Our Song (5 page)

“You know Asher, I think you’re really going to like The Doctor.” I pick up the next card on the pile, and it’s a 5. I decide to take a risk and trade it for my upper left hand card.
Crap!
It was a 3! I really hope I didn’t just screw myself over.

“I don’t think we’re going to find out. I can’t wait to eat some of your awesome cooking on Monday night!” Of course, Asher grabs my 3 right up, trading it for his top right, which is revealed to be a 9. This does not bode well for me. I take the next card on the draw pile. It’s a 10, and I immediately discard it, blowing out a heavy sigh.

Asher leans forward across the table. “Getting a little worried there, Rebecca?” That smile is back on his face, the one he had after checking his bottom two cards.

“Of course not,” I snap back at him. I probably shouldn’t be getting so worked up over this, especially considering what we’re playing for isn’t really a big deal. But I am.

Asher draws his next card, and trades it for his top left card. When he flips it onto the discard pile, his smile gets a little smaller.
It’s a three!
So my mistake earlier can be fixed, right now. I pick that lovely little 3 up, and trade it for the 5 that’s on my bottom left. I decide to take a risk, and knock on the table, hoping my upper right card isn’t too big.

Asher’s eyes go wide. “Did you actually just knock? Like this is my last chance to draw?”

“That’s right, my friend. Pony up.” The words come out much stronger than I’m feeling.

“Okie dokie.” He picks up his last card from the draw pile, and frowns, tossing it onto the discard pile. It was a queen.
Please, Lord, let me not have made a mistake knocking so early!
“Alright, Becca. I say we reveal one card at a time. I’ll go first.” He flips over his bottom left card, which is a 5. Then I reveal my 3. Next is his bottom right, which is a king. Well, that’s why he was smiling so big when we started. I reveal my 2. When he flips over his upper left, which is a 4, I start to panic. I know I have a 5 in my upper left, but no clue what is in my upper right. I show my 5, and anxiously await him flipping over his last card.

It’s a 4, and I’m about ready to cry. There is no way my last card is small enough to beat him. He only has thirteen points, and he was already ahead by one. “I’m trying to decide for sure what I’d like to eat on Monday.”

“Ha, ha,” I say, not-so-enthusiastically. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and slowly flip over my last card. “Is it awful?”

Asher doesn’t answer. I peek open my left eye, looking straight at him, not my cards. He looks dumbfounded. “What? What is it?”

Without lifting his eyes from my cards, he says, “Maybe you should look for yourself.”

I open both my eyes, then slowly move them from Asher’s face to my cards. It’s an ace. That’s…three plus two is five, plus five is ten…eleven.
Eleven!
“Did I seriously just win by one point?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Asher sighs. “Looks like we’ll be watching
Doctor Who
this evening.”

“
After
we sing during our campfire,” I remind him.

He smiles. “Yes. After we sing.”

“It will be a performance worthy of the religious festival in The Rings of Akhaten.”

“Huh?”

I grin. “You’ll understand when you get to season seven.”

Chapter Five

Becca

I
love
campfires. The smell of burning wood, the warmth it gives off, the crackling noises it makes. Mmm, and s'mores.
Delicious.

I especially love them with Asher’s family and mine together. Between my mom, Robert, Asher and I, there are three guitars and a banjo around our fire. You’ll never believe this, but the banjo is what I’m playing this evening. Call me corny, weird, strange, whatever. I don’t care. My grandpa taught me how to play it before he died. I had let it sit by the wayside for a while, during the six months or so that I dated Trip. He didn’t like it, and it was bad enough that I played flute in band, and took piano lessons, so I let him talk me into putting it aside for a while. After all, it was a small price to pay to get him to really like me. Compromise, right? But that was really stupid. This is actually the first time I’ve picked it up since I started dating Trip. It was Mom’s idea to bring it along, and now that I think about it, she probably knew it would be therapeutic as well.

“Okay. What song is up first?” Robert asks.

“Oh, can we
please sing
‘Grandma’s Feather Bed’ first?” my sister begs.

Everyone else starts laughing. “Well, if you’re so anxious to sing it, your wish is my command,” Robert replies. “What key are we all playing in?”

“In G?” I ask. “That’s where I usually play it for her.” Although,
usually
is probably a bit too strong of a word, considering it’s been over a year since I’ve played it for her.

“Sounds good to me,” Asher answers.

Robert counts us in, and we begin:
When I was a little bitty boy…

-----

Asher

We’ve been singing around the campfire for almost an hour, when Becca jumps in and says, “Asher promised to sing “Silhouettes on the Shade” with me earlier, and he’s going to play.” I’m pretty sure my face is turning red, but I hope, now that the only light is coming from the campfire and the almost non-existent moon, that nobody else can tell. Becca doesn’t know this, because whenever we’ve sang this song at a campfire, we’ve ALL sang along, but “Silhouettes on the Shade” is sort-of my mom and dad’s “song.” The first time they ever sang together in high school, they sang this song…and they’ve been singing it together ever since.

