In the morning, she awoke next to him on the couch. She kissed him on the cheek while he slept, and then left. The culmination of weeks of buildup to a climactic night alone where nothing (and everything) somehow happened.

  The rest of that day, Natalie was uncharacteristically quiet. She didn’t speak with family or friends. And with no work on her schedule, she drifted in a world of uncertain wonder.

  “Oh. What happened?” she pondered. “Why didn’t we... but we did... was it what should’ve happened? Did I do something right? Does he think I’m weird?”

  She tried not to dwell. Though, as anyone who has ever stood at the start of an ill-defined romance can understand, reason is a refuge sorely lacking amidst the storms of new love.

  So that Sunday afternoon, she hopped into her Toyota and drove to Pete’s house, determined that all secret feelings might be revealed. Her heart sounding that silent battle cry: “I have to know.”

  “This is totally insane,” she said as she walked up the steps to his porch. Knocking, she held her breath. Her stomach, leaping into her throat when she heard the footsteps approach from inside,

  The door opened, revealing one of Pete’s roommates. Natalie couldn’t remember his name (maybe Kyle?). He hadn’t been at the party. He seemed nice enough, with kind eyes. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Is Pete here?” she managed.

  “He’s been gone all day. Sorry.”

  He didn’t even offer to take a message, which, in Natalie’s mind, likely meant that either: this happened often (which was bad), or that Pete had already laughed about their awkward night together with his friends, (which was worse).

  Her heart sank.

  The last time she’d been at that door, she was lighter than air, filled with excitement, proud of her bravery. Now, though, she felt like a child.

  She rushed, thanking Kyle before turning to leave. The polite smile on her face when she walked away was so forced that it froze there, lingering while she rounded the corner to her car. “This was so stupid.”

  But as she reached for her keys, embarrassed, and sad, she was startled from her cringe by the sudden sound of a car trunk slamming shut.

  She turned and saw him (Pete) standing across the street, holding a guitar case. He was dressed in his typical jeans, T-shirt, and Yankee cap, looking at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

  For Natalie, however, it was only relief that filled her.

  She could feel him, like a magnetic pull drawing them together. The fake smile she had worn on the porch transforming into a genuine expression of happiness, reminiscent of the joy she experienced that night in the attic. She started walking toward him.

  “Hold on! Wait!” he yelled. She stopped just as a car sped down the road, barely missing her. She stepped back briefly, but her smile remained. And now she could see that Pete was smiling too. “Just hold on. I’ll come to you,” he laughed.

  “Good,” she thought. “Let’s go back to the house so his jerk roommate (who wasn’t really a jerk at all) can see that I’m not just some random freshman. Enough of the slow-motion getting to know each other.”

  Pete never broke eye contact and never stopped smiling as he crossed the street. “You’re here!”

  “You’re here!” she said confidently. “We need to talk.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay.” He glanced over Natalie's shoulder toward his house. “I think that’s good. Let me drop off my guitar, and then maybe we could take a walk?”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Her heart jumped. “Take a walk?” She thought. “That’s a good sign. Just the two of us. Away from any roommates. Private. Intimate. Perfect.”

  “Sure,” she blurted, unable to hide her excitement. As Pete dashed into the house to drop off his guitar, Natalie stood on the sidewalk, convinced that the winds of romantic fate were blowing in her favor.

  Pete returned and they started strolling. The trees of the neighborhood formed a shaded tunnel, and the old, well-kept houses provided a quaint backdrop for conversation. Pete seemed eager to do most of the talking, which was fine by Natalie. She was enjoying simply being together.

  As he spoke about the future, the past, and how amazing she was, she only vaguely listened, counting the steps back to his porch, certain that this would end in his attic. Yet, just a couple dozen feet from his house, Pete said something that jolted Natalie out of her romantic daydreams and into the harsh reality of life.

  “…so, I think it would probably be best if we just stayed friends.” He looked at her hesitantly. “Is that okay?”

  At first, Natalie didn’t quite understand what she had just heard. She was in a romantic fog that his words needed to cut through like a lighthouse. “Friends?”

  “What is he talking about?” She stood there with a vacant smile on her face, trying to process the fact that the end of their fledgling relationship had just occurred. “How could I have misread this so badly?” In her mind, they were a couple in all but name, and yet here, in the midst of one of the happiest moments of her life, he was ending it.

  Correction: he had ended it.

  All she could do was maintain that goofy smile and let out a long, drawn-out “Ooooh kaaay” as she tried to show that it didn’t bother her as much as it really did. Inside, she was dying. “None of this makes any sense!” she thought. “He has to feel the spark, doesn’t he?” she practically screamed in her head. “What is it with this guy?

  Pete look relieved, probably grateful that Natalie kept her thoughts to herself rather than shouting them at him. They hugged while she tried to clear her head. “We’re going to have to see each other at the dining hall!” she realized. “What’s that going to be like? I’ve just been shot down, and now I have to work with him?”

  Heartbroken, she said a polite goodbye, and walked back to her car, her steps heavy and slow, as though moving underwater. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” She continued thinking. “It’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”

  As she climbed in, turning to look back, Pete was already gone. She sat there for several minutes before finally turning the key to start the engine. “That’s it. It’s over. I’m too young, or immature, or something. Whatever it is, it's definitely me.”

  But right then, sitting in the front seat of her Toyota, ruminating on her failure, her stereo jumped loudly to life. The volume making her body shudder. “Jesus!” she shouted. Her train of thought derailed.

  There are very few people on this Earth who would deny the magic of music and timing. Songs have power, often mysterious, but always made stronger by emotion. And in that moment caught somewhere between destiny and dejection, it was Natalie’s favorite song that had leapt from the speakers.

  [The title of which won’t be named here, as the personal nature of the Bishops’ love song will remain their special private treasure.

  Just know that it was a song of forbidden love and wounded people. A song of cliché, and trope and guilty pleasure. And in her moment of need, it was a mirror to her soul (as all great songs must be) wanting something so close,… and finding the courage to pursue it.]

  As she listened, Natalie marveled. “What are the odds?” She thought. “This song would play right now? The most embarrassing moment of my entire life?” And as the versus continued, a tiny flame began to grow inside her. The fog she had so recently been swimming in, lifted. The world rushing back in, as her tiny flame became a roaring fire.

  “It’s not coincidence,” she decided, aloud. “It can’t be.”

  Her pulse quickened, adrenaline surging with each breath. Goosebumps prickling her arms and neck. “All these weeks? All these moments? And for what? To ‘just stay friends’?”

  The song reached its climax, Natalie looked toward Pete’s house.

  “No.” She said, simply.

  And with that, she exited the car.

  6E+24

  “I don’t believe it,” Raphael said as they watched her. “She still just barely knows him!”

  Gabriel, grinned, grateful for Natalie’s boldness. Shocking to witness, but it distracted him from the friction that had grown between he and Raphael. “She knows,” he said, looking on. “On some level, that girl can read the writing of her universe. She hears its music.”

  Raphael listened intently as Gabriel explained. “Not the music in her car; that’s only what she thinks it is.” He continued. “No, she hears ‘the music.’ That rhythm in the heartbeat of the world.”

  6E+24