Red Velvet Crush by Christina Meredith Page A

doesn’t say it.
    â€œWhat were you playing?” he asks, moving in and grounding me.
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œJust now.” He laughs, nodding at the guitar sliding off my leg.
    â€œOh.”
    My hand is frozen over my guitar, a twang of metal still skating along my skin. I’ve always been waiting for someoneto ask what I am working on, for someone to want to know.
    Winston and Billie and Dad hear bits and pieces as I hum and write, but it is background noise to them, filler, like the creak and hiss of the radiator. They never ask to hear more or for me to play that one again. I shift around on my bed, trying to cover the page with the body of my guitar, wishing my notebook were invisible.
    â€œIt’s nothing.”
    â€œCome on. . . .”
    He smiles, crossing his arms. His T-shirt stretches tight over the tops of his shoulders.
    â€œIt sounded like you were searching,” he says.
    Exactly , I realize. I was . But now you’re here .
    Ty reaches out and touches the half-hidden notebook page. The last word —‘spun’—dragged off the margin when I looked up at him.
    â€œI’ve been there, too,” he says.
    But he doesn’t press. He stays silent. Waiting. For however long it takes, he holds on while I decide if I can let him in.
    Everything I want to say to you is here, I think; everything unsaid but felt, unedited and private and personal and rhyming is here, practically at his fingertips.
    All I have ever wanted or picked at or even attempted is laid out on these pages. And even though I am dying to let you read it, to let your fingers slide down and across what I have written, it will be like handing over my heart.
    It is one thing to be seen, something else entirely to be known.
    I can’t meet his eyes, but I hand him the notebook. Because he’s already told me his story. He trusted me first.
    His hand, warm and steady, brushes mine when he takes it from me.
    He doesn’t say anything right away or for a while. He sits on the edge of Billie’s bed, legs splayed out, reading with his eyes locked on the page, lips moving. Utter concentration. For a smart boy, he is a slow reader.
    Please, I pray as he flips back and starts again at the beginning, just please know that my heart is in your hands, and it is small and fragile and not sewn together very well.
    Yet here I am, offering it up like a fool to the very first person who asks.
    The comforter wrinkles under his legs as he pushes back, getting more comfortable, carefully turning each page. He is way too big for Billie’s twin bed. His back mashes against the yellow flowers we painted on the headboard when she was eight. He pushes her pillows to the side. He takes up all the space.
    I lean forward, listening to his breath, to the skim of his finger on the page.
    Finally he closes the notebook and looks over at me. His fingers tap along his thigh, his eyes flick over my face, working from my mouth to my eyes, then back again. The wrong lookor word or reaction will rip me open, and thankfully, he seems to know it.
    A smile dawns slowly on his face. His amber eyes see right through me.
    â€œYou’ve been writing a song about a boy,” he says.
    I am nervous and excited all the way to Ty’s house. It’s weird going on a date. We both know what we are going to do—probably at the end—but we don’t talk about it, even though we want to do it.
    We are going to make out. Touch tongues. Feel skin on skin and get a little bit sweaty as we breathe heavy, whispering secrets into warm ears and wrinkling up cotton shirts, condom wrappers, and couch cushions as we go. It’s possible one of us might get bitten.
    I slam the car door way too hard when I get out of the minivan. I slip on the grass in Ty’s front yard. He grabs my hand and steadies me. I look up at a sky full of stars and know that no matter what we do tonight, sharing my songs was barer and truer than any