by Phil Stamper
He mocks me, and I let him, mostly because being able to identify any note by ear is not something to be ashamed of. When Megan mocks me, her words are sharp, cutting. There’s something in his voice, his all-teeth smile, when I call the pitch that brings out the ache in my chest. A good ache.
He guides me down a path, still chuckling, and the earlier mocking settles in my brain, putting my mind back on Megan.
She’s my best friend, sure. But in many ways she’s still my biggest antagonist. It wasn’t simple teasing; it was pushing. Calling me spineless when picking up the phone to order pizza would stress me out to the point where I’d have to use my inhaler to breathe.
It’s hard to explain why I get like this. With the crowds, or picking up the phone. Or when I think somebody might be mad at me by the fact they didn’t text me back but they clearly used their phone to comment on someone’s Instagram post. And that stress triples if someone’s left their read receipts on. But I’ve been friends with Megan for so long I kind of forgot what it was like to have someone look at you when you’re panicking, smile, and try to make you feel comfortable.
And Pierce did that without knowing me.
Another wave of tourists pushes through us, and just before we get fully separated, I feel his hand slip into mine. He grabs my suitcase with his other hand.
Pierce’s hand grips mine firmly, and he holds steady as he leads me across the street. Westminster Abbey grows larger in my field of vision, and we pause in the open space outside it.
I take a deep breath. One more—in and out. When I turn to him, he does the same. The closeness should overwhelm me, but I feel grounded, here in this magical country under the constant, stereotypical British cloud cover.
In movies or books (or literally all media out there), this moment is frozen in time. The rise in his chest. The warmth of my cheeks. His fingers laced through mine, lightly now, but enough to send sparks up my arm.
My mind can’t stop, and there’s so much going on, all the time, right now that I can’t stop it. I want to enjoy this moment. I want to lean into him, smooth the expression on my face, but I feel myself receding. Pulling back, slipping out of his grip, flexing my muscles and withdrawing. The shortness of breath. My head feels fuzzy; my eyes lose focus. I can’t keep up with it all—the people, my feelings, the buildings. The people.
His expression falters when I pull back. His mouth’s slanted but soft, paired with the same poor-poor-baby eyes I get from my parents or Skye or basically everyone but Megan when I freak like this.
But suddenly, his eyes darken in the soft daylight. His brows furrow, giving him an angular, tense expression.
“It may not be my place, Marty. But—” He pauses. Considers. “But, I think you need to work through this.”
The moment’s over.
“Really? My best friend says that to me all the time. Get over it! Pierce. What if I can’t get over it? It’s not something I can just get over. It’s who I am it’s—”
“Wait, let me explain.” He places a hand on my chest, and I suck in my stomach, trying in vain to harden my core. “I didn’t say to get over it. I don’t think you can. I know Americans are touchy with mental health, but let me say this. You could talk to someone, you could try one of those apps, or something. Just start there. This summer’s going to be a big change for you. I don’t want you to … Never mind. Maybe I’m out of bounds.”
“Gotcha,” I say.
“Does your best friend really say that?” His tone is almost pitying, and an icky feeling takes over.
I don’t know how to describe our friendship to others, because the more honest I am, the worse it sounds. She does say that to me, all the time. But she also brings me out of my shell.
“Without her,” I say, “I don’t know if I’d have even left my room over the last year.”
He laughs. “That’s good. Doesn’t mean she gets a pass if she’s saying things like that. It’s an anxiety thing, right? Does she know that it’s more than you being bashful? Have you told her how it feels?”
There’s a vulnerability in his voice, and it resonates with the same vulnerable chord thrumming in my own chest.
“I have told her,” I say, tentatively. “It hasn’t always gone well.”
“Clearly.” His cheeks puff out as he releases a long sigh. “Marty, mate, just know it’s okay. We’ve all got weird friendships, and I’m not trying to step in, but whatever you feel is valid. Anxiety is a beast, especially for those of us silly enough to pursue a career where we have to put ourselves out there every single day.”
