Chapter Two
Lila (Monday)
There was no better feeling than waking up to the sound of my brother playing the piano. It didn’t always happen – he went through phases where he felt more creative in the afternoon or evenings – but for me, listening to him as I woke up always meant for a good day. It lifted my mood before my feet had even hit the floor, and that positivity could get me through just about anything.
I lay my head back on the pillow with my eyes slightly open, just enough so some light was filtering into my vision, but not enough to distract me from the beautiful tinkling sound. At first, I simply listened, allowing the sounds to filter through to my brain, but it wasn’t long before I recognized that this wasn’t a song I’d heard him play for a very long time. In fact, there was a possibility that this was something new entirely, which was very exciting. Kyle was always a lot of fun to be around when his brain was in full creative mode.
That excitement was enough to force me up from my warm, if not very comfortable, bed. Kyle and I didn’t have a lot of money; we rented a tiny, crappy apartment in New York, and we couldn’t afford luxuries such as a mattress suitable for an actual human body, but it was fine. We were doing better than anyone could have ever expected of us, which was something.
I felt proud of what we’d achieved, at any rate. We could’ve easily ended up in the gutter, so this was good enough. I had to see the positive side of things – it was the only way I could keep on going, and it’d served me well thus far.
As I padded into the living room, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I felt my heart dancing about in my chest. Kyle’s music was so beautiful. It deserved to be heard by the rest of the world, but he was content to continue playing mostly for himself, occasionally for a small audience. To be honest, he was just happy for the freedom to play, at all.
“What are you playing?” I asked him curiously as I moved my way toward the coffee pot. Our kitchen and living room were the same room. Some people might have seen that as a negative thing, but I simply saw it as a way to make my own life easier. “I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”
“It’s something new I’ve been working on,” he replied evasively, not even glancing up. He was always that way when he got lost in the music, so I didn’t feel offended.
The fact that it made him so happy was the reason I’d saved up for months and months, just to afford the worn-down, second-hand piano. He had never asked me to, but I’d heard him fiddling around on the keyboard enough to know that he had talent and desire. It wasn’t the best thing for him to play on – some of the keys didn’t work, it needed tuning far too regularly, and when we’d first got it we had to spend hours cleaning it up – but it made Kyle happy and that was all I cared about.
On more than one occasion, when we’d been struggling to pay the bills, he’d offered to sell it. But I would never let him. Mostly because it wouldn’t earn us enough money to be worthwhile, but also because I couldn’t ever let him give up on his dream.
“How far along are you with it?” I asked, perching on the edge of our worn-out couch. “Do you think you might play it at the fundraiser?”
I’d had to work hard to persuade Kyle to play at this event, since it’d be a much bigger audience than what he was used to, but it was a cause dear to both of our hearts. Raising money for children in foster care was something we both felt passionate about because we’d grown up in the care system ourselves.
We’d lost our parents in a car accident when we were both very young, when I was three years old and Kyle two. We didn’t have any other living relatives, so we’d been pushed into foster care.
If anyone knew how much the system needed more funding, it was us.
“Yeah, I think so,” he replied with an edge to his voice. I could almost see the memories flooding his mind. Not all of them were very nice.
We couldn’t be adopted because no one wanted to take on more than one child at once and when they tried to separate us, we would totally break down, kicking up such a fuss that no one wanted us. It was almost as if we knew even then that we couldn’t live apart from one another, and we forced that opinion upon everyone else.
So, we went through foster homes and families like there was no tomorrow. It wasn’t as if either of us was bad or anything, it was just the way the system worked. People took us in for as long as they could before we were sent on to the next place.
It was flawed, and we wanted to help fix it.
Never knowing where we would be living tomorrow had taken its toll on us both.
We could never make friends with the kids we lived with or the people at school because chances were we’d end up moving soon enough. We stopped trying in the end, focusing on each other instead. We hated getting attached to places and people just to end up leaving them all behind. I felt like we both lacked self-confidence and drive because of it.
Then there were the foster parents themselves. Some of them were nice and supportive, but others not so much. I could never understand why people like that worked in a sector where they saw the children as nothing more than a nuisance; it never made sense to me.
