I thought so. What happened to the shell? she asked.
I smirked as I surveyed the expansive space of my room—the beanbags in front of the gaming console, the pale wood that made up my nightstand, the shell atop it, and the intricate yet simple geometric pattern of my headboard. My bed was made, sheets and thin summer duvet tightly tucked against the mattress thanks to our new housekeeper. Dad had fired the previous staff of house help a few months after Lev died—I think when he realized Steve was on Pop Syad’s payroll, not his. For some reason, Steve’s presence really pissed Dad off. When Dad lost his shit and started yelling at Mom, she left the house in tears and flew off early for her next commercial.
Still got it, I typed.
Good. It was perfect, she replied after a moment. I never found another one like it.
Do you remember anything else from that trip? I asked.
Not really. Just you, Mr. Superstar. And your mom. She was very beautiful.
My mouth smashed flat, and I accidentally took another photo when I squeezed my phone too tight. Worse, I somehow managed to attach it to the message and send it.
No, no, that couldn’t happen—she couldn’t see that. I looked like a moron.
Whatever. She was just some random girl. I didn’t need to impress her. I didn’t need to impress anyone.
What’s wrong? Why the world-weary face?
My breath trickled out of my lungs as tension seeped from my shoulders. Good. She wasn’t going to be a dick about my mistake. Huh. She really was nice.
And her assessment was one I agreed with, even liked. I’d traveled the world, and I was weary. Damn tired of my parents’ inability to pull their heads out of their asses about Lev’s death and remember they had a living, breathing kid still at home who’d totally lick up even scraps of their time and attention.
I pressed send before I realized I’d been typing my thoughts.
I stared at the email, aghast. I hadn’t meant to send her that much truth.
Holy shit.
“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” sprang to life into my head. I tried and failed to enjoy it because anxiety wormed through my guts, leaving me feeling perforated.
I’d sent this chick I didn’t know my entire life story, all the details I’d never, ever tell anyone here. The kids would use it against me, hurt me. Berate me. Rip me apart.
I dropped my phone and sank my fingers into my hair.
What was happening to me? I’d been so sure I’d lost the ability to hear music, and yet the moment I saw Aya’s picture, it had begun to come back. Now, even as I freaked out about this girl who probably wasn’t as nice as she pretended to be, songs ran rampant through my mind.
My heart pounded so hard, I worried it would burst through my lungs. Hearing music was good—no, great! I couldn’t wait to tell my dad about its return, but…the email. I was an idiot, and I had to get it back. I had to stop her from reading it—a new message popped up.
Aya must still be standing atop the mountain, gathering the courage to head back down. Well, that’s if what she’d told me about her life thus far was true. How would I know? And why should I believe her, just because she said it was so?
I pondered her weird story and how I’d do with climbing up and down rocks to get to class or to talk to someone on the other side of the world.
If they can’t get past their loss, then they’re losing again, her message said. They’re losing you!
You seem like a really great guy, Nash. The little boy I met was very sweet, and I can tell he’s still in you. I’m so glad, because I was worried you were one of those cynical mean kids.
My mum and I started traveling when my parents divorced. It was ugly—the divorce, not the travel. I miss what my family was like when everyone got along, but I barely remember that time. My dad hates talking to my mum, so he avoids me, too. Now he has a new family, and he seems happier than I remember him. Happier now that I’m not around.
Poor Aya. Her dad had basically replaced her because he couldn’t stand her mom. Ugly. Yeah, that word held a world of fights, silences, and heartbreak.
Grownups could be such petty shits. I told Aya so but got no response. She’d probably started climbing down the freaking Himalayas.
Oh, and I want to see your view, I typed. Do one of those real-time panos so I get the sound of wind and the birds and all that.
I’d catch her in a lie if she didn’t send it, and then I could ignore her. No one would believe her if she decided to share my story. I’d say I’d been hacked.
But if she was telling the truth…well, then this Aya chick was badass. And sweet.
I dug the sweetness in her replies for some reason, maybe because she reminded me of my mom before Lev’s death. I missed her—that mom, the one who told me often how much she cared, who showed it in her hugs and by carving out time for me every single day.
As bad as my situation was, I knew my parents still cared about my well-being. My dad brought me into the studio off of Sixth Street for jam sessions, and my mom hugged me when she came home, which was less and less frequent the more she and Dad fought.
So, the problem wasn’t me. Like Lev said, there’d long been an unequal balance of success in our family. And it was the heavy blanket of grief and my parents’ inability to communicate with each other. This caused tension between them and left me emotionally raw and unsure.
That’s what the therapist I saw every Wednesday said, anyway, and my parents had both agreed with her when we visited together again for the second time last month. Mom and Dad were just overwhelmed. Tired.
The situation wasn’t my fault.
But it was—at least some of it. Maybe if I’d written that song Dad wanted, he and Mom wouldn’t have been fighting that night, and Lev would still be alive.
I locked my jaw, wishing I’d been able to compose something—even a shit jingle Dad could have screwed around with—to save my family.
Much as I wanted to believe the shrinks and my parents, Lev’s death still felt like my fault.
I wanted to tell Aya that, too, but I wouldn’t. Sharing those secrets was foolhardy.
Because email was too slow, I clicked on the number she’d listed in her signature and exited the school email account. I brought up my text app. I sent her a message, and she replied.
Yes, this is me. Hang on. I’m trying to do the panorama.
A moment later, my text app chimed again, and I opened a slow video of the most rugged, beautiful country I’d ever seen. My jaw dropped.
It’s beautiful. Why would you want to leave that?
My mother said we’ll leave when Clean Water wraps up the sanitation project.
Show me those handholds and how you get down, I wrote.
She sent the picture, and once again, my jaw dropped. I squinted, trying to make out any place to grip.
This girl was definitely badass.
What time is it there? I asked.
It’s about seven in the morning. I have to get back down to help feed the sheep.
I laughed. I was talking to freaking Heidi, the sheepherder. Except this girl’s parents were wealthy enough to stay at the same exclusive bungalows in Turks and Caicos that my family had stayed in, and her dad was some kind of British lord or something. At least, that’s what Ms. Gates had said during English class.
I went downstairs, unsurprised to find Steve in the living room. He was former Army and told me he’d seen some serious action during his multiple tours in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Even when he was still, he gave off this air of faint menace. Or it could’ve been his light eyes that never remained still. They were always narrowed enough to make me think he could actually see my evil thoughts. He was taller than my dad by a good three or four inches and thicker through the shoulders, chest, and arms. He got up every morning at five a.m. and ran seven to ten miles, which was probably why he looked twenty years younger than my dad, even though he was in his early thirties to my dad’s forties.