The Saddest Song

Chapter 30

Rainey

One day in early March my mom met me in the garage. She waited while I turned off my car waving two large envelopes. She was smiling from ear to ear.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I grabbed my backpack and slammed the car door.

“You got two big envelopes!” Everyone knows rejections come in small ones.

“Which ones?”

“UCLA and UC Santa Barbara!”

“Wow, that’s great! Let’s open them.” I tried to how excitement. I didn’t tell her that I could have checked online already to see if I had gotten in. Kids at school had been announcing acceptances all week.

We stood at the kitchen island and read the good news. We called my dad and grandma to tell them too. Then she gave me a small envelope from UC Berkley. She looked relieved when I didn’t get upset.

“Have you talked to Mrs. McKinley mom?”

She shook her head and said, “I am sure she will let me know where he got in.”

“Yeah.”

“Honey, hasn’t this gone on long enough? I can see how much you miss Max. What could be so bad that you can’t get past it and make up?”

“Mom, not now, okay?”

“Fine, but avoiding the subject won’t make it go away.”

“I know,” I said to pacify her and grabbing a water bottle from the fridge I went to my room. I sat down at my computer and checked my college applications seeing that more large envelopes would be on their way. I decided to keep the news to myself and let mom enjoy getting the mail. I just wished I knew where Max was getting in. But it didn’t really matter. We could go to the same school and still be a world apart.





Max

Saturday at Colin’s I finished playing my new song for him and Ethan and waited for their reaction. I knew that the song was good. I had hoped they would think so too, but silence stretched out so long I had to break it.

“What? You hate it?”

“Wow,” Ethan said.

“Unbelievable. We need to record it Max. Now.” Colin started to get his recording equipment ready.

“Record it? So, you like it?”

“Ma, that song is perfect. The music. the lyrics. The emotion in your voice.”

“It’s the best song that you’ve ever written,” Ethan said. “And you know I like all your stuff.”

“Thanks. I’m really happy with it. Any ideas or changes?”

“No, said Colin. “That’s why we are going to get it recorded now before you think too much and change it.”

The rest of the day was dedicated to getting a perfect track. We listened to it over and over and the three of us were happy with the final result.

Before I left, Ethan asked, “Max, are you going to let Rainey hear it.”

“No.”

“You wrote it about her.”

“I guess it’s pretty obvious, huh?”

“Only to those of us who know you both. You have to sing it at the concert.”

“I probably will.”

“You have to Max. Everyone is going to love it. You’ll see.”

I drove home wondering how I would sing those words to a crowd of strangers and not feel completely exposed. I wondered if it made any sense to sing the words to everyone but the one person they were meant for.