Page 6 of Before You Fell

His head snaps up. “No.”

The answer comes too fast. Too fierce. Then he frowns at the guitar and shifts his fingers. “Not your words, Wills. The melody I just played.”

He plays the last line again, then changes one chord.

The sound opens. It deepens. It stops being pretty and starts being painful.

Phoenix lets it ring out, his brows pulled together, his mouth serious in a way that makes him look older than thirteen for one dangerous second.

“There,” he says. “That’s better.”

My throat feels strange. “Why?”

“Because that line hurts.” His fingers brush the strings again, softer this time. “It needs something that hurts back.”

I stare at him.

At this boy with trouble in his grin and a house full of noise he never talks about. This boy who acts as if nothing can bruise him, then somehow knows exactly where my words are tender.

He plays again. This time, when he sings, the song feels different. Like there is something in it now. A bruise and a pulse. A place for the words to bleed properly.

I watch his mouth around my lyrics. I watch his fingers press the strings hard enough to leave marks, as if the guitar is something he can force into loving him back.

Something shifts inside my chest. I don’t know what it is. I only know I want him to keep singing.

When he finishes, the last note hangs between us.

Phoenix lets it fade. Then he looks at me, and for once, there is no smart-ass comment waiting behind his teeth.

“That’s good,” he says.

I swallow. “You think?”

“Yeah.” His eyes drop back to the page. “Really good. It might be the best thing you’ve written.”

Heat rushes up my neck. “You don’t have to say that because you’re my friend.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, you would.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” He gives me a look. “I’d tell you if it sucked.”

“You tell me everything sucks.”

“Because most things do.”

I laugh, but it comes out too shaky. Too much of me slipping through the cracks.

Phoenix looks down at the notebook again. “You should write more of this, Wills.”

“More depressing stuff?”

“More real stuff.”

That shuts me up.

Then his mouth curves and the boy I know comes swaggering back in. “When I’m famous, I’ll play that one first.”