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We both took music appreciation as an elective that year, though we obnoxiously joked to each other that we were already pretty good at appreciating it. Making it. When I was confident the song was ready, I told her to meet me in the music room at lunch. I got there early, claiming my spot at the upright piano and flexing my fingers. In my head, I rehearsed the lyrics.
When she pushed the door open, she looked, somehow, cuter than she usually did, her red hair tumbling from a barrette, bangs swept to one side.
“Did you want to play something?” she asked. We’d been playing as the Terrible Twosome for about a year at that point. The way Sophie devoted herself to dance, pushed herself daily—it was impossible not to admire.
It was also impossible not to admire the shapes her body made when she was doing it.
“Yeah,” I said. “But just, uh, listen first, okay?”
She clutched her binder to her chest. Sophie was always so much shyer in real life than onstage, or even on the mock stages we set up in our living rooms. It was like she let her arms and legs express through dance what they couldn’t the rest of the time.
I struck the first chord, a G major. And then I opened my mouth.
They were the first lyrics I’d ever written, and I realized pretty quickly that they should probably be the last. Puberty mangled my voice. I grimaced as I heard it, hoping she could hear how heartfelt it was even though I couldn’t do it justice.
When it was over, she stared for a few solid moments. The silence felt like it lasted longer than the longest song, longer than “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “American Pie” and “Stairway to Heaven” all put together.
Finally she laughed. “You’re so weird,” she said, moving closer so she could palm my shoulder.
“Oh,” I said, not understanding. “I am?”
She sat down next to me, pushing me over with her hip, a gesture that was both annoying and distracting. “This was a joke, right? You’re always saying you could never play in a real band because you can’t write lyrics and you can’t sing. So . . . you proved it to me.”
It was true; I’d often joked about that. All the pianists I could name who played modern music sang, too.
“It’s not a joke,” I mumbled.
“What?”
I chewed on my lower lip. It would have been so easy, then, to take it back. Instead, I cleared my throat. “It . . . wasn’t a joke, Soph. I . . . think I like you? As . . . more than a friend.”
A silence gaped between us.
“I love you,” I elaborated. As though my previous statement had been unclear.
“I. Um. Wow,” Sophie said. Her cheeks turned pink, and I would have found it adorable if I weren’t so embarrassed myself. Say something else, I willed her. Something other than “wow.” “Wow,” she said again, and I wished I could vanish. I wished someone else would come inside, save us from each other and this new awkwardness that had never existed between us before.
Had my hormones ruined nearly a decade of friendship?
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“Don’t be sorry!” She wouldn’t make eye contact. “I—I’ve only ever thought of you as a friend. I’m sorry.”
My face was hot. We were eleven and twelve. What did I think would happen? That we’d shyly hold hands at the movies but ignore each other in the halls, the way other “couples” our age did? Yes, I’d been imagining doing exactly that for months. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And what was I supposed to do now? Suddenly stop liking her, as though it were a song I could simply switch off?
She tried to smile. “I’m really flattered, Peter,” she continued.
Somehow that made it worse. “I’m going to disappear now.” I held my hands over my face.
“Nooooo!” She peeled my hands away. “Don’t be embarrassed. We’re okay. I promise I won’t be weird about it.”
“Sure. Okay.”
“Do you want to get pizza?”
I didn’t want to get pizza.
