Thirty minutes later, after gargling a mug of warm salt water, I stepped back into the dimly lit studio. I made my way past Asher, who sat reading a script on a navy tufted sofa in the back of the room. In front of him, Fin twisted chords and pressed button after button on the audio mixer, as if he were a pilot about to take flight.
The sound tech, Lila, followed me into the vocal booth as I approached the microphone. For the first time, I really took in the room. I was thankful that it didn’t have a personality—the studio felt unlived in, which meant that I could create my own memories here without old ones tugging me back to another place. There were no platinum or gold records cascading down the wall. The walls were papered in a black Gucci fabric, with wildly expensive guitars hung across them, and that was it.
I adjusted the vocal mic and placed the large headphones on my ears. After a few warm-ups, from behind the sound board, Fin nodded at me. I swallowed hard, my eyes wandering to the stool next to Fin, which thankfully, Lila now occupied. Asher grinned at me from the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Joyride” left my lips in a hurry. It was as if I needed to get the song off my chest before a terror crept up my lungs and strangled my throat.
The terror never came. In its place was a rush of adrenaline. “Joyride” felt like letting go, like drifting along with the moody bridge as gravity seemed to leave my chest. It usually felt this way when music came out of my mouth, like my soul was skydiving. But today it also felt like my insides were mending, my voice reminding me that it existed to tell stories other people couldn’t tell, in a way other people could never tell them. By the time the song ended, my white knuckles held the microphone shaft and my limitless smile exhaled over the windscreen.
I finished the song and looked up, seeing three wide grins shining back at me. Fin pointed at his ears, indicating that I take off my headphones.
“Fucking beautiful,” Fin said. “Let’s do it again, but this time, sing it like the world is ending, but you have plenty of time before it ends.”
“So, slower and sadder?” I asked.
“Exactly. And can I hear a key change on the bridge? On ‘We’ve got scars we can’t leave behind.’”
“We’ve got scars we can’t leave behind,” I sang, in a minor chord.
“Fuck yeah, but bring down the tempo—painfully slow.”
I sang it back to him slower.
Fin whipped his head behind his back to meet Asher’s eyes, both of them trading wide smiles before Fin’s attention came back to me. He arched his body up from the stool and leaned over the board, beaming in my direction.
“You know your voice isn’t fair to other voices, right? ’Cause if you don’t know it, you should.”
I chewed the insides of my reddening cheeks, my ego thumping. Fin sat back down and raised his finger up to the air, frenetic energy running through his body.
“Let’s fucking go,” he said.
And I fucking went.
It’s a joyride
And it feels like home
Flying down this open road
I remove the safety belt wrapped around my seat
If we go crashing
Let the blow break me
35
THIRTY-FIVE
I DIDN’T WALK OUT OF the recording studio, I floated. I was high on a warm glow that always seemed to slip through my fingers: success. But something about this time felt different—like I could hold on to this feeling for a while. “Joyride” was going to the producers, the studio, and the lead actress so she could get a feel for the film’s sound—and it was fucking perfect—and it would play at the end of the movie with my voice and no one else’s.
After Fin and Lila left, I followed Asher out to the pool. I couldn’t hide my giddy smile, and he couldn’t hide the way he was looking at me. I caught his eye as we walked down the slate stairs, a raised eyebrow behind his golden shades, pointed in my direction as the sun beat down upon our bodies.
Asher took a seat on a lawn chair and patted toward the empty one next to him, indicating that I join him. My skin felt like it was on fire, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit still. I hesitated, then with eyes locked on him, I tugged the tank top off my chest, and stepped out of my shorts. I stood above Asher in the scalloped bikini, as he gazed openly at me, his mouth slightly parted. I tossed my clothes playfully toward his chest, and he caught them with a wide smirk. My insides were screaming, and the calm, turquoise pool below me felt like much too placid a place for the flames in my chest to land. And so, I turned my back on pleasant waters, and I ran.
Sandy wind hit my cheeks as I flew past the shaky wooden slats that bridged the mansion with Georgica Beach. I let the stretch of dunes tickle my arms, with a building heat in my chest and a widening grin on my face. My toes found hot sand, and I sprinted past the quiet shoreline. I let out a loud shriek as I slammed my pale shoulder into a booming wave.
I plunged into the icy ocean, letting it cool me from head to toe. I shot up out of the water, cold waves splintering around my skin. It was a rush of adrenaline that only made my heart beat faster. I whipped my head to the shoreline as the waves crashed against my back. Asher stood with his arms crossed on the shore, staring at me for a moment. He walked forward, planting his bare feet where the ocean foamed at the sand.
“THIS”—he shook his head at me, his grin widening—“THIS FEELS FAMILIAR.”
That’s because it was.
I couldn’t help it. Asher Reyes brought out my daring side. He had a way of sprinkling fairy dust all over ordinary objects, cracking my universe wide open with a slow, long stare. He made me feel as though we were trapped inside a wild, hyperbolic, neon wonderland—a place where I had the audacity to get away with anything.
I always jumped in first during those last two summers at camp. We snuck out of our respective cabins and met at the gazebo, finding a soft patch of earth to roll around him. We’d lay with our limbs folded around each other as we took in the stars. The way he spoke about the world filled my mind to the brim. When Asher was midsentence, musing over the philosophical wonders of nature—saying that one thing that made me want to drown inside the corners of his brain—I sucked in air and stood up, springing away from him, bare feet on wet grass, running faster and faster, leaving my muse sprinting on my heels. I dove off the salty dock, fully clothed, headfirst into the warm moonlit water, and I waited for him to join me. It was a game of cat and mouse. Night after night.
Here I was eighteen years later, waist-deep in water, gazing up at Asher, my wide green eyes unblinking. The smile faded from his lips as he took his shirt off, tossed it forcefully behind his back, and walked straight toward me, into the water without flinching.
The waves crashed around his bare torso as he dove headfirst under a wave. Asher stood up right in front of my body, shaking his straight jet-black hair onto my face, like a dog. I playfully pushed him back, letting my hands tingle against his bare, wet skin. I watched the salt water roll down his jawline, his lips, his beating chest.
“The lake was warmer,” he said, grinning.
“Wimp.”
I splashed his face, and he leaped toward me, folding his arm around my waist, tugging me under a wave with him. We came up for air, laughing, and I edged my shoulder into his.