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“I've always kinda assumed it just wasn't in the cards for me, you know? Like, I'm that funny kid in the wheelchair who makes videos in his bedroom, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean that, when the camera isn't on, I'm not sitting in here, wishing shit were different. 'Cause that's how it is. I wish itweredifferent. I wish I had friends. I wish I had a girlfriend. But more than that, I wish I had the fucking balls and confidence to go out, not care what shitty people thought of me, and find the people I wanna be around.
“Then, today, I listened to this album.” He held up a vinyl ofWhen Karma Met Destiny. “And now, I don't know all the details, okay? But what I do know is this … almost five years ago, Dylan Pierce, the lead singer and guitarist of this band, lost his leg and gained some pretty gnarly scars in a car accident. The dude is permanently disabled now, and, yeah, maybe he wasn't born with it, but he's one of us. And this album? This is about him finding hope and love and acceptance. And all I can think is,Shit, if he can do it, as someone who was thrown into this shit in the middle of his life, then, as someone who was born into it without knowing anything else … so can I.
“So, after I upload this video, I'm gonna call my brother's best friend's sister. 'Cause she's freakin' cute and I've liked her since I was nine. And you … you go listen to this fucking album. Let it change your life too.”
When the video stopped, I passed the phone back to Dave while I warred with my lungs to keep breathing and my eyes to stop burning with the threat of tears. Dave pocketed the phone, and all there was, was the din of the world outside and the volume of our collective emotion, sucking the air from my bedroom.
“You're an inspiration, dude,” Simon finally said, his voice rough and pulled tight.
“No, I'm not,” I replied, shaking my head. “I sing and play a guitar. Missing a leg has no effect on my ability to do that.”
“Yeah, but getting back out there after losing the leg does,” Dave said, crossing his arms and shrugging. “You might not ever realize how big of a deal that is—to pull together enough confidence after a blow like that … to get back out there and do the thing you love. But this kid does, and his followers do too.”
Twenty years ago, I had been a dumb kid who stumbled over a rainbow and found a pot of gold. There was nothing special about me, nothing to set me apart from the thousands of other dumb kids who dreamed of doing the same thing. I just got lucky and made a career out of the thing I loved doing.
Then, I got lucky again when I survived a wreck that could've—and maybe should've—been my demise. And they—fans and critics alike—called me an inspiration for merely surviving an amputation and a week-long coma. I despised every one of those messages, all of their thoughts and prayers. I’d bitten my tongue until it bled, resisting the urge to demand they tell me what exactly was so inspirational about that and knowing whatever they had to say would only piss me off further.
Lennon had once told me she hated to be called an inspiration when she'd done nothing worthy of the honor. And as I sat there with my cold pizza, on a bed in a tour bus rumbling along the road toward our next show, I understood it.
But if what that kid had said was true, I guessed I could find it in me to feel worthy.
“Come on,” Dave said, gripping my shoulder and giving me a little shake. “We should be celebrating. We have some sparkling—”
He was cut off by the ringing of my phone on the nightstand. Assuming it was my mom—because it usually was—I reached over and answered it without looking at the screen.
“Hey, Mom,” I said after putting it on speakerphone, knowing she'd want to congratulate my friends as well.
“Uh, not your mom,” came Lennon's quiet, amused voice through the speaker.
Wide eyes and teasing grins surrounded me, accompanied by obnoxiousoohs from Greyson and Simon as I scrambled to grab the phone.
“It's the wifey!” Simon joked, pressing his hands to his cheeks and fluttering his lashes toward Dave and Grey.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Grey said in a hurry, pushing in beside Dave. “Wait. I wanna say something to her.”
“No, you don't,” I mumbled, jabbing my finger at the screen to take it off speakerphone, then pressing the phone to my ear. “Sorry about that,” I said, eyeing my friends with a stern warning to get the fuck out.
I was relieved to find she was laughing.
“It's okay. I figured you'd be celebrating.”
“I don't know that I'd call it celebrating,” I muttered, urging them to leave with a thrust of my hand toward the door.
“Tell her we say thanks,” Grey whispered loudly as he walked backward, leaving the room.
“Yeah,” Simon agreed, standing from the bed and heading for the door. “Tell her we all appreciate her magical pu—hey, come on. Is that not exactly what happened?” he hissed after dodging the remaining cold slice of pizza I’d thrown at him.
“Close the door,” I ordered through clenched teeth, and Dave was the last one to leave, grinning all the way.
Then, when I was finally alone and secluded in the small room, I blew out a breath and said the first thing that came to mind. “Does your boyfriend know you're calling me?”
She sniffed a quiet laugh. “Come on. I couldn'tnotcall you after listening to that album all day,” she replied in a soft, reluctant voice, as if she hated admitting it. “It's so freakin' good, Dylan. Like, really, it's your best, hands down. And it looks like a lot of other people agree too.”
“The only opinion that really matters to me is yours,” I said, not caring how exaggerated it sounded. It was the truth, and she deserved to know.
“I haven't been able to turn it off,” she went on, continuing as if she hadn't heard me. “That's usually how it goes whenever you guys put out new music. Normally, I sit here, thinking,God, I wish I could actually tell them how good this was. But today, I sat here, listening to the album and reading through my story again while trying to find the courage to call you and do what I'd always wanted to do.”
“Is it everything you dreamed it'd be?” I asked while a dull, vaguely familiar ache flooded my chest and brought my eyes to close, to allow her image to fill my head.