“Good point. For the record, I do like being pushed out of my comfort zone. Sometimes. But I hate when I feel bad for feeling bad, you know? Like, I can’t help it sometimes.” I flash him a smile. “Thanks, Pierce.”
I’ve just gotten here, but I’m filled with a warmth that I so rarely get to feel. Progress. Something real.
He pulls me in for a cautious hug, and for a moment I think my mind will go blank. I feel his stubble brush my cheek as he puts his arm around me. I grip his denim jacket, and breathe. And breathe.
I want this to be some sweet fairy-tale moment so badly, but I’m very aware we’re in public.
Per usual, things change almost immediately in my brain. Back and forth. There are so many people around. Pierce holds me close, but I’ve lost the will to participate.
I pull away. “Sorry.”
He just smiles. “Nothing to be sorry about, love.”
I blush, hard. If that’s even possible. My cheeks actually hurt from being so tense—and I play oboe. Strong cheeks are kind of my thing. He’s so charming, and relentlessly British, and more importantly, he already seems to care about me as a friend. All I know is I am definitely not ready to deal with any of this. But for the first time, I really want to deal with this.
And that makes me feel like I could.
SIX
My pre-Megan days were a blur. I’m not the protagonist of anyone’s story, and I’d accepted that from an early age. But when we became best friends, I became something else. I was something, I guess. Something was better than nothing.
Unfortunately, I’m still one-hundred-percent dependent on her to sort out my life. Make my decisions, force me to take chances. By “taking chances” I don’t mean, like, shoplifting—which she still does even though she has the money and isn’t a twelve-year-old thrill seeker anymore—but forcing me to stand up to my parents and tell them I wanted to go live in London. Helping me craft the lie and practice it.
She didn’t just help me find my voice; she also made me use it.
I keep feeling my jeans pocket, instinctively looking for and failing to find a phone on which I could text or call her. I’m alone here and I can’t handle it. Maybe Pierce was right about learning to manage my issues. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.
“So this is Sondheim Theatre,” I say to Pierce. A billboard for Les Misérables wraps around the corner of the building, and the charming buildings that line the street curve around a roundabout just in front of me.
“Marty, mate!” a voice calls out behind me.
Shane walks down the street toward me. He looks like he’s in costume, dressed up with a tie and button-down shirt. His French horn case is gripped tightly in one arm as he throws the other around me. I let go of my suitcase and wrap him up in a hug.
“You left me with a stranger!” I say, laughing.
Pierce pulls Shane into a one-armed hug. “I’m a much better host than Shane, here. We saw Big Ben, the Abbey, 10 Downing, and—”
“And I had to wheel a suitcase over a mile of cobblestones.”
Pierce rolls his eyes.
“So I see you’ve met, then,” Shane says. His Irish accent seems to have gotten thicker, somehow. It reminds me how Mom’s is mostly gone, how she claims she worked to get rid of it as soon as she got to America. “I was about to take the bus back. Have you gotten yourself a pass yet?”
We walk to the bus stop,
which is just down the street. Pierce makes a point to take my suitcase again, after my cobblestone comment.
“Congrats on the audition,” I say. “Tell us how it went!”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I never feel good about these things. They were auditioning for a few parts, and there were loads of musicians in there. Kind of freaked me out, remembering just how many people are looking for the same jobs we are.”
It’s like his anxiety creeps into my body. But then again, I’m out here to do the same thing. There are a billion oboists out there going for the same parts, and if I don’t get something, and soon, I’m out.
“You’ll get it,” Pierce says.
Shane shakes his head. “I admire your … unflinching optimism.”
A double-decker bus pulls up to the stop, and Pierce takes a step onto it. “Sod off. I’m feeling positive today. Meet you at the top?”
