Page 20 of Crash & Burn

***

We’re halfway through practicing a run-through of our entire setlist, and we are sounding good, all things considered.

Mia has her camera around her neck and holds it up to her face. Her bronzed skin shines against her light pink tank top and half of her blonde hair is pulled up into a small messy bun at the top of her head, revealing her devastatingly full lips and the brown eyes that make my knees feel weak.

The memory of her looking up at me from her chair at Lenny’s last week is burned into my brain. The way she looked at me . . . I would have given her the world if she asked me for it. Luckily, it was just guitar lessons.

As we play, Mia walks around finding every and all angles to get a good shot of the four of us. There’s more motive in her movements today versus the first time she came to our practice. There’s a confidence in her that I didn’t see last weekend.

We finish the first run-though, and Mateo gives us each a few notes before we take a break. Theo and Silas leave to do a coffee run after getting all of our orders while Mateo stays back to, I assume, keep an eye on Mia’s first guitar lesson.

“You ready?” I ask as I walk over to the table Mia is sitting at as she looks at the pictures she took. She has her laptop today with her camera plugged in. She must have not heard me because she keeps clicking the arrow buttons on her laptop, pictures flashing across the screen.

I take a few steps closer with my guitar in one hand, but before I can ask again if she’s ready, I notice the pictures on the screen, and I freeze.

On her laptop, a photo of me is taking up the entirety of the screen, but I don’t even recognize myself. My arms are up with a drumstick in each hand, capturing the moment right before I’m about to hit them back down. My face shows concentration, but there’s something else there that I didn’t know I was capable of feeling anymore: pride.

It’s subtle but noticeable in the brightness of my eyes and determination in my features. It’s been years since I’ve felt any sense of pride after feeling like there was nothing in my life I could be proud of.

My horrible excuse for a father never failed to remind me that I would never amount to much, even though I spent my entire childhood trying to be everything he wasn’t for my mom and three younger sisters. Getting the four of them away from my dad is the only thing in my life I am truly proud of. No diploma or degree measures up to finally being able to see the bruises on your mom go away.

“You ready?” I say again, this time a little louder to get both Mia’s attention and mine back on the present moment.

She turns to see me and quickly shuts her laptop before standing up. “Ready!”

There is a pink hue to her chest, but I don’t let her know that I could sense the fake enthusiasm trying to hide her embarrassment—as if I caught her watching porn. And it was just a picture of me.

I act like I don’t notice and replace the slightly awkward moment with a question. “So, Mateo said you had a guitar to use?”

She nods before reaching under the table and pulling out a guitar case just like mine, only this one has stickers covering the hard case.

“Yours?” I ask.

She bends down to open it up and pulls out an acoustic guitar that looks used and a little weathered, and she shakes her head.

“A friend’s,” she answers, and I think that’s the only answer I’m going to get—at least for now. She doesn’t look at all interested in explaining. Instead, her eyes are glued to the guitar sitting in the case. I watch as she carefully pulls it out by the neck. The warehouse is completely silent, and I’m not going to be the one to interfere with this moment. Mia doesn’t say a word as she sits down on the ground and brings the guitar to her lap.

I guess the floor is as good a place as ever for her first lesson.

Turning around, I see Mateo scrolling on his phone before I sit down next to Mia, leaving more than enough room between us, and pull out my own acoustic, definitely more worn and weathered than the one she has. I can’t help but look at her face, and I find that her pretty brown eyes look cloudy, and I would bet my left arm that her mind is somewhere far away from here.

She comes back to this moment and must feel me staring because her body language completely shifts. Her face no longer has a trace of sadness as she straightens her shoulders and loosens her grip on the neck of the guitar.

“So,” she says with a small smile, “will you teach me how to play?”

***

Remember when I said that Mia was a smart girl, and she would pick this up in no time? I was wrong about that.

Likecompletelywrong.

I’ve taught two of my three sisters how to play, and they picked it up in a matter of weeks with consistent daily practice. With how this first lesson is going, I don’t think that will be the case for Mia.

A big part of learning a new instrument, or a new skill in general, is allowing the student to be creative and help them gain confidence while also guiding them in getting to know the parts of the instrument.

Mia is acting as if the guitar is going to bite her.

I started with showing her how to tune the guitar, letting her know that learning how to do that would come with time. Then I moved on to showing her how to properly hold the guitar and I couldn’t help but notice how uncomfortable she looked holding it.

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