“For what, a record deal? I’m not a producer, I’m your best friend, Paige.”
“It’s almost like you think if you keep calling yourself that, I’ll start to believe it.”
“Youarestarting to believe it,” he replies.
I pick at a velvet couch button while Liam watches me patiently. “I’ve never even told Zara I write songs. Whenever she asks me what I’m playing in my room, I tell her it’s an indie artist.”
“Technically, itisan indie artist.” Liam’s eyes narrow. “What about Evan?”
I shake my head. Liam’s gaze darkens incrementally. Possibly unnoticed to an untrained eye, but I spend a lot of time evaluating him.
“What if,” he asks softly, “you were brave just for me?”
I can be different, just for and just around Liam Bishop,I remind myself. That’s the whole point here. We’re a safe space for each other.
“I’m not even a good singer,” I grumble.
“Self-deprecate one more time,” he threatens, “and I’ll turn your guitar into a baseball bat.”
I grab it from him instinctually and settle it onto my lap.
What happens next happens in a fugue state. I operate oninstinct and play a song start to finish, barely registering the lyrics or the chords or the breathiness of my voice. I’d named it “Grow Up Faster” in my journal. A song about a father who wanted his life back, who was tired of and overwhelmed by parenthood, of shouldering the sole responsibility for his five children, who wanted his youngest child to figure her future out.
Grow up faster, Strawberry, I love you, I promise,
I’ve done this five times now, but you’re still a novice
You just need to trust me, don’t make me ask twice
And if you want to stay here, I can’t, though I tried.
I picked it because sonically, it’s the most complete of all my songs. Possibly the best one so far. But it’s also the most emotional, the rawest of them.
When I finish, Liam barely waits for me to flick my eyes up to him before he moves the guitar to the coffee table and hauls me into another hug.
“Paige,” he whispers. “That was so good.”
My heart thunders at the praise. My arms are pinned to my sides, my face smushed against his shoulder. “I’m sorry it was depressing,” I mumble.
He pushes me back, searching my face. “I’m sorry that’s how your dad made you feel.”
I glance away as my face flames with embarrassment. “My dad’s abroad right now. Sold our childhood home and everything. I’m happy he’s found his second wind, because I think he wanted to leave Bristol as soon as Mom lefthim. But he stayed there for us. I’ve never even found it in me to be angry at my father, not when he’d been abandoned just as I had and was left to raise five girls. Hurt, yes. But never truly angry.”
Liam frowns. “Do your other sisters feel the same way about him as you do?”
I bite my lower lip. “I think it’s different for Maren and Candice, the two oldest. They were eleven and ten when Mom left and have the most memories with her, but they never talk about her and are incredibly protective of our dad. When they were high schoolers, Maren and Candice took up the mantle of keeping us fed and the house in order when Dad would work twelve-hour shifts. Even to this day, they’re both hyper-independent.”
“What about the middle one and Zara?” he asks.
“Folly,” I say. “She’s sort of in the wind right now. Left Bristol around the same time Dad did, except he went to be an agritourist in Europe, and she ran off to Portland with a guy. I haven’t seen her in about a year and a half.”
I don’t mention that Folly has largely ignored our attempts to stay in touch with her outside of letting us know she’s alive and well. It’s too embarrassing to admitanothermember of my family doesn’t have an interest in keeping up with me.
“But Zara and I,” I say, crossing my fingers with a smile, “we’re like this.”
“Then Zara’s my favorite.”
I nod in agreement. My pulse starts to regulate. “That wasn’t so bad,” I say. “Playing for you, I mean.”