Shane lets an old couple onto the bus before him, and leans back to chat with me. “Marty, I’m so sorry I had to leave you. There was no way to call you, and I didn’t think you’d be checking emails. I hope he wasn’t too annoying.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. He was really sweet.”
My cheeks glow warm, which Shane picks up on immediately.
“I know Americans lose all sense when it comes to British accents, but can you not crush on my friend? I know too much about that wanker to let anyone I love fall for him.”
I sigh as we both scan our transit cards. “I’m very tired. He’s very cute. He has a beard! How is that even possible? Help me, I’m but a weak mortal.”
“Don’t call that patchy mess a beard; his ego will never recover.”
We take the stairs to the top, where Pierce has staked out a front row view from the upper deck of the bus. The street shines before me, and I feel immersed in this wonderful world. Without thinking, I take the seat next to Pierce as Shane takes the seat opposite me.
“Mom’s a bit gutted she won’t see much of you this summer.”
Aunt Leah. I smile. “Will I see her before she leaves?”
“One night,” Shane says. “Then she’ll be out teaching that design course in Rome for the rest of the summer.”
My chest rises, then falls. One summer. That’s all I have to make it here. My aunt didn’t escape my clumsy web of lies either—she thinks I’m here for the summer program at Knightsbridge. When she comes back, I’ll need to have all my shit figured out before I’ve overstayed my welcome—a source of income, a place to live, a life that can’t be swayed by my parents or by my family here. When she comes back, I’ll be eighteen. I’ll have a home established here.
And I’m not leaving.
As we hop off the bus, Shane and I say our goodbyes to Pierce.
“Well, this is where I leave you. You’re in good hands with Shane, here—thanks for letting me crash the welcome party.” He points to a series of stout, brick buildings. Uninviting, but unsurprising. “This is where I live. I’d invite you in, but I’ve got about four hours of practicing to do.”
Shane waves goodbye, but Pierce faces me, waiting for a response, as he takes a couple of backward steps toward his building. I grunt a thank-you. But it’s really all I can think of to say. Thank you for showing me around. Thank you for having the perfect balance of smells, citrusy and fresh. Thank you for not making me feel like even more of an idiot when I panicked.
Thank you for lacing your fingers through mine. For the fact I can still feel the heat creep up my wrist.
We part, finally, so I take a deep breath and walk in step with Shane, dragging my suitcase behind me. Everything’s better here in ways I can’t even quantify properly. Patches of blue start to peek out from behind the gray sky. The buildings around me are different, manageable. They’re not ornate like Parliament or Westminster Abbey, but simple and classic. Large stone bricks give them a castle-like feel, and the meticulously manicured round or square bushes and lawns that sprawl out toward the sidewalk put me at ease.
“Things are certainly … different here,” I say. “Maybe I’m delirious, but things just feel right. I think this was a good decision.”
This happens sometimes, after I get out of a super anxious moment and I have the chance to breathe normally. I feel the sun on my skin and things feel lighter. Right. If only all the moments could be like this.
Hanging in the back of my mind is the awareness that I’m not a tourist here. I’ve committed to this new life, and the responsibilities are about to tumble over me. I should start looking for auditions soon.
But I spent so long trying to get here, why can’t I just let myself enjoy this first moment? I swallow hard, pushing down the bile and unease. A minor success.
“Can you see this as your home?” Shane asks.
“I can. It’s nothing like Avery, but that’s not a bad thing. Everything is prim and proper here. It’s picturesque.”
“I suppose,” he responds. “It’s a bit harder to feel that magic when you’ve been here for almost eighteen years.”
We walk in silence, and I recharge. As a certified introvert, I need people like Megan or Pierce to kick me out of my shell. But I also need alone time to re-collect.
I’m spent—a plane ride, a cute boy, and jet lag will do that to you. I meander along the path, enjoying the energy rushing through my veins and pushing through my drowsiness, until we come up to a building I recognize. A pang of something—regret, anger, disappointment, all of the above?—echoes through my body as I think back to last summer.
