Page 30 of August Lane

CHAPTER TWELVE

P ick a story, Luke.” August took a bite of her sandwich.

She’d made two that morning and was more attentive to the ratio of meat to mustard this time.

Luke’s included lettuce, which August never ate because it had no taste.

Adding it to bologna felt performative. But Luke seemed like the type who’d be comforted by familiar sandwich structures.

He took his time crumbling the foil into a tiny ball and stuffing it into the paper sack they were using as a trash bag. He did that a lot, drew out basic movements while gathering his thoughts. “You mean like a topic?”

“No, a story. Something with a beginning, middle, and end. You don’t have to tell the whole thing, but it helps to keep it in mind as you write.”

“Okay.” He nodded, but still looked confused. “Is that my homework assignment?”

He’d been doing that since they started, trying to apply a rigid structure to their lessons as if he were still learning formulas in second-period trigonometry.

After three days of meeting during their lunch period and at Delta Blue, the only thing he’d written for her was a playlist of his favorite R&B songs titled “Slow Jams for Augustina” with a rose doodle attached.

She needed to shake him loose somehow if this was going to work.

“It shouldn’t feel like an assignment,” August said. “It should feel like pulling something out of yourself that’s already there. Excavating an emotion.”

Luke rubbed his neck, then ran his hand over his hair. It was getting longer, forming cute little spirals. “The way you talk makes me wonder if I ever had an actual emotion at all. How do you come up with this stuff?”

“Don’t overthink it,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Start with something personal. A moment that’s meaningful to you.”

Luke stiffened. “Personal how?”

“Like your relationship with Jessica.” She’d thought about this last night. Despite the minor crush she had on Luke, talking about the girl he actually wanted would be the quickest way to get something useful out of him. “Think about the day you met. Or when you kissed her for the first time.”

Luke looked pained. Like everything she’d listed was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “I don’t…” He grabbed a broken cat mask and crushed the ears in his fist. “There isn’t much of a story there.”

“I bet there is.”

“You’d lose that bet.”

“You’re being difficult.”

“I’m being honest.” He shrugged. “Everyone doesn’t have some grand love story. Sometimes you’re just—”

“Down to fuck?”

He paused. “That’s not what I was gonna say.”

“Sorry.” She lifted both hands. “Please continue. Sometimes you’re just what?”

“Some things just happen. Like… a door that’s left open, and it looks cool, so you… walk through.”

August stared at him. “Do you know how lazy that sounds?”

“I told you. There’s no story there.”

“There is! There always is. If something elicits a feeling, it’s a story. That’s how our brains work.” She cut off his protests with a silencing hand. “Let me give you an example.”

August grabbed her notebook, flipped to the front page, and handed it to him. “This is about my first kiss.”

Luke read it eagerly. “Fireflies?”

“I was only nine, so it was a completely innocent cheek peck. But it still counts. His name was Lawrence, and he was obsessed with bugs.”

The memory had faded in parts. She couldn’t remember his last name. His face was a mishmash of features that may have been pulled from other boys she grew up with. She did remember that he was staying with an aunt who lived in the duplexes filled with people who never stuck around for long.

“I didn’t have friends back then,” August said, but kept her eyes averted because Luke knew that had never changed.

“And Lawrence was only visiting for the summer. He was so nice to me, and I wanted to keep that. I wanted to keep him. But it felt like trying to stop sand from escaping my hands. I was so lonely and—” August stopped because that felt like too much.

Irrelevant to the lesson. Instead she said, “At night, we’d chase lightning bugs. ”

Lawrence had asked her which bugs were her favorite.

She told him she liked lightning bugs because they only showed up during the summer.

“The day he left for good, he asked his aunt to stop by our house so he could say goodbye. But I didn’t want to watch him leave.

I could hear him crying, begging his aunt to wait a little longer, but I knew that if I came out, I’d cry, too.

It scared me. That kind of sadness still does. Makes me afraid I’ll never stop.”

The terrible choice still weighed on her.

The instant regret. “Later that night, I found a jar of fireflies outside my window. I knew it was his way of saying don’t forget me.

And so I wrote a song to make sure I didn’t.

” She looked at the journal in Luke’s hand.

