Where was Taylor, anyway? He’d gone silent for the past five minutes. She hit Pause on the TV and returned her full attention to her phone. She felt the urge to message him again, but she resisted.
Her thoughts revolved around Taylor more and more these days. Even in her sessions with Dr. Regan, Tessa couldn’t seem to keep him out of her head. She and Taylor chatted every night, and their conversations lately had begun to cross the line from friendship to outright flirtation. She knew her feelings for him had deepened, and she found it vaguely unsettling. As much as she liked Taylor, and as much as she got the feeling that he might like her back, Tessa couldn’t shake the lingering sense that he was holding something back—some secret he didn’t quite have the nerve to tell her.
Tessa twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she contemplated her phone. Maybe she should cut the conversation short tonight. Wish him good night and go to sleep. She was just about to input the message when a notification flashed onto her screen. Not a new message from Taylor. Her eyes landed on a different username instead:
Eric Thorn (@EricThorn) followed you
Her finger went slack. The lock of hair fell limply against her shoulder. A whole lifetime seemed to pass before she could comprehend the words.
Eric.
Eric Thorn.
Eric Thorn followed…
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “OH. MY. GOD!”
18
CHANGE OF KEY
Eric paced his living room, eyes glued to his screen as he refreshed his Twitter feed again. “Come on, Tessa.” Hadn’t she seen the notification yet? What was taking her so long? “Come on! You must have seen it!”
As if in answer to his words, a new message popped up at the top of her recent tweets.
Tessa H @TessaHeartsEric
OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!
A broad smile creased his face. “There we go.” The standard fangirl response. Only a slight step up from when they tweeted random strings of capital letters. He could just imagine the way she must have been bouncing around her room right then, screaming her head off.
Something about that mental image made Eric pull up short. A new thought had entered his head. Would she DM him something now? The fans usually did after he followed them. Selfies, more often than not. After all these months, would he finally catch a glimpse of Tessa’s face?
He sank down heavily on the piano stool in front of the white baby grand, and his fingers picked out a minor chord progression as he waited. He eyed his message tab impatiently, watching for a new DM, but he gave up after a moment.
To hell with it. He couldn’t take the suspense. He needed to hear more from her than “OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!” He switched accounts back to @EricThornSucks and fired off a new message from there.
Taylor: Tessa? Are you there? What happened?
Eric tapped a single note in a rapid staccato as he waited for her reply.
Tessa H: ERIC FOLLOWED ME!!!!!
Taylor: Whoa!
Tessa H: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
Taylor: Are you freaking out?
Tessa H: OMG MY HANS AR SHAKING SPO BAD
Taylor: Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Don’t hyperventilate on me now.
Tessa H: I can’t stop smiling. OMG, why did he follow me? It doesn’t even make any sense!
Taylor: Well, you did wish him a Merry Christmas.
Tessa H: OMGGGGG HE MUST HAVE SEEN IT! HE SAW MY TWEET! ERIC THORN SAW MY TWEET!!!!!!!
Eric laughed out loud. His left hand remained on the piano keys, and he picked out a simple melody, switching to a major key. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way: so happy he couldn’t wipe away the goofy grin.
Happy because he’d made her happy.
“Oh, Tessa,” he said, chuckling at the phone. “Tessa, Tessa, Tessa. I love you.”
The music stopped abruptly as his words hung in the air. Just a figure of speech, of course. He didn’t really mean that. Obviously not.
Eric blinked away the thought. He swiveled on the piano stool and brought the DM conversation back around to the topic he had in mind.
Taylor: So? Did you send him a selfie?
Tessa H: Stop. Don’t even say it.
Taylor: He probably wants to see a reaction shot.
Tessa H: Ummm, hello? I don’t like strangers looking at me. That’s one of my triggers.
Taylor: No strangers. Just Eric. No one else would ever see.
Tessa H: NO WAY
Taylor: Trust me, Tessa. He’s a guy. He’ll like it.
Tessa H: How would you know? You have no idea what I even look like!
Eric bit his lip. “Not for long,” he murmured. The corners of his mouth quivered with anticipation. He could sense her resolve starting to crumble. She just needed one more little push…
Taylor: Maybe not exactly, but I know you’re beautiful.
Tessa H: You don’t know that.
Taylor: Yes I do. Maybe YOU don’t know that.
Tessa H: I don’t know I’m beautiful?
Taylor: Maybe.
Tessa H: OK, Taylor. And let me guess… That’s what makes me beautiful?
Eric paused. He smacked himself lightly on the forehead when he realized what he’d done.
Taylor: Shit. I just plagiarized a song, didn’t I?
Tessa H: Don’t tell me you’re a One Direction fanboy now?
Taylor: Hey, that was a brilliant song. Teenage girls love to hear how they’re all secretly beautiful :P
Eric’s mouth twisted, his giddy smile transforming into a smirk. He knew why his mind had gone to that song, of course. He’d been listening to it the other day. He had a new single in the works along the same lines. “Snowflakes” was slated for release in time for the holidays—a surprise Christmas gift to all his lovely fans.
I watch the snowflakes falling,
Too many for me to see,
But I know each one is beautiful,
Special and unique.
Eric turned back to the piano and played the chorus. He had a hunch that it would be a hit. Maybe not a smash of the same magnitude as “What Makes You Beautiful,” but somewhere in the ballpark. The thirteen-to-eighteen demo would go wild for it, assuming they understood the metaphor: the snowflakes were the fans. And assuming he could convince his record label not to mess around too much with the lyrics. Apparently, they were threatening to bring in an outside songwriter. Maury had broken the news to him this evening after the show.
“Don’t take it personally, kid. They just think some of the lyrics come across a little insincere.”
Eric frowned, remembering. Insincere? What did the label expect? If he ever wrote a song about how he really saw his fans, they’d ban it in every country for explicit language.
“So go rewrite it yourself,” Maury had said to him. “Maybe write a song about your mystery girl on the other end of all the text messages.”
“Maury, I told you—”
“Write them a love song about something real, Eric. That’s all they’re asking.”
Eric had been livid at the time, but maybe it wasn’t the worst advice after all. The faintest spark of an idea had just popped into his head…
He’d called the song “Snowflakes,” but maybe that was the problem. Maybe it should be “Snowflake.” Singular. Not a song about all his fans. Just one. A song about feeling cold and alone, and finding that one perfect snowflake in the middle of a raging blizzard.
A love song?