Page 12 of Safety Net (Mendell Hawks #3)

CELESTE

Ilearned to play the flute at the age of eight, thanks to a free summer music program at my school. After two months of practicing how to direct my air flow to hit a note properly, I fell in love.

Growing up, I rarely spoke a word at school and only a couple of times at home.

Selective mutism was what my school counselor called it.

Dramatic was what my parents dubbed it. I’m not sure if I believed in nature or nurture.

What I did know was I didn’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid to speak.

But as soon as I had a flute in hand, I couldn’t stop making noise.

So, I believed in music. I believed it was my native language. As soon as I mastered it, I didn’t want to be silent. Why stay quiet when I could tell such beautiful stories through the notes?

My aunt, Robyn, noticed my love and decided to take me in as her own.

Whenever she went to the theatre, I got to tag along with her and her son, Ellis.

We’d always sat in the mezzanine, lap full of popcorn, and cheap, tiny binoculars that never failed to make Ellis and me fall into fits of giggles.

I didn’t feel like I was the only outsider when I watched The Phantom of the Opera.

The Lion King made me brave enough to ask Aunt Robyn to take me to auditions…

we didn’t make it out of the parking lot.

Annie was my favorite, a girl my age who ended up with a happy family despite a rough start.

Whatever problem I had could be solved by listening to Defying Gravity. Whatever loneliness I felt would fade whenever I pulled on my headphones, mimed the flute parts of the overture from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

After immersing myself in musicals for years, it felt like the natural next step was to write my own.

So, in middle school, I started scribbling one down on loose-leaf paper.

At first, it was a hodgepodge of all my favorites—Frankenstein's musical monster.

But as I got older and more skilled, the arrangements became my own.

The story, though still inspired by my favorite fairytale, evolved into something unique.

Currently, it was nowhere near perfect. I didn’t think it could be with who I was now: timid and unsure. But I would make it the best it could be before presenting it to Ophelia.

The only place I could get real work done was in my treehouse. My brothers built it for me one summer after losing track of me one too many times in the woods behind our house. It’d been their job to watch me, and they figured the perfect way to do so was to build a place I didn’t want to leave.

They’d done a good job for teenagers. The treehouse stood the test of time.

It was large enough for a chest full of art supplies and blankets.

I’d hung princess curtains in the windows, strung fairy lights on the outside and inside.

We’d rigged a bucket where I could request snacks to be sent up without having to climb down the ladder.

It would always be the safest place to dream and create.

I delved deep into edits for hours on the weathered, wooden floor. The late evening air caused sweat to form my armpits and the back of my knees. Despite the slight discomfort, curling onto my worn beanbag brought me a sense of calm.

The middle part of the musical sagged. My songs there were overly sentimental, harping too long and hard on the overall themes. As a viewer, I loved a good sad beat. But there was such a thing as dragging it out.

It’d been hours since I spoke to anyone when my snack bell dinged.

I pulled off my headphones, confused. Eli and Luka had gone out to dinner with old high school friends.

I hadn’t heard the noisy sedan pull back into the driveway.

And my parents never ventured into the backyard.

They only went outside when it was a necessary transition point to a car.

I pushed back the curtains, peering down to find Ellis waiting with a bag of fast food.

“I don’t think it’ll make the trip up.” He tried to put the bag into the basket, demonstrating how it’d surely topple over.

I laughed and gestured at the ladder. “You can come up.”

“I’m not allowed. You banned me six years ago.”

I frowned, trying to remember. “Did I?”

“I left loose gummy worms on the blanket Grandma gave you for your thirteenth. It was the hottest summer since the nineties. The wash made the yarn fuzzy, and you couldn’t get Grandma to make you another because she’d moved on to wreath-making.”

I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth, remembering. “Oh, right.”

He shrugged. “Honestly, the punishment fits the crime. I would have made you crochet me a new one.”

“Who says I still won’t?”

“My apology fries and shake from Raven’s?” He held up his bag. “And an update on your dream cast for your upcoming award-winning musical.”

I nodded. “You’ve served your sentence and paid your fine. Come on up.”

Ellis gave the treehouse a once-over when he cleared the ladder. “Was it always this tiny?”

“We’re adults now," I reached for the bag of food. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. It’d been before the sun came up. Now, it was setting.

“Damn it.” He bumped his head while trying to move around.

“Knees, it’s the only way,” I said around a mouthful of fries.

“I’m trying to preserve them for next season.”

I scoffed. “One crawl won’t ruin your chances to finish your program.”

“Maybe not, but to lift?” He sighed. “That’s a whole other story.”

While I marveled over musicals, my cousin found his place at the ice rink.

He was tall, lanky, and the most graceful person I’ve ever met.

He was conscious of perfect lines before he put on skates.

Determined to accurately mirror the ballet dancers in Swan Lake before he’d even taken a class.

Like with me, his mom saw potential and fed his flame.

He started competing and winning in middle school.

And now, he was on track to place on the Olympic team… if his injury was adequately cared for.

“What have you got for me?” I wiped salt from the corners of my mouth.

“A go for Halle,” he said. “All-in. I had to give her full control of all our music choices next season to get the yes, but it was worth it.”

“Thank you, thank you.” I grabbed him for a hug.

