Every single line felt like she had pulled pieces of herself from somewhere deep, raw, real—like she had unraveled something private and laid it bare on the page.
It wasn’t perfect.The melody wasn’t locked in yet, the words weren’t as polished as they could be, but it wasreal.It had weight.
It made me want to hold onto it.And worse—it made me want to hold ontoher.
Not as Ethan’s little sister.Not as the stubborn, sharp-witted girl always trying to keep up.
As something more.
And that scared the hell out of me.
Because she was fourteen.
And I was seventeen.
I might have been a stupid teen, but I wasn’t dumb.
I knew damn well Iwasn’tsupposed to be feeling like that about her.
I wasn’t supposed to feel like that.Wasn’t supposed to notice the way she bit her lip when she was thinking, or how she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous.Wasn’t supposed to feel that low, sinking pull when she leaned into me, laughing under her breath as she fixed a note.
But I did.
Even though it was wrong, she became the only thing I could think about.I stopped going to Ethan’s house for him.I went, hoping he’d bail so I could spend more time with her.
I knew it couldn’t last, but I did it anyway.At least, until it became obvious I was going to get us both in deep shit.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I buried it.
I shoved it down, locked it away, forced myself to forget it was even there.
And then I made the worst mistake of my life.
I made herbelievethat song—her song—meant nothing to me.
I told myself it wasn’t a big deal.
That if I played it in front of the whole school, it would mean nothing.It would turn into just another performance.
It would break whatever was happening between us before it could become something more—something worse.
And I needed that.
Ineededher to hate me.
Because maybe if she hated me, I could stop hating myself for the way I had started seeing her.
So I did it.
I walked onto that stage, sat on that stool, and I playedhersong.
And at first, it was fine.
The auditorium was packed, students buzzing, the usual pep rally chaos filling the air.I let my fingers move over the strings, let my voice find the melody we had pieced together.
When I found her, I couldn’t help it—I poured every last feeling into it for her, knowing full well I was about to shred it all to pieces.Part of me hoped she’d feel me, though.Feel the real reason I was doing all of this.