“Did you have a fun time at Jenny’s?”
She bounds over to my bed and flops on it, babbling the whole way about her night over at her friend’s house. “And then, her brother let us play this new game he just got with him and it was so fun! It was just like your music but even cooler. They have drums and a guitar and a singer, but Jenny hogged the microphone all night. I got to play the guitar and I wasn’t very good, not like you, but maybe next time I’m over at her house I can practice some more. Are you good at video games?” She talks so fast I can barely keep up with her, but I listen anyway.
I set my guitar aside and lean back in my desk chair. “Yeah, but I’ve never played the one you’re talking about.”
Her eyes get real big. “You haven’t? You’d probably be really good, you know since you play the real guitar. This one had buttons instead of strings though, so maybe not.”
“Maybe not,” I chuckle.
“I wish we could have video games here.” Her lower lip puffs out. “I wanted to keep playing, but Jenny’s mom said she needed to take me home or Gina would wonder where I was. I told her she wouldn’t care, but she didn’t believe me.”
I haven’t even seen Gina since I got home earlier. Might be her book club night or she’s out shopping somewhere. Who knows, and who cares.
“Do you think we could buy a video game? Maybe if I get a job we could split it!”
“You’re eleven,” I point out. “I don’t think many places are looking to hire eleven year olds.”
She crosses her arms. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, but whatever.” I grab my guitar and extend it toward her. “I know it sucks that we can’t have video games like other kids, or a lot of the things they do, but I have something even better. You want me to teach you to play the real deal?”
Her blue eyes go wide as she carefully takes the guitar from my hand. It sags a little in her grasp, unused to the weight of it, and I help her put it in her lap.
“Now, you hold it just like this,” I instruct her, moving her hands into the right position. Her fingers look so small compared to mine. “And I only want you to try playing it when I’m here, alright? This is very special to me.” It’s the one and only possession I brought with me to Pittsburgh and this damned house after my mom went to jail and never looked back.
She looks up at me with pure wonder on her face. “And you’re letting me play with it?”
“Not playwithit. But play it, yes. If you’d like to learn.”
She nods her head eagerly.
“Okay then.” I take her left hand and position her fingers over the neck. We spend a while going over where each one should go for two basic chords, and I grab a pick for her to try strumming it finally.
She’s way too excited about it and the earsplitting noise that comes off the guitar is honestly a debaucherycompared to the serenity I create with it. But she giggles and does it again with less force and slightly more finesse that has me seeing some potential.
We practice late into the night until her shoulders start to sag with exhaustion and my own eyes grow bleary.
“Let’s call it a night, okay? We can do some more tomorrow.”
Penny yawns and I take the guitar back from her. “Thanks for letting me play with you.”
“You’re welcome. See, I told you. Much better than the fake guitar video game, right?”
“Yeah, I’m not so sad anymore. Jenny doesn’t have a real guitar. This is much cooler.” She raises her nose in the air and I can’t help the amusement that must show on my face. But with her, I never have to try to hide my emotions. Not like with anyone else.
“Much cooler,” I agree.
And for the next couple of months until I graduate and move to LA, we spend every night together learning to play the guitar.
17
Aspen
Present
“Ikept up with it once you left,” I say, the words scratching my throat on their way out. “Without you there to teach me, I would sneak downstairs to the family computer when Gina and Patrick weren’t around and watch videos online to learn. It wasn’t the most well-rounded education.” Reid chuckles and I smile. “But it kept me building on the basics that you taught me. And I played ‘Limits’ over and over until my fingers were raw.” It was his favorite song then, who knows if it is now, and it’s the first and only one he taught me.
Reid’s throat bobs, stubble coating his skin. I’m close enough that I could reach out and run my hand over it. I want to, so badly, to feel the roughness of it against my palm. So I tuck them into my back pockets instead.
