“What’s better?” Zach asks, reading from his notepad. “‘Your smile spills the secret you can’t keep from me,’ or ‘Your smile tells me we’re meant to be’?”
We’re lying side by side on top of my fully made bed, propped up on a mountain of fluffy goose-down hotel pillows. We have about twenty minutes before we need to head to a choreo checkin, but as much as we all begged Erin to let us explore Cologne for a second, the answer was, as usual, no. She claimed it was because there wasn’t enough time to assemble guards for a public outing on such short notice. (When we go out in public, Chorus insists on assigning at least one guard for each of us, as opposed to the more lax ratio they allow for interviews and photo shoots held inside. A part of me gets it, but another part of me resents being treated like we’re made of porcelain. We were never kept this holed up on the American tour leg, and Angel and Zach were still seventeen for most of that.)
So, instead, we told the others I was going to help Zach with his lyrics in my room while we waited. I’d low-key hoped Zach understood that was code for “make out until we’re dizzy,” but it turned out he actually did want my thoughts on some new lyrics. Luckily, even lying next to him on my bed is more entertaining to me than anything we could be doing outside, so I’m still fine. More than fine, really. I’m giddy with happiness to be this close to him, knowing he wants to be close to me. That he wants to be alone with me.
I glance at the lines scrawled in Zach’s neat, tiny handwriting. Above them are some others that he’s obviously drafted and decided against, because they’re mostly scribbled out. I make out the words nuclear explosion, billowing curtains, and string cheese beneath the mess of ink.
“That sounds like a couplet to me,” I say, then I lean over to run a finger over the page to point to the two legible lines remaining. “Just needs a bit of editing and they match up. Although I don’t know why you scribbled out the line about string cheese, I think you really had something there.”
He flicks my hand, scoffing. The simplest contact, but time stops for a beat.
How did he get the power to still everything within me through one touch? I’ve had crushes before. Boyfriends before. But I’ve always felt in control. Completely separate from them. Me, the individual, happy to be around them, the individual. Content, but not engulfed.
When Zach touches me, though, it’s like my skin stops being the barrier that holds me in and the world out. It feels like a boundary he can cross at will, to merge with me and fill me with this fire, from the depths of my chest to the surface of my skin. To make me, the individual, bigger, bursting at the seams, surging outward with something both undefinable and terrifying to lose.
All this to say, I think he’s turned me into a hopeless fucking romantic. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m loving every second of it, it might occur to me to be indignant.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” he says, scrunching his brow. He’s got his serious face on, the one he gets when he’s gone somewhere else, some magical land where song lyrics float around in the atmosphere and he snatches them from the sky and transcribes them onto paper. Or, at least, that’s how it sounds when he describes his inspiration process. It all comes across as a little sci-fi to me.
As I watch him work, a pang of sadness and trepidation hits my gut. I love our songs already—Galactic Records hires only the best writers for us, and they consistently nail the balance between catchy, relatable, and a little thought-provoking—but I would especially love for this to work out. I’ve seen Zach’s drafts, and I know he’s talented enough to produce a hit, if only Chorus and Galactic Records will let him.
I just worry he’s putting too much stock in Geoff’s assurances that they want him to write a song, and not taking the heaping serving of salt he should be taking with any promise from Chorus.
I let him go back wherever he was and scroll through my phone. Mom’s sent me a link to an article that, from the title, appears to be discussing why I’m actually the worst dancer in Saturday. Some good tips for improvement in here, she’s written. Thanks, I type back. I used to beg her not to send me these, but it would just set her off on a tangent about how I needed to grow a thicker skin if I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. Zach’s told me more than once I shouldn’t let this stuff slide, but there’s only so much energy I can put into re-establishing my boundaries again and again, only to get them knocked back down.
Sometimes I fantasize that one day I might bite the bullet and cut off contact altogether. Maybe. If I’m brave enough. If I decide it’s worth the loss—and there will be a measure of loss, like it or not. Of her, and the good times, even if they’re rare. Of Dad, who I don’t want to lose, but comes in a package deal with her. Even of the rest of my family, if they take her side, which they almost certainly will by the time she’s done spinning her side of things.
It feels too enormous to contemplate for too long, but that doesn’t mean I won’t ever do it.
Just not today. I’m not ready for that yet.
“You’ve been writing a lot lately,” I say to Zach, to distract myself.
He doesn’t complain about being yanked out of his stupor. Just leans his shoulder against mine and looks up. “I know. I’ve been feeling inspired.”
My eyebrow twitches of its own accord, and he bursts out laughing, turning beetroot-red. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, you said it.”
“Ew, I was trying to answer in a way that didn’t seem corny—”
“You failed.”
“I totally failed, that was super corny.”
“This is not a good start to the relationship.”