Page 41 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

I blink in surprise. “A generator? What for?”

She leans forward until our noses are almost touching. “That’s the best part!” Dusty skips over across from the sofa and throws both arms out wide. “Ta-da!”

My mouth drops open when I notice the TV. I step toward the large square box, bunny ears poking up, and slide my fingers along the thin metal rods. “Wow, and it works?”

She shrugs. “It doesn’t get cable, we’re too far into the woods.” She flops down on the sofa and grins. “But look underneath.”

My eyes trail down to where?—

“A VCR?”

She grins and shimmies in her seat. “That’s right! Now I can watch whatever movies I can get my hands on.”

I glance around the place again. It’s cool in here, the tree canopy cutting at least a few degrees off the top. But part of me wonders . . .

“Aren’t you worried someone will find you in here? What if they arrest you for trespassing?”

She stands up and grabs my hand again before pulling me to the couch. “You worry too much. Who the hell is going to come back here? Besides, I’ve been coming here for two months now and never seen so much as a hint that someone else has been on the property.”

With a sharp tug, she pulls me down onto the couch next to her, our bodies press into each other’s sides, and all worries about being caught in someone else’s home fly out of my mind. All I can think of is the feel of her damp shirt against my arm, the skin of her knee touching my thigh, and the fact that her hand is still clasped in mine.

“So,” she starts, her face turning serious. “Sing.”

“Wait . . . what?”

“You told me you had new songs. Sing them for me.”

An odd squeak comes out of my throat. “I-I don’t?—”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on! How are you ever going to become a super famous singer if you don’t practice in front of anyone?”

Because she’s not just anyone. She’s everything.

“Yeah, but I . . .”

She leans back, pulling her hand away to cross them over her chest, blue polka dots taunting me.

“I—okay. But they’re not practiced or anything and I don’t have a guitar?—”

“Oh! I have one back here.”

In a flurry of red curls, she’s gone across the room to a closet and pulling out an old electric guitar. “It’s nothing fancy but it’ll do, right?”

She hands it to me, and I grasp the neck of the guitar gentler than I’ve ever handled an object before. She hurries around, sitting back down on the couch and pulling her knees into her chest to watch me. I look down at the guitar, which is chipped and missing a few frets near the bottom as well as the E string. But it’s something.

“Sorry, I don’t have an amp to plug it into?—”

“It’s great,” I interrupt, flashing her a nervous smile. I’ve never played an electric guitar before. Actually, I’ve never even held one, until now. My fingers curl around the neck and I strum the strings. Immediately both Dusty and I scrunch our faces against the terrible noise, and I have to spend a few minutes tuning it before it sounds even remotely decent. Without an amp it’s a bit pitchy and nasal sounding, but I couldn’t be more excited.

“That sounds better,” I say, and take a deep breath. “Okay. Ready?”

She nods, and her eyes seem alight with wonder as I start to strum the strings in the basic chord patterns that I want. When my parents said I could learn the guitar, they strictly meant classical guitar and fingerpicking hymns, but I couldn’t help myself from stealing over to the public library and learning a handful of chord combinations. I feel like a real rebel now. Playing in a secret place on a forbidden electric guitar? I’ll be in so much trouble if I ever get caught.

But soon I forget all about that and am simply carried away by the freedom to play something my parents don’t approve of. Freedom to improvise and be creative. My eyes close, and my fingertips start to sting from the thin nickel strings as I press them into the board, but I don’t care, and before I can chicken out, I’m singing.

Singing a song I wrote inside my head, sure, but who cares. Because it sounds . . . good. There’s something missing, maybe the missing E string, but the words flow out of me, the dynamics of my voice following the intensity of the guitar. Before I know it, I strum one last time, the sound echoing around the room and I’m breathing hard and fast as the adrenaline rushes through my veins.

I open my eyes slowly to find Dusty staring at me wide-eyed, her dark pink lips open.

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