Page 72 of Second Song

ROWAN

Teo doesn’t notice that I’m frozen. That’s no surprise—I’ve never seen him this excited, and I’m apparently the reason. “This is who I told you about, Cam!” He directs this at me. “And this is Cam, Mr. Byrn. Cameron Trebeck.” I can’t help noticing how close he stands to this new arrival, so close their hands brush until his friend grips his wrist. He pulls Teo back as if I’m a dog without a muzzle, one he doesn’t trust not to hurt his best friend like I hurt other people once in public.

I’m not that person.

I never was.

Cameron doesn’t know that, and I don’t blame him for being protective. It’s only another reminder of Liam that means a hand steals to my chest, rubbing. Cam’s hand slipping from Teo’s wrist is another reminder when his little finger hooks with Teo’s. It makes me slow to process—I almost miss what Teo says next. “Cam, Mr. Byrn is who that TV production company mistook.”

“Production company?” My mouth dries, and my heart seizes. “What production company?”

Teo fishes out his phone. “One that used to run some contest. Look. I got a message from them. And an offer.”

He turns the phone my way, and the car park fades. So do all these happy reunions and bright laughter. The world fogs as I absorb what he shows me.

Absorb it?

I choke on a mouthful of old ash while surrounded by delighted people. I’m also back in that walled garden with Luke telling me I don’t ever have to volunteer my story. That I could write it down and leave it behind, and he’d respect my choices. He’d given me other options, hadn’t he? Offered to help me plan coping strategies for this moment.

I wish I’d done that with Luke now that Teo describes an offer he has no idea is a poison chalice.

“See, sir? They offered me a chance to use a professional studio and they’re offering a big chunk of cash for the school.” He’s rueful. “Got all my hopes up for a minute.” He turns to his friend. “All because you added a hashtag to that Reel.”

“What Reel?” I ask as people pass us.

The school bursar backs up to ask a different question. “Big chunk of money for the school?” Austin keeps one hand on Maisie, who wobbles in pirouettes around him. “How much money, and for what?”

“Ten grand, sir,” Teo tells him. “From a TV production company if Mr. Byrn would sing for some reunion show, only they’ve mixed him up with someone else.” He directs this at me. “Wish it was you, sir. I don’t stand much of a chance otherwise, do I?”

We’ve spent enough time together for me to know what admitting this must cost him.

“I haven’t got real talent. Not like Cam’s.” He isn’t bitter. If anything, he’s proud of someone I can’t help thinking is more than a friend.

No wonder he missed him.

All those lonely evenings behind a drum kit make sense the moment he switches his focus to Cam. “That sound tech course was my chance to go to uni with you. Get shortlisted with what I’ve recorded so far?” He shakes his head. “Not without pro remixing.” He shakes his head again, and this is grittier. “Still gonna try.”

His hand doesn’t brush against Cam’s now, but I can almost feel how much he wants to keep that point of contact and how much he wants what this offer could make happen for him.

It’s gutting.

So is him aiming a burst of real warmth in my direction. “If I do make it, it will be down to how much you’ve helped me.” This sigh is heartfelt. “Still probably won’t be enough. Not without some real studio time on my application. And that’s what this production company offered—real studio time for me as well as cash for the school. They said they might make it a feature of the reunion show they’re planning. Second Song, it’s called. Said I could be part of it if I helped convince you.”

Teo describes golden handcuffs I can’t let him snap on. Not for studio time or for money, and not only because their cash offer is a drop in the ocean for what their poison cost me, even if how it all came about is still fuzzy. And that fuzziness? That uncertainty about what the fuck happened to make me a different person?

That’s what I can’t let happen again. Not to a kid only a few months older than I was when I first backed myself against a studio door that turned out to be a ledge I fell from. There’s no way I’ll ever say yes to what a growing crowd of staff and students gather to hear when Teo doesn’t spit his usual bullets. He’s so fucking wistful.

“Imagine if you were the singer they’re trying to track down, sir.” He could mention me being his golden ticket. Instead, he mentions other people, suddenly shy. His head dips, and this guts me even harder. “Thought we could use some of the cash to get instruments for the little ones. Real ones, you know?” His eye contact lingers, painful in a whole new way. “Nice wooden ones like in the box of tricks like you said your mum used to take to festivals. Shame they mistook you for someone else in that Reel.”

I know it’s my voice that repeats, “What Reel?” I hear it as a faraway whisper now that my heart doesn’t only pound, it thunders. Teo rocks back like I yelled it at him. Like I’ve come out swinging.

His friend swings too, only Cam plants a phone in my face, not his fist, and there I am on Instagram, drumming on a picnic table. On metal water bottles and on an upturned bucket. Drumsticks fly in this video and get caught by me. I’m caught too, only by a hashtag in a comment that might as well have been blood spilled into shark-filled search-engine waters.

Cam: Your Mr. Byrn looks like someone who sang in the #BritPop contest with one of my uncle’s besties.

A second comment explains why Cam hasn’t stopped staring at me, why I’m familiar to someone who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven during fifteen minutes of fame that I’ve always regretted.

Cam: There’s a photo of him next to the dartboard in Ed’s kitchen.

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