Page 49 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

“Everything okay?” Reggie asks. His face looks concerned. I wonder if he saw Charlie’s name on my screen. We’re standing so close that it would be hard for him not to.

“Yeah, I think. Um, let me see.” I swipe over to the band’s TikTok account on my phone. I keep it logged in but the notifications off because I find even the few we get a day too overwhelming. And... whoa. What’s coming in now is a lot more than a few. It’s a few multiplied by a few thousand.

“I— What,” I sputter out. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Reggie raises his eyebrows, leaning in closer to look at my screen. “Well, that looks like a video of you and... Oh my god.”

We both watch the like count and comments change, speeding like the numbers on a slot machine. I’m still trying to catch up and process what exactly is happening.

It’s a video of me from a set that we played at The Mode a week ago. I’m wearing ripped Levis and my checkerboard Vans, and I threw off the flannel I was wearing over my white tank top at the last second because it was so stuffy in there. I’m singing the chorus of “Starshine Monologue,” throwing my hands up with every yelp. At the end of the video, I kick my leg backward and swingmy head to the left. The caption: THIS BLACK GIRL ROCKS.

I rarely watch videos of our shows because it’s hard to reconcile that girl on stage with who I feel like I am inside the rest of the time. It’s just hard for me to compute because something isn’t quite right, like the feeling you get when you watch a really legit Pixar movie or robots that are almost human. That’s me, but also not me?

I know I was at that show. I know I sang so hard that my throat hurt the entire next day and I bounced and spun all over the stage and scraped my ankle on Beau’s bass drum. But to see it on video? That girl looks—Ilook—really, really cool. And from these numbers, it seems like other people,a lotof other people, think so too.

That caption, though... I’m not sure how I feel about it. If I were a white girl, would they feel the need to point that out? If I were white, would my performance even be remarkable enough for people to care?

But no. I can’t even start to process all of that now.

“I knew this would happen,” Reggie says. “Girl, you famous!”

Another text pops up on my screen.

Get over here you gorgeous girl! We gotta celebrate!!!!

I swipe it away, but I know Reggie read it or a least got the gist. I can tell from the slump of his shoulders and the step back he just took.

And I know Charlie’s just being Charlie. The flirting doesn’t mean anything to him, for sure, and not to me anymore either. But how do I explain that to Reggie without coming across as a total presumptuous egomaniac? He didn’t say he likes me like that. He just lightly touched my hand, maybe on accident.

“Looks like you need to see your band and figure out what’s up,” he says. He sounds... colder. Again, though, that could all be in my head. Until this little mini-moment in between the comic book shelves, I was pretty certain I was being friend-zoned.

“I guess so.” I see more texts popping up on my phone from Charlie, Alex, and Beau, too. I stick it in my back pocket. “But that was really fun.”

“Yeah?” He beams, his nose wrinkling.

“Yeah.” I nod over to Georgia, whose arms are full of comics I’m pretty sure she has no interest in reading. Greg is saying something to her about the book on the top of the stack, and Yobani is eyeing the double comic guy menacingly. “Looks like everyone clicked.”

“They did, didn’t they? We should hang out again soon.”

I want to know who that “we” includes. “We” as in me and him? Or “we” as in all of us? But there’s no time right now to shake his shoulders and demand clarification.

“Yeah, for sure,” I say, with a smile. And then I go off to find Georgia so I can meet up with the guys and find out what is going on.

Reggie

I get in line to buy a trade ofIconthat I know I’m missing, and my mind starts racking up all the Delilah wins from this afternoon.

1. She told her sister about me.

2. She listened to me talk about comic books without her eyes glazing over—and about my dyslexia without acting all weird and sympathetic like it’s some fatal disease.

3. She called me incredible. And, like, it doesn’t even matter what little untruth I told her before that because...

4. When our fingers touched there was a spark! Again! Like, a sign from the universe or our holiday love guides or whatever, whoobviouslywant us to be together andobviouslyrealize that Free Comic Book Day is the holiest of holidays.

5. Also I’m pretty sure I caught her taking a big whiff of me. Because I smell good or because something stank and she was trying to find the source? TBD. But still!

Sure, she got a text from that stubble dude from her band,calling her “gorgeous.” But I mean, she said she’s not dating him so many times now, and I believe her.

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