“ When the fireflies return / that’s when he finds her / Calling him home with a flickering light / She only gives to the summer. ”

Luke didn’t speak. She still couldn’t look at him, and the silence was stifling.

“Did you know fireflies only live a few weeks after they become adults?” She flipped the notebook pages, disrupting the moment with rustling paper.

“Their lights are mating calls. So, they spend their entire adult life looking for someone to love before they—”

He grabbed her hand. “You’re amazing. Do you know that? Has anyone told you?”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to give him an example, and he’d think about whichever girl was lucky enough to be his first. He wasn’t supposed to listen so closely.

“Stop distracting me with compliments,” she said, pulling her hand away. “You still need to write something.”

“I wasn’t doing that,” Luke said. “I mean, I was complimenting you, but it wasn’t a tactic. I honestly don’t think I can turn a moment into lyrics like that.” He reached for his guitar. “But I can do this.”

Luke started playing, and the notes floated into the air like those flickering bits of light she’d written about. He paused, pointed to the first verse, and played it again, singing along this time. His voice was hesitant, asking if this was what she meant.

August answered. She started singing, matching his key, but added all the feeling that had inspired the lyrics.

Her voice grew louder, grittier at the chorus, which always happened when she set it free.

It rolled over Luke’s baritone, and the unified sound rewired her senses.

It was sweet in her mouth. It was plunging into cool water on the hottest day.

When they finished, she was trembling. Sometimes a good thing was too good, and what it revealed was terrifying.

She’d always thought her voice was her voice, flaws and all, the end.

But the universe doesn’t work that way. She could see it in Luke’s stunned, shaken expression.

When stars collide, they’re irrevocably changed.

The next morning, Luke thought of a story.

He wrote it down, then immediately erased it and tried to pretend it never existed.

The idea was, for lack of a better word (which was at the root of his problems) stupid.

Boring at minimum. After yesterday, he was pretty sure August liked him, so he didn’t want to ruin it by plopping some underbaked idea that made him look lazy in her lap.

Digging through his past had always been risky, so he wasn’t very good at it.

Simple things like his first day of kindergarten triggered an avalanche of bad memories: a spilled bowl of cereal, Ava screaming, Ethan crying.

She’d forced Luke to wear the milk-soaked pants all day and ordered his teachers not to let him change.

“Don’t think about it” was his mantra, his entire approach to life. Now August wanted him to rummage through those mental trash heaps and find something that would make a good love song.

“You thought of something, didn’t you” was the first thing she said to him at Delta Blue. Instead of answering no like a normal person with self-preservation instincts, he said, “Yeah. It’s about my first love. But not the kind you think.”

Her eyes rounded, more doe-like than usual. “Sounds mysterious.”

“It’s not a person.” His skin caught fire the minute he said it. This was the stupid part.

“Congratulations. I’m both confused and intrigued.” She sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. His eyes were drawn to her bare legs. She wore jean shorts with a red T-shirt that said THERE’S NO APP FOR THIS . Their knees touched when he sat down.

“I’m not sure where to start,” he said, waiting for her to move away. She didn’t.

“With a feeling. How did whatever this is make you feel?”

“Happy.”

“Okay. Reckless choice for a country song, but let’s go with it. What made you happy?”

“Holding the guitar pick right. I would sneak and watch Pete play—”

“Who’s Pete?”

“My little brother’s father. Pete was a banjo player in a folk band. Taught me about roots music. I wanted to learn how to play but was afraid to ask.”

“How old were you?”

“Five or six. My mom would tell me not to bother him. He was kind to me. Nicer than I thought adults could be at that point.”

“Nicer than your mother?”

He hated when he slipped up like that. Ava wasn’t a safe topic.

“Yeah. So anyway, I used to watch him. Then, when he was gone, I would sneak into the garage, where he stored all his instruments, and try to play his guitar. One day he caught me. I thought for sure that was it. I’m going in the closet for days.

But he asked me if I wanted to learn. The first thing he taught me was okay. ”

Her lips quirked. “Okay?”

Luke retrieved a pick from his bag. “You make an okay sign like this. And slide the pick here…” He pointed to his thumb and forefinger. “So that it’s facing the strings when you turn your wrist.”