Plus, what happens to the guy in the beginning of the song kind-of actually happened to me once. The tennis team was out for a run last March, around town. As we passed the local bakery, Becca walked out, carrying a paper cup of coffee and a bag of donuts. I was about to wave to her when Trip walked out behind her, grabbed her around the waist, and turned her around to kiss her. His eyes were wide open, and he looked right at me. It felt like I had been punched in the gut.

“Just the two of you?” Livvie asks, her brows scrunched together.

My dad shoots me a knowing look, and I’m sure my face is looking like a tomato about now.

“Yes, just the two of us,” Becca says quietly. I look up at her, wondering if she’s changed her mind. But she has the most shy, beautiful smile on her face. This boosts my confidence a little, and I begin to pluck out the intro chords to the song.

“You’re singing harmony, right?” I ask, just to make sure.

“Of course,” she answers, as if to say
would there BE any other answer to that question?
I smile, looking back down toward my guitar, and come in on the next bar.

When I get to the part where I'm wondering why I'm not the person whose shadow is next to hers, I look up at Becca. As we’re singing the next line, about tears, it almost looks like Becca has tears of her own in her eyes. But why would she be crying right now? I guess I’ll have to ask her about it later.

I focus back on the song, and then it’s like the whole world disappears, except for Becca and me, our voices mixing together to create something beautiful. Becca closes her eyes and we continue to sing.

As I strum the last chord, our surroundings come back into focus, and I look around the fire to see smiles on our parents’ faces, and my mom is openly letting tears fall down her face. Livvie starts clapping, and then our parents join her. I look back at Becca, and now she’s the one who looks embarrassed. The thing is, she shouldn’t be. Anyone would love to sing with Becca, because she is that good. I just happen to be lucky enough for her to choose me to sing with her.

She shakes her head, then smiles and looks around the campfire. “Now that we’ve totally embarrassed ourselves with our song, Asher needs to come inside with me to fulfill his part of our bet from earlier today.”

I grumble, but then start laughing. I had forgotten all about what she had won in our last bet. I stand up and move my guitar to my back. Then I reach for Becca’s hand and help her stand up. “We’ll be in the game room if anyone needs us.” I start thinking about what I want to grab to eat before being subjected to the great and powerful
Doctor Who
.

But two words that Becca said keep repeating themselves in my head.
Our song
. And even though it’s my parents’ song, and she probably didn’t mean it that way, maybe it can be our song too.

Or maybe we can find a new song, all our own.

Chapter Six

Becca

I finally made Asher drag his happy hind end back into the cabin after we were done singing around the campfire. I know he’s not looking forward to watching
Doctor Who
with me, but I told him since he’s never actually watched it before, he’s not allowed to make any more judgments about it to me. At least, not until after the three episodes I make him watch tonight. Nobody else really knows this, but
Doctor Who
and library books are what have been getting me through the last few months. I guess when you sort-of alienate your friends for a guy, they don’t put their lives on pause, waiting for you to come back around. And it’s not like I wanted to sit around and gush to them about all the crap that had happened to me while I was dating Trip. In fact, I’d rather keep that all to myself, thanks. So I continued to hang out alone.

It’s only 9:30 right now, so we should be able to finish the episodes by about midnight or so, which really isn’t that late for us. We used to pull all-nighters at church lock-ins together, and we even stayed up all night once to cram before a humanities test last year. So this should be no problem.

I already know which episode we’re going to watch first. It’s the first episode that I was told to watch, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I turn around as I hear Asher clunking down the stairs. He walks into the room, his arms (and the pocket of his hoodie) loaded with television-watching sustenance.

“I’ve got popcorn, Twizzlers pull-n-peel, chocolate covered raisins, two Diet Cokes, and I even brought you a little surprise.” He pulls the popcorn bowl off of a smaller bowl to reveal melty, gooey nacho cheese. I’m pretty sure I now have the dorkiest grin ever on my face.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, wondering how on earth he could have not only gotten his hands on it, but also remembered that’s how I liked to eat my popcorn.

“Well, when your mom gave my mom a list of everything that was already up here for us to do over this nice, long week, she mentioned that there were a few gaming systems hooked up, and Wi-Fi. So I knew we would have access to Netflix while we were here. I didn’t know for sure that it would happen, but on the off-chance that we would be watching a movie this week, I thought I’d bring it, and some popcorn, with me.”

“How did you even remember that? We haven’t seen a movie together in what, a year? Not since our whole youth group went to the drive-in in New Haven last summer.”

“Ah, but don’t you remember? They had to figure out how much they were going to charge you for the extra cheese. Nobody had ever asked them for a side of nacho cheese with their popcorn before.”

