Page 68 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

I feel all the resolve I had outside, all my hopes to finally start being the girl I want to be, drain out of my body.

“Um, I do actually,” I finally squeak out. My voice sounds silly and weak and I hate it.

I want to run out of Asher’s garage and pretend this never happened. I want to go back to just listening and watching and doing what I’m told. That’s not scary. It doesn’t make my heart beat dangerously fast like this or my stomach feel like I’m on a roller coaster from hell. But I know if I leave, if I give up now, I’ll never try again.

I take another deep, steadying breath, pull a pick out of my back pocket, and start playing the song I’ve been working on.

I haven’t really mastered playing and singing at the same time yet. It kind of feels like that patting-your-head,rubbing-your-stomach trick to me—one day it’ll all click, but that day hasn’t come yet. So instead, I strum the first verse, humming the melody the best I can. And when I get to the chorus, I pause and sing a couple phrases, because the lyrics and the chords kind of dance around each other in a way I’m not sure how to make happen in real life yet. It sounds really good in my head, though. The arrangement mirrors what the song is about: that same dance I’ve been doing trying to figure out who I want to be, around all the voices who think they already know.

I try to stumble my way through the second verse, but my hands are clammy and my finger keeps slipping on the B string.

“So, um, yeah... something like that,” I mumble, resting the guitar in my lap. “You get the idea.”

“Delilah!!” Beau yells, jumping up from his throne behind the drums and beaming at me. “You’ve been holding out on us!”

“Yeah, like, what the fuck?!” Asher chimes in. He presses his lips together and nods at me, impressed?

I feel like my heart just hitched a ride on a balloon and it’s floating up to the sky. I feel proud.

But that feeling disappears when I look at Charlie. His arms are crossed and his eyebrows are so pinched now, they’re practically touching.

“Who taught you that?”

“Ryan. Um, you know, Ryan Love,” I say. I smile at him, hoping he’ll return it. “I started taking lessons with her back in April.”

His eyebrows shoot up now. “That long? And you didn’t say anything?” He shakes his head. “Delilah, she’s our competition.”

“I don’t think she thinks of us like that,” I say with a laugh, but I can tell immediately from the way his eyes darken that that was not the right move.

“Why? What did she say?”

“Nothing bad. I promise. We’re just... you know, friends. She’s been really supportive, I guess.” I put the guitar back on the stand and walk over to my backpack, pull out my notebook. “Um, I’ve been writing lyrics, too. For the whole thing, not just that one part.”

Maybe if I stop talking about the guitar playing, which is firmly Charlie’s zone, and focus on something else, he’ll stop looking at me like a traitor.

“Yeah, let’s hear ’em,” Beau says, and Asher nods in agreement. Charlie says nothing.

So I read some of my favorite lines from my notebook, most of them written after everything that happened in May. About being in the spotlight, but in a way I didn’t choose. About others taking something I’m proud of and twisting it, tainting it for their own needs.

I can hear the shakiness in my voice, and I know the words don’t sound as good as they would if I was singing them on stage, when I have that electric feeling coursing through my whole body. But still, I’m so proud that I’m even doing this thing that would have been the premise of an anxiety nightmare just last week.

When I’m done, I inhale, exhale, and then risk looking up at them.

“Sounds like you’re reading from your journal,” Asher sayswith a smirk, and Beau smacks him on the back.

“Don’t be a dick, bro.”

Beau smiles at me, and it’s not fake or placating, which would be the worst. “I really liked it, Delilah. There’s some real potential here that we—”

“Hey, the journal thing wasn’t a diss!” Asher cuts in. “I liked it too! Fucking Kurt Cobain took his lyrics from his journal, I’m pretty sure. Not that you’re Kurt Cobain, Delilah.” Beau smacks his back again. “Not that you’renotKurt Cobain, either!”

“Thanks, Asher.” I smile at him.

“No prob.”

We all turn to Charlie in unison, because even if we’d never admit it out loud, his opinion holds more weight. He started this band, and Asher and Beau always take his lead.

Charlie shrugs, and my heart breaks before he even says a word.

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