“Don’t get too excited.” He laughed, hugging me back. “She wanted the last word on our costumes, too. I told her you had a story to tell, and she promised she’d adhere to it if it didn’t include too much pink and too little sparkle.”

“Deal. The woman can have whatever her heart desires.”

Halle was a performer, through and through.

I’ve never been brave enough to try to befriend her, but from every interaction we had, she’d been kind.

Very quiet. But not my brand of quiet. Halle spoke when she had something to say, no more, no less.

She was the kind of silent I wish I could be.

While nervous energy swirled around me whenever I spoke, a steady calm and confidence buzzed around her.

“Perfect,” Ellis said. “Now, for my demands.”

Here we go. I offered him a fry in hopes a delay would evolve into a distraction. He turned it down. “How are my chances with Naomi looking these days?”

I gave him a look. Ellis had a crush on Naomi for years. She never returned his feelings but did have a soft spot for him. They bonded most when we were teens, and they both became more comfortable with talking about their bisexuality.

“She’s locked in.”

“Same guy?” he asked.

When I nodded, he groaned and fell back onto one of my pillows.

“They were roommates,” I reminded him. “He knits her cardigans and fixes stuff around the house for her. He built her a desk and has plans on building a custom display case for all her games and streamer gear.”

“Shit.” He sighed, placing his hands behind his head, and stared up at the glow in the dark stars on the roof. “That’s cute. And he plays hockey?”

I nodded. “He’s shy. And holds her hand whenever he gets anxious.”

Ellis sucked the back of his teeth. “I can’t compete with that.”

“You truly can’t, and I’m sorry.” I rubbed his shoulder. When I offered a fry this time, he accepted it.

“I’ll get over it…one day,” he said. “He’s on the team with Lincoln, right?”

“Yeah, do you know him? Because he said he knew you.” I watched my cousin’s face closely, trying to pick out the telltale signs of a crush.

He had been in as many relationships as I had, but something about the fantasy of it all really hooked him.

Ellis said he didn’t go past the first date because he didn’t have time.

Figure skating was an all-consuming sport.

But, still, there was something more to it.

“We’ve seen each other around,” he said with a one-shoulder shrug. “He’s cool. Sometimes hard to keep up with in conversation, but fun.”

I nodded, and a weird sense of relief blossomed in my chest. I credited it to the project.

If Ellis liked Lincoln and we all had to work together for the summer, things would inevitably start to get awkward.

I wondered if I should consider implementing a no-dating policy for the cast and crew until after the musical was over.

“Celeste?” Ellis' voice brought me back from outlining a no-fraternizing clause.

“What?”

“The music.” He gestured to my headphones. “Let me hear it?”

I tightened my grip on the headphones. “It’s not ready.”

“It never is,” he sang.

“You really need to start rehearsing,” I said deadpan. “You’re flat.”

He chuckled. “Shut up. I can’t rehearse without content.”

“You can rehearse with anything.”

“Come on, give them here. I’ll give you notes. We need to have this ready by next week. Halle wants to start practicing. It’s her first musical. You know the woman is a perfectionist.”

I took a deep breath and looked down at the MP3 file I’d been tweaking all day in my editing software. “Don’t laugh. It’s a demo.”

“I never laugh.”

My nose wrinkled at the blatant lie.

“I laughed one time.” He held up a finger. “But it was a good laugh. The kind of laugh you want from an audience.”

“It was a break-up ballad.”

“I happened to find break-ups funny, I’m sorry.”

I sighed, knowing I had to rip this band-aid off sooner or later. Besides, Ellis was the best person to share this with–despite his strange sense of humor. He'd known me since birth and had been familiar with music since birth.

I handed him the headphones. Once he had them in place and gave me a thumbs-up, I clicked play.

Ellis closed his eyes as he listened, trying to immerse himself and escape my nervous energy.

I chewed on my nail, watching the track play.

As soon as it finished, Ellis tugged the headphones off.

He kept his eyes closed. I covered my mouth, stomach turning as I considered maybe it was truly horrible.

A small part of me had some hope, but now, I had to consider it could be a delusion.

Holy crap. I’ve assembled a team of talented people to waste their summer feeding my delusion.

“It’s so good, I can’t believe it hasn't been made yet.” Ellis opened his eyes. “You know? Like you hear the song of the summer and don’t remember a time when it wasn’t on your go-to road trip playlist.”

I gasped. “Shut up.”

“See, I knew being your cousin would get me somewhere.”

“Shut up.” I fell back on the pillow next to him, laughing. “Ellis, are you for real?”

He was, because here’s the thing about my cousin: he loved poking holes in things.

He was the kind of person who would critique movies while watching and had notes on the decor of every room he entered.

He was ninety percent cold, brutal critique thanks to his unrelenting experience with a skating coach who barely let him breathe without commenting on the slightest finger out of place or unsteady landing.

“You could kill this.” He held up his pinky. “Like, blow it out of the park, if the rest of the music is like this.”

I squealed, so giddy I could barely breathe. I hooked my pinky around his. “This one’s the worst, El. I just finished fixing it.”

“Oh, shit.” Ellis laughed, eyes wide in awe. “That’s your worst? You’re going to kill this, Celeste.”

I smiled so hard I wanted to cry. Because he was being honest, and for the first time in forever, I felt ready.