“You absolutely did.”
“You don’t even know the song.”
“I know confidence when I see it.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No.”
He looked at her and smiled.
“I don’t.”
At home that night, I found something inside the guitar case.
A folded note.
For one irrational moment I thought it might be another message from Thomas.
It wasn’t.
Julian had written it.
Mom,
I used to think giving something up was what made helping somebody count. Like if it didn’t hurt, maybe it wasn’t generous enough.
I don’t think that anymore.
Maya didn’t need me to lose something. She needed somebody to notice, and then she needed people to listen.
Dad wrote that he wanted me to become someone who noticed when another person was carrying something too heavy alone.
I think the important word might have been “alone.”
I sat on the edge of his bed and read the final lines twice.