“That’s right! But still, I can’t believe you remembered that well enough to come
prepared
for me to want it this week.”

“Well, there are a lot of things I came prepared for this week. Did you forget? I was a boy scout for a whole three months when I was eight. And a boy scout is always prepared for anything.” I don’t know what he means by
that
, but I have a feeling I’m going to find out over the next few days.

All of a sudden, Livvie pops into the room. I didn’t even hear her coming down the stairs. “What are you guys doing?”

I know four little words that will send her running: “Watching my favorite show.”

“Blech, never mind.” She walks right back out of the room and across the hall to the bunk room. We won’t be seeing any more of her tonight.

“Okay, enough stalling Mr. Sorensen. Time for some
Doctor Who
! The first episode this evening, for your viewing pleasure, is season three, episode eleven, titled ‘Blink.’ Now, The Doctor is not actually a heavy character in this particular episode, but in my opinion, this is the best episode to really explain who The Doctor is, how being a Time Lord works, etcetera.” I walk up to the entertainment stand and grab all of the remotes I need to operate the television, sound system, and game system. When I turn around, Asher is sitting on the love seat, making himself comfortable. I hadn’t thought about this…it would look stupid if I sat in one of the chairs, because they aren’t facing directly toward the TV. But it’s been quite a while since I’ve sat that close to a boy, and even longer since I’ve sat that close to Asher. I’m not sure if sharing the love seat with Asher is such a good idea.

As if he can sense my concern, Asher pats the space next to him and says, “Come on Becca, you know I don’t bite.” He’s got a cheeky little grin on his face.

When I sit down on the love seat, with a whole pile of courage, I lean towards Asher and whisper in his ear, “But I might.”

-----

Asher

I have to admit, I’m actually kind-of enjoying watching this show. Of course, I’m not going to say that out loud. We just started another episode. And as much as I know that Becca LOVES this show, her eyelids have been drooping since we started the first one. I’m not sure she’s going to make it through all three of them. After finishing that first episode, she brought me back to season one. Although, she said we were skipping the first episode. Something about it being too cheesy or something? I don’t know. But whatever she wants to watch, we’ll watch.

I look over at her again, and she’s trying to shake herself awake. I decide to take my life into my hands. I put my arm up, above and behind her in a classic yawn-and-stretch move and say, “Come ‘ere, Becca. I promise, even if you fall asleep, I will watch a third episode.”

She hesitates, and I start to wonder if this is a good idea. But then she leans into my side, saying, “Alright, but no funny business, mister.”

“Scouts honor,” I reply. I slowly drop my arm back down around her shoulders, and carefully place my hand on her arm. Becca always seems kind of small, and breakable, to me, since I’m almost eight inches taller than her, and a lot bigger. But I forget how strong she is. She may only be about five foot four, but she is all muscle. She’s in a sport every season during the school year, and continues to play volleyball over the summer. When the basketball team lifts weights with the weightlifting team, my eyes are always drawn to her. You can see every muscle in her arms and legs flex and relax when she lifts. And she can squat almost as much as I can. A lot of the guys make rotten comments about her being muscular, and about how much she can lift, but it’s mostly because their egos are bruised that some tiny little girl might be physically stronger than they are. But I’m not one of those guys. Not only does it impress me, but it’s kinda hot that she is so strong.

Normally I would try to stop myself from traveling down this line of thinking, but with Becca here, half asleep in my arms, it’s hard to think about anything else. Of course, this train of thought also tends to lead me to thinking about stupid Trip, and what he did to her. It really bothers me that I don’t actually know what he did to her. I want to beat the crap out of him, but it’s probably not any of my business, is it? Becca doesn’t really talk about it, but I watched her change from this amazing, vibrant, strong, outgoing girl, into something much different. She started to retreat into herself. She stopped talking to me about a lot of things, which sucked. But it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if she hadn’t also stopped talking so much to her other friends. For that alone I want to beat the crap out of him. But that wouldn’t really do anything. Except maybe make me feel a little better.

I look down at Becca, and see she’s now totally asleep. She looks so peaceful, curled up against me. I slowly lean my head down and kiss her hair softly. I don’t know what just came over me, but I couldn’t resist. And her hair smells so good. This may be a total chick thing to say, but I could sit like this, holding her forever.

Whoa.

I know I said that I just wanted to have the old Becca back when we got here for the week, to have my friend back after we go back home. But I’m not sure that’s going to be enough for me anymore. I mean, if that’s all Becca wants from me, is to be friends, I would never push her into something she doesn’t want, but... if she wanted more? I would give her everything. If I can get my hands on her, I will hold her in my heart. Forever.

Maybe I’d better focus back on the television. If I know Becca, she’s going to ask me in the morning what happened in the episodes I watched, and whether or not I liked it.