“I know. I could feel the song and the words flowing out of me. In my dream, I even realized I was dreaming and tried to remember it, but now it’s gone.”
“It’s not,” he said with a chuckle. “At least not all of it.” He pulled his phone back out. “When I woke up to your voice and realized that you were fast asleep, even though you were using the full capacity of your lungs, I was somehow awake enough to record it. Wanna hear it?”
My whole body tingled as I watched him navigate to the voice memo app. I leaned my head against his shoulder, pressing asoft kiss on his skin. “I probably don’t say it often enough, but I love you sofreakingmuch.”
After listening to the recording,we snuggled so close that I dozed off again until my alarm went off. It took me a few seconds to silence it, but once I did, I saw that Alex was already on his phone, doing his thing—he probably had been the whole time. Having seen it once during spring break, I immediately knew what was going on.
When I came back from the bathroom after showering, he was still on his phone. Throughout breakfast, during Nora’s entire speech about everything we had to do today, and even on the drive to the rehearsal room, Alex was glued to the little screen in his hands.
We had been in the rehearsal room for about ten minutes when Nora noticed thatIwas setting things up for our last practice alone while he kept staring at his phone.
“Did something happen, Alex?” she asked.
He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear her.
“Leave him alone. This is normal,” I told her. “He’ll be ready and focused once I’m done here.”
“Are you sure?” She waved her hands to get his attention.
It took him a good fifteen seconds to finally look up. “Sorry—what?” Alex said, his eyes widening. He sat up and looked around the room as if he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there.
I burst out laughing. “Nora, would it be okay if we had an hour to ourselves?”
“An hour?” Her eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “I was planning to take more pictures and videos for your social media, so we have enough to post over the next few weeks.”
“I know.” I set my guitar down. “But there’ll be plenty of time before we have to get ready.”
She clutched her phone to her chest, looking at the ceiling with a sigh. “Okay. One hour. Sixty minutes.Una hora, no más.I’ll get us some water and an early lunch. But don’t make me regret it. I don’t want to find out you two have been doing everything but practicing.”
“You won’t regret it. I promise.”
Alex’s eyes darted between us as he tried to figure out what was going on.
“Fine. I’ll see you then,” Nora snapped. She grabbed her jacket and purse from the couch and stomped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“What was that about?” Alex asked.
“That was about whatyou’reup to.” I walked over, plopped down on the couch next to him, and tried to get a look at his phone. “I’ve seen you like this before.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t help it. It also took my mind off the concert, which was actually kind of nice. I’ll stop now. I’m almost done, anyway.”
“Stop now? No way. You’re going to show me what you’ve been working on.” I pointed to the mixing console. “Full volume, please.”
Alex glanced at his phone, lips pursed, then jumped up and made his way to his laptop. After a few clicks, he tapped the spacebar to start the playback.
My voice echoed quietly and alone from the PA system—until it hit a high note, and the roar of a whole orchestra joined it. Every hair on my body stood on end. The sound pressed me into the couch. I held my breath, unable to fathom the power ofthe hymn I was hearing. After the chorus that opened the song repeated, a guitar took over the melody as it always did in his demos.
“This verse is missing because I hadn’t pressed record yet,” Alex said, cupping his ear toward the PA. His eyes stared into the void, as if he had shut the world out entirely.
For the next three minutes, we listened to the song. It hammered itself into my head as if it had been there all along—which wasn’t far from the truth. It had come from my mind after all. I had just forgotten it. The song ended with my voice on a high note, echoing through the silence after the orchestra faded out. It mirrored the opening in a way that made me want to play it from the beginning again right away.
Alex let the silence linger for a moment before speaking. “What do you think?”
I only had one thought. It was crazy, and if he said no, that would be fine, but I had to say it. “I was wondering… would it be possible to add this to our setlist?”
Alex made a face, his eyes dropping to his laptop. “It’s not as polished as the others, but I think it could work in a live setting. With live music, it’s better not to have too many fills. They tend to get lost in the room anyway. So…” He pursed his lips.
“It might be a nice surprise for everyone, right?”