I tense my shoulders and push through the doors, and say hello to my new home.
12 MONTHS AGO
DIARY ENTRY 9
We’re leaving.
That’s all I got from my parents. Shane and I were basically hiding in his room as my parents and Aunt Leah had this intense conversation out in her living room.
“I haven’t seen you in, what, thirteen years?” Her voice carried. “And you’re cutting your trip short because you felt a little uncomfortable?”
I stopped listening after that. I couldn’t listen to them talk about it anymore.
It’s not like Aunt Leah to raise her voice, but I can’t help but be on her side. We have tickets to things; we had two days left at the Airbnb. But Mom just closed up.
It’s kind of like what happens when I have one of my panic attacks. I close off, and I want to run away. But it was different with Mom. It’s like she had all this armor up with none of the actual panic. None of the shortened breaths, the chest pain, the world-falling-in-on-you feeling. Which makes me think this is kind of fucked up. (Yeah, definitely not turning in this project.)
Before I left their apartment, Aunt Leah stopped me. She said something like, “Marty, we might not get another chance to talk alone for quite some time. At least face-to-face.” She held eye contact with me, and her intensity was catching. “If you need anything, you let me know. Anything.”
Living in London is out of the picture, I know that now. I find out about Knightsbridge soon, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe I should just give up on music altogether and choose something safer.
It’s clear my oboe and I are meant for a different path, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe since everything else is fully not okay this seems less important, or maybe it’s that it really is okay. I don’t know the answer. I just know that I only have a handful of allies in this world, and only one of them is back in Kentucky.
Aunt Leah’s offer, though, it’s some kind of offer. An opportunity. I may have blown my chance with the academy, but maybe there’s a way I can still come here. I’ve got an opportunity, and I sure as hell won’t be wasting it.
I think … I can get out of there, for good.
SEVEN
It’s around midday when we make it back to the apartment, and jet lag has fully set in. Aunt Leah’s flat is charming and quaint—a little small, but the perfect size for her two-person family. It’s on the high street, so there’s no fancy brick entryway, or double-decker building with
a garden out front. But once you walk up the flight of stairs and into the space, that’s when the charm comes in.
It’s an old building, but the inside’s clearly been renovated recently. Exposed brick lines one wall; a floor-to-ceiling window reveals a glimmer of the park beyond. Soft light creeps through the space, and I notice it’s started to mist again outside. The apartment itself is sandwiched between two restaurants, so echoes of pots and pans and the ranting of wait staff on their smoke break settle into the space.
“Mum’s room is all yours. She’s got all her stuff packed for the summer, and she’s going to spend the night on the couch.”
“She doesn’t have to do that,” I say. “I can just move in there tomorrow.”
“Oh, I know. She insists, though, and we both know how stubborn she is. So you might as well take it. Remember to switch on the outlets when you want to use them or charge your phone or whatever. You probably have time to nap if you’re tired. I can wake you up once my mum’s back.”
“Thanks,” I say, acknowledging the exhaustion that’s creeping into my muscles. My chest vibrates with tension as I think back on my spontaneous adventure. “I had fun today. It was nice to meet Pierce.”
“Looked like it.” There’s no malice in his voice, yet the words themselves reveal more than he means to. I wonder if he regrets sending Pierce to pick me up. “Be careful, okay?”
His warning sends waves of frustration through me. I’ve been stuck in that life back in Kentucky for so long. I’ve just gotten a taste of freedom, of being comfortable with myself, and for once I don’t want to be careful.
I just want to be.
“I think I will take that nap.” The weight of the day crashes into me. I don’t have the energy to convince Shane I can handle this on my own, that I don’t need his warnings or his protection. I can sense my body screaming for an escape, so I wheel my suitcase into Aunt Leah’s room and promptly pass out on my bed, dreaming less of my supportive cousin who brought me to a new home, and more of the beautiful Brit who welcomed me.
