Bruce came up beside her. “Are you okay?”
When she lifted her head, Cam was watching her. “What is it?”
She held out the phone. “Ike Ligon just sent you an email.”
He scratched his chin. It was a sore subject, Cam sending in her lyrics, and Lilith could tell he still felt guilty.
Lilith swallowed. “He likes my song.”
“There was never any question that he would,” Cam said.
“I won.” She didn’t know what else to say. Before Cam, music had been an escape, passion a daydream, love an impossibility. Since his arrival, all three of those things felt connected, like she had to use them to become a different kind of person.
It scared her.
Cam tossed Bruce a quarter and pointed at the arcade game on the other side of the air-hockey table. When the boy had scurried off, Cam stepped closer to Lilith. “This is a big deal.”
“I know,” said Lilith. “The Battle of the Bands—”
“It’s bigger than the Battle of the Bands.”
“Please don’t say it’s bigger than prom,” she said, teasing a little.
“Of course not. Nothing is bigger than prom.” Cam laughed, but then his face grew serious. “You can have anything you want in life. You know that, right?”
Lilith blinked. What did he mean? She was poor, she was unpopular. Yes, she’d made a few friends recently, and yes, she had her music, but overall, her life still sucked.
“Not exactly,” she said.
Cam leaned in close. “You just have to want it badly enough.”
Lilith’s heart was racing. The arcade suddenly felt like it was a thousand degrees. “I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”
Cam thought for a moment. “Adventure. Freedom.” He took a breath. “Love.”
“Love?” she asked.
“Yeah, love.” He smiled again. “It is possible, you know.”
“Maybe where you come from,” she said.
“Or maybe”—Cam patted his chest—“right here.”
They were so close now that their faces were practically touching. So close that the tips of their noses nearly met, and their lips were almost…
“What are you guys talking about?” Bruce asked, not looking up from his arcade game as he fired another hundred rounds into an army of monsters.
Lilith cleared her throat and stepped away from Cam, embarrassed. “The Battle of the Bands,” she and Cam said at the same time.
Cam reached for Lilith’s hand, then Bruce’s hand. “Come on, let’s go celebrate.”
He led them to the snack bar back in the main room of the bowling alley. He hoisted Bruce onto a red pleather stool and flagged down a waitress with poufy blond hair.
“A pitcher of your finest root beer,” Cam said. Root beer was Lilith’s favorite. Had she ever told him that? “And a gigantic bucket of popcorn, extra butter for this guy.” He jerked his thumb at Bruce, who pumped his fists.
Cam pulled out his phone and started typing something quickly.
“What are you doing?” Lilith asked.
“Spreading the good news to Jean and Luis.” A few seconds later he showed her a text he’d just gotten back from Jean. It was all emojis—fireworks exploding, bouquets of flowers, guitars, treble clefs, and, inexplicably, a samurai sword.
Lilith grinned. Her friend was truly happy for her.
“What are the odds?” a familiar voice said behind them. Lilith turned to see Luis with his scrawny arms spread wide, waiting for a hug. Lilith slid off her stool and into his arms. She squeezed him tight.
“Hey, don’t make my lady jealous,” Luis said, stepping aside to let Karen Walker and a couple of their friends into the circle.
“Luis just told us your good news, Lilith,” Karen said, and smiled.
“So lucky that I came to meet Karen and could be here to toast you,” Luis said.
“Is that what we’re doing?” Lilith laughed, blushing.
“Of course,” Luis said.
“You deserve it,” one of Karen’s friends added. Lilith didn’t even know her name, but she recognized her from Mr. Davidson’s open mic. Before this moment, she would have assumed the girl hated her, like she assumed the rest of the school hated her. “Your music’s really good.”
“Thanks,” Lilith said. She was overwhelmed with happy shock. “You guys want some popcorn?”
Cam had already poured root beer into enough cups for everyone. He raised his and smiled at Lilith. “To Lilith,” he said. “And ‘Somebody’s Other Blues.’?”
“I’ll drink to that,” Bruce said, and chugged his drink.
As Lilith sipped her root beer, surrounded by surprise friends and her brother and Cam, she thought about the lyrics to her song. She’d written them in a grim and lonely state. They’d poured out of her as a kind of purge, the only therapy she could afford. She’d never dream those sad words might lead to something as happy as this.