Amos’s face was very thoughtful.
“So…” I trailed off to give him some time to think about her advice. “Have you written anything new?”
“Are you writing a song?” Yuki interrupted.
“Yeah,” I answered for him. “We’re still trying to figure out long-term what story he wants to tell with his music.”
She understood and puckered her lips together. “Yes. You absolutely have to figure that out. Amos, you’ve got the best person in the world right here to help you. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
I gritted my teeth, hoping she wouldn’t say much more, but the boy made a face.
“Who? Ora?”
That got me to snicker. “Dang, Am, don’t make it seem like it sounds that wild. I told you I’ve written a few songs.” He just didn’t know that some of them had done… well.
It was Yuki’s turn to make a crazy face. “A few?”
I had told her while we were upstairs that they had no idea about Kaden, that they only knew about her, at least Amos had been warned in a backward way with little hints. All they knew was about my… “divorce.”
“Hers? You wrote her songs?” my young friend wheezed, acting like he was floored.
Yuki nodded way too enthusiastically. I just bared my teeth at him in a noncommittal smile and threw in a shrug for the hell of it.
The confusion—and surprise—on his face didn’t go anywhere, and just as he seemed to think about what to respond with, a car started coming down the driveway, and we all turned as a familiar SUV drove by and did a three-point turn, a teenage girl coming out while it was still in motion. The window rolled down, and Clara’s familiar face appeared behind the driver's seat. “Hi! Bye! I’m late!” And then she was gone as Jackie carried her backpack in one hand and headed toward where we were.
It was Am who held up his hand in a stopping motion and said, “Jackie, don’t freak out—”
And that’s when she stopped walking, the smile she’d had on her face dropping like a damn fly as her gaze landed on the person sitting next to me.
She fell over like a fucking tree.
So hard it was a miracle her skull didn’t smack against the concrete foundation as she passed out.
“Told you,” Am muttered as we all rushed over, crouching beside her just as her eyes shot open and she screeched.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!”
“Are you all right?” Yuki asked, kneeling beside her.
Jackie’s eyes went wide again, and her face went just as pale as Amos’s had earlier when I’d told him that we were going to recruit Yuki into helping today. “Oh my God, it’s you!” she shouted with another gasp.
“Hi.”
Hi. I almost burst out laughing. “Jackie, are you okay?”
Jackie’s eyes filled with tears, and I realized Amos and I were invisible now. “Oh my God, it’s you.”
My friend didn’t even hesitate; she scooted forward on her knees. “Would you like a hug?”
Jackie’s eyes were full of tears as she nodded frantically.
“I didn’t look like that, did I?” Amos whispered at my side as the woman and the teenager hugged and even more tears spilled out of Jackie’s eyes.
She was sobbing. Jackie was flat-out sobbing.
“Almost.” I met his eyes and grinned.
He gave me a flat look that reminded me way too much of his dad. I laughed.
But as I turned back, I happened to catch Jackie’s eyes as she pulled away from Yuki’s hug and saw something an awful lot that looked like guilt in them.
What was up with that?
*
Eventually, after Jackie had calmed down and quit crying—which ended up taking close to an hour because the second she would start to get herself under control, she’d burst into tears again—we all managed to take a seat in the garage. Amos and Jackie let us keep the seats while they sat on the floor, one of them looking nauseous and disgruntled at the same time, and the other… if my life were an anime, Jackie would have had hearts in her eyes.
“So…，” I said, eyeing Amos especially.
He looked up at the ceiling, but I’d caught him peeking at me a second ago.
I wasn’t going to put him on the spot if he was really against it. He either wanted to perform, which we hadn’t really talked about much yet, or he liked to write. He could just write for himself.
Amos had a beautiful voice, but it was his decision what he wanted to do with his gifts. Keep them to himself or share them with the world—it was his choice.