I stomped around the quiet house, boredom nipping at my heels. Everly had class all day and then clinical hours at the hospital, and the knowledge that it would be at least twenty-four hours until I could be with her again had me pacing like a jungle cat at the zoo.

I was mostly healed now. As long as I moved carefully and took frequent breaks, I was able to move normally again.

Normally for regular people, anyway. For me it was almost worse than before, to have command of my body again but not be able to do what I wanted with it.

My family could see that the cabin fever was getting to me. Yesterday, my mother had come home with an armful of thick, heavy books, plonking them down on my bedside table with a wordless smile. She’d brought me a bunch of true-adventure stuff, memoirs of risk-takers doing incredible things.

She meant well, and I tried to appreciate it. But I’d read exactly ten pages of one of them before I needed to stand. Sitting there reading about other people’s lives being lived to the fullest while I sat there in the quiet bedroom made my skin itchy. 

I stalked around in the house, my mind a perfect blank, until I ended up in Beau’s room.

If you’d asked me right then what my plan was, I would have sworn that I had none. I hadn’t come in here with any purpose in mind.

Then I saw it. 

My tablet.

I knew why I was there.

He hadn’t even attempted to hide it. Probably thought I was well enough to be trusted, now. A promise was a promise, so I wasn’t about to start watching the video of my fall again. 

I grabbed it and sat down, stretching my legs way out. I hesitated, then tapped a few keys, calling up YouTube. Then I tapped a few more keys and settled back. There it was—that same illicit thrill I felt when I watched my fall. In a way, this was the same as watching my old self die.

A few chiming notes sounded, and then an overblown “ah ah ah” choral that made me grimace. Hands fluttered across the screen, then turned into a dove.

Then—

Noelle. 

I inhaled sharply when my ex’s face filled the screen. I stared as she sang, that sweet voice that used to raise goosebumps on my skin. 

She had torn out my soul as well as my heart, but there was still that ache in my chest that she’d left behind. As I watched, I slowly realized that ache was a part of my old self that had belonged only to her.

I wasn’t that guy anymore. That old self had died, and I was here now. I watched her, waiting for the feelings to resurrect themselves, like ghosts in my cells. But the more I watched, the more I felt…

Nothing. 

She was just another pretty blonde girl. Bubbly and sweet-voiced, nothing more and nothing less. I didn’t feel angry anymore, only a strange kind of nostalgia. She was a part of my life that had passed. It was over, and I’d moved on to something better. 

I pressed stop, freezing Noelle in place. I lifted the tablet and stared into those wide blue eyes. “I’m done,” I told her. 

Then I closed the browser and carefully set the tablet back onto my brother’s desk.

When I walked away, I didn’t even limp. 

I got exactly as far as Beau’s doorway, only to come face to face with my younger brother as he came up the stairs.

He’d caught me red-handed snooping in his room. If it had been Finn, I’d be getting a beat-down even now. But since this was Beau, he gave me one of his level looks. “You need something?”

I let out a long breath. “Yeah. A dirt bike and a hundred-foot jump.”

He grinned. “Yeah…you’re not gonna find that in my room, though,” he pointed out. Then he widened his eyes a little. “But what you will find is this.”

He shoved past me and went right over to his guitar stand. “Here,” he said.

I swallowed and stared at the instrument. My brother held it out to me in some mix of encouragement and accusation.

I hadn’t played since the band broke up. Without my brothers around me, the idea of making music didn’t seem the same.

I took it from him anyway. Call it reflex. Call it curiosity. I slung the strap around my neck with careless confidence. I moved my fingers to the strings.

Then I stopped. “I don’t think I remember how,” I said slowly. I pressed down on the frets and winced. “My callouses are all gone.”

My brother gave me an encouraging nod. “You’ll pick it up again. It’s like riding a bike.”

I tested out a few hesitant chords. “Are you still playing?” I asked him. I hadn’t heard any strumming come from his room.

He shook his head. “Guitar was never really my thing.”

I nodded. Beau was a competent enough guitar player, but he only did it when he had to. “Are you playing your big-ass piano still?” I asked.

Beau’s eyes got a little foggy looking. “Not here as much. I found an even nicer one at the high school. It’s got the kind of tone I always wanted, but those little keyboards were so synthetic. Big and round and full.”

“You know you look like a total weirdo when you play,” I reminded him.

“I have passion,” he said primly.

Why did that make me feel defensive? “I have plenty of passion.”

“Your passion is getting your shit fucked up,” Beau said, his mild tone taking the sting out of his words. “We always knew you didn’t have music in you.”

Now I was really feeling attacked “I have music in me,” I protested.

“It’s okay, man. You are a good technical player. You have a good enough ear to fake it.” Beau lifted his chin a little and grinned. “It was enough for our purposes, right?”

The way he smiled, I could tell he meant nothing by it, but it still stung. “Fuck you, then,” I grumbled, clutching the guitar close and stalking back to my room.

I spent the rest of the night starting from scratch. I got out all my old instruction books, and even played along with a few of our old songs, humming my harmonies along with my brothers’ recorded voices. I was up so late that sleep overtook me. I woke up right next to the guitar and started practicing again.

It was only after I’d retuned it and picked my way through all the major and minor scales that I realized Beau had outwitted me. He knew I’d rather play music again than admit he was right.