Page 95 of Find My Way Down to You

I walk over the compass painted on the brick floor to reach one side of the tower. My elbows lean on the wrought iron railing. Below, a couple poses for wedding photos in thewide sunken garden. The bride’s dress is stunning against a backdrop of tangerine birds of paradise. Palm trees sway in the breeze.

I shiver. Heat radiates off Cary as he joins me.

After a beat, I say, “When I was younger, my mom would bring me up here after school.” I point at a building, a smudge of white against green nearly two miles away. “She’d tell me about all the kids like me my dad was taking care of at the hospital.”

My fingers tense around the railing.

“She did it so I wouldn’t miss him when he worked long shifts,” I manage. “But I still did.”

Cary watches the city, but I can tell he’s listening.

“When I turned thirteen, I started coming up here on my own,” I say. “Not to look at the hospital anymore.”

“Why?”

My thumb rubs across my blue-and-yellow bracelet. I hesitate. “To write songs.”

“You really love music.”

I smile. “How can you tell?”

“You are always humming.” Sunlight outlines his profile as he studies the sea. “When we are in the water together.”

“I am?”

The beginnings of a grin push his cheeks higher. Warmth spills into my face when he catches me staring.

“I did love it,” I admit. “Music.”

I shift around to gesture at the wide ledge sitting underthe teal-framed window. “I’d write over there for hours. Silly songs with shitty lyrics. I thought I was gonna be the next Ed Sheeran.”

A scratchy laugh sneaks past my lips.

He eyes me. “But you quit.”

Guilt aches under my ribs.

Cary crosses the tower to sit on the ledge. His long fingers drum the spot next to him. He gives me an expectant look.

Sighing, I oblige.

The moment I’m seated, memories pour through me like an open fire hydrant:

Huddling on this ledge. The countless notebooks in my lap. Page after page of songs as lyrics leaked from my pen until my fingertips were dyed blue or black.

“Tell me why you stopped,” Cary requests.

Our eyes meet. His are the deepest black. Not the dread of shadows but the endless possibility of night. The curiosity behind his lashes is almost childlike, a look I never get anymore. Everyone else wants to know things about me so they can pick them apart and decide whether I’ve earned the way I feel.

Before I can say anything, footsteps and voices rise from the stairwell. It’s one of the courthouse’s guided tours.

Immediately, I tense.

Cary grabs my hand, then whispers, “They cannot see or hear you.”

Soon, the tower is teeming with tourists. The awe in theirvoices echoes. They take photos from the railings. Ask the guide a million questions. But no one looks our way.

We’re invisible, like that day outside the hospital.