Page 101 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

I roll my jaw, tamping down my rising excitement. “No, the opposite actually. It was awesome.”

He jerks his chin at me. “Okay, Prentiss, show me what you got. I’ll play along.”

My stomach twists. “Right, um, this is one I wrote,” I say, and adjust the tuning knobs.

I strum once, my fingers pressing into the frets. It starts slow—like a trickle of water from a crack in a dam. He watches with rapt attention, barely blinking as he follows the movement of my hands. He props his bass on his knee and starts to slap his strings. The sound gives new life to the song. The way he adds depth and feeling to each line—I’ve never experienced it before. Not on my own. Not with Logan. Never. The music speeds up and just like the dam, it’s as if my heart is cracking open and everything I’ve been repressing starts to gush out. I press the strings until my fingers hurt and when I sing the words I wrote for her, that’s when the tears begin to fall.

I let them run down my face. I don’t hide from it, and I don’t wipe them away. And he watches me. Just like I did for him that first night.

When the song ends, I’m panting. My voice feels hoarse and my face is swollen. “Sorry,” I mutter as I place my guitar on the bed so I can wipe my cheeks with my shirt. Joel sets his guitar down and for a split second I wonder if he regrets playing with me. I’m half expecting him to tell me my song is garbage and he never wants to jam again. But he doesn’t. He does something I never would have guessed.

He hugs me. Really hugs me.

Who knew a hug could bring someone back to life?

When he pulls away, his smile is small. “You wrote that?” he asks.

I huff out a laugh. “Uh, yeah. What’d you think?”

He shoves my shoulder. “Fucking killer, man. Seriously, that shit was rad. You got more?”

I grin. “A lot more,” I say, leaning forward to kick a box under my foot for a better playing position.

“Where’d you get that?”

His eyes are trained on the necklace that has come loose from my collar.

“Is that a ring made from guitar string?”

“Oh, uh . . . yeah.” I quickly tuck the chain back inside my shirt.

“Epic. Did someone give it to you?”

I fight against the urge to flinch. The memory of her like a knife slicing across my skin. “No, I umm . . . I made it. It’s just—”Say something.“It’s just a reminder of someone special, that’s all.”

Joel glances at the hidden spot on my chest, his lips parting like he’s going to ask more questions, when a whistle sounds in the courtyard outside. I jump to my feet, nearly knocking him over. “Quick, hide your guitar under your mattress.”

He follows my lead, but as we stand straight at the ends of our beds for the approaching officers, he whispers, “What the hell is going on?”

“I may have done something stupid to get the guitar back.”

His face falls. “What? Are you crazy?”

“Prentiss!” Officer Pettey shouts as he stomps toward me. “You’ve got some explaining to do, you little shit.”

“Is there a problem, sir?” I ask, aware that Joel is watching intently.

“Yeah, you fucking locked us in the latrine.”

“That was a latrine?” I ask, innocently. “My bad, I thought it was your bunkhouse. Smelled just like you.”

Joel snorts out a laugh and I smile wide . . . right before I’m punched squarely in the face.

* * *

It tooka few days to recover from the brutal beating I got for locking the officers in the toilets. It was all worth it though when Joel stopped crying in the night. It’s surprisingly easy to be friends with the kid. By some miracle the higher ups didn’t notice his guitar was missing and at every opportunity, we jam together. Even more surprising, I share more of my own music with him and even Logan. Once the floodgates were open it seemed I couldn’t stop it.

I show him the chord progressions, and he develops the bass melody, but Logan struggles to keep up. The two of us sound like magic. Likerealmusic. And maybe it’s cruel, but it’s easier to be creative when Logan isn’t there. It’s like Joel is the power source, and I’m a dead battery slowly being charged back to life. Joel is my other half, so when Logan pulls away to spend more time on his own, I let it happen. I’m actuallyrelievedthat maybe this trio will break apart naturally.

---