* * *

I was drawn to the back steps, unable to stop myself from bringing the guitar outside.

“Where you going?” A voice sliced through my determined rush.

I jumped, my fingers tightening around the guitar. I shoved the chunky body behind my back.

My mom stood beside the front door in her scrubs with her lunch bag in one hand and her keys in the other.

“You’re still here.”

Her eyes narrowed. The suspicion meter flew off the charts. “Yes, I forgot my bag.”

I hefted the guitar in front of me. “I was going outside to play.” Dare wasn’t going to scare me off from playing. Somehow, being outside helped me think and breathe and play. The front steps were out, which left the back porch.

Her gaze flickered and softened. “You’re playing again.” Her throat tightened. “Is that your dad’s?”

A lump lodged in my throat and I nodded.

She ran her finger over the wedding band she still wore. Her engagement ring was tucked safely in her jewelry box. “He loved it so much. Sometimes…I think maybe too much.”

She crossed to me and kissed me on the forehead, wrapping her bag-laden arms around me. “Love you, Bay Leaf.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

She left and the song started again. The one that started in my stomach and was now firmly lodged in my chest.

I stepped out the back door. The driving wind had died down, but winter clawed in deep. My breath came out in white puffs disappearing into the evening sky. With my sweater wrapped tighter around myself, I sat on the stairs. The cold seeped through my jeans, numbing my butt in a matter of seconds.

Across our back yards, the door to his garage was open. Part of me hoped my big show of not being scared off by him would be more ceremonial and not actual. Wasn’t there a party or drag race or football game he should be at? I kicked myself for knowing the answer to the last one.

The seniors vs juniors seven-on-seven was next week. There were banners all over every hallway. It was a stupid game that didn’t even matter. No stakes. No real losers, except for everyone in the school who didn’t give a crap about football.

We’d barely had any places to stick our theater flyers with the football season decorations covering every available inch of wall space at school.

Flexing my slowly-numbing fingers, I flipped open my notebook and scanned the page. Words scribbled across the pages spilled into the margins. I hadn’t written this much in a long time. And I’d never sung any of these out loud, until now.

But the song clawed at my chest, forceful and inescapable. If I didn’t sing the words out loud, my brain might explode. It was too full, too chaotic, and I needed the release valve yanked.

I squeezed the neck of the guitar and tested the lyrics on my tongue. My fingers moved across the strings without hesitation, but my song began thin and reedy. I sucked in a deeper breath and forced it out. No holding back.