We were lucky because I heard all kinds of stories in the homes about kids getting abused. That never happened to us, but I didn’t want it to happen to anyone else, either. I wanted to help prevent anything bad happening to the kids who had already been through enough in their lives. As if losing everything wasn’t painful enough, they had to go through the horror of living with people who didn’t want them.
No wonder most people who’d been through the care system came out of it feeling like they were utterly unlovable. It just wasn’t right.
Things were good for Kyle and me now, though; we had our home together in New York. Maybe we were broke and constantly struggling, but we were happier than we’d ever been before, and that was something. Not everyone got their happy ending, which was what made the fundraiser so important.
“Do you think you can write some lyrics and sing?” Kyle asked me, suddenly looking bashful. “I know you don’t like to sing in public, but you have a good voice.”
I always thought of Kyle as shy with his talent, but I was way worse. I hated to sing in front of anyone. If this apartment wasn’t so tiny, he would’ve never heard me singing in the shower and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. He wasn’t one to pile the pressure on because he hated it himself, but he did think I should get my voice out there, too.
Damn it. If it was anyone else asking me, or if it was for any other event, I could quite easily say no, but if I expected Kyle to help, then I couldn’t turn my back on the cause myself, could I? That wouldn’t be fair.
He kept staring at me with those deep blue eyes, which matched mine exactly, giving me the smile that showed off his sweet dimples. That, combined with his oversized t-shirt and messy dark hair, made it hard for me to turn him down.
“Okay.” I sighed deeply. “I’ll see what I can come up with. You’ll have to play the melody to me all day, though.”
I didn’t want to admit that I had committed it to memory and that lyrics were starting to manifest in my mind already. I didn’t want him to get too excited about this idea in case I failed. There was every chance that I just couldn’t do it, and I wanted him to be prepared for that fact. “I won’t make any promises, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
“You’re a legend.” Kyle’s face lit up, regardless of my attempt to keep things calm. “This will be awesome. If you’re by my side, I just know I can do this.”
“I’m going to make breakfast.” I jumped up quickly, wanting to change the subject for a moment. “What do you want? Not that there’s much choice.”
“Let me help you.” Kyle stood up, but there was no way in hell I was going to allow him to stop playing. I needed to hear the song now, to practice the possible words floating around in my mind.
I wanted to give off a hopeful message, to show the world that Kyle and I were trying, despite our less-than-stellar start in life. I wanted people to know that investing in foster kids was the right thing to do because they could achieve something.
“No, you stay there. Play the song; I need to get used to it,” I commanded in my fiercest voice. “Like I said, you need to play this all day. I wasn’t exaggerating.”
He sat back down and played with the keys, warming my chest with his music. It was a miracle he had managed to hone this skill, considering he hadn’t always had a chance to play while we were growing up.
I didn’t like the idea of singing in public – it made me knees knock together in fear at the mere idea of it – but if people were listening to Kyle, then it’d be worth it. I hoped that they wouldn’t even notice me, that his talent would simply drown me out. That was the only way I’d work up the bravery to actually do it.
Plus, much as I didn’t want to admit it, I hoped that he’d get more recognition and get booked for more gigs. We did need the money that came from his public playing.
Of course, the main priority was the foster children, but if we could benefit off it, too, that could only be a good thing. A lot of people attending the event would be ex-foster children themselves, but there would also be some important, rich people there, trying to do their philanthropy bit. It wouldn’t be high profile enough to attract celebrities, but that didn’t matter.
It would only take one person to notice Kyle’s playing, someone important, with connections. Then maybe we could make it. We could finally prove everyone wrong. We could beat the statistics and assumptions of the world, and we could finally live happily.
It was unlikely to happen – we’d probably already used up all our luck – but I could dream. I had to hope for a better future or I’d never have anything to work toward. This positivity was about the only thing keeping me pushing forward. If I lost that, I wasn’t sure where we’d end up. I didn’t even want to think about it.
No, we had to make this work. It was the only option we had.