill.” Do “just friends” “chill” on Valentine’s Day?

My face must be telegraphing all this to Georgia, because she gently grabs my wrist. I’m expecting another side-eye, but instead her eyes are soft, almost pitying. Which may be even worse.

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