"Good. Remember you're never alone, Mia told. "I've got you, Mr. Thompson, and that oak tree as well."
The weight on my chest eased slightly and I chuckled. "Yeah, our silent sentinel. "They've seen all our secrets and dreams.'"
Mia tapped her finger on her lips, looking as if she was considering with a wink. "Or maybe it's super judgmental and just really good at making it."
I shot back, "Or maybe it's just good at keeping secrets." A genuine smile broke free.
Mia lifted her hands defensively. Lils, but really, let's make a pact. Remember, if you do audition, I'll cheerlead you, be your soundboard, and I'll act like your personal lighting technician if it gets that bad," she swore, performing a dramatic flourish as if taking aim at some invisible spotlights.
The sound bubbled up from the depths of my cautious heart, I laughed. "Deal. And you know I will hold you to that, right?"
Mia nodded emphatically, 'absolutely.' "We'll have an epic preparation… take your story at some point."
"Wouldn't that be something? I half seriously thought, 'Maybe then Caleb and Alicia would stop taunting me.'
Her expression changed; her tone became more resolute. "Forget them. If they see your true colors, then their words won't matter. "Your story, on your terms, is that your story will be, and it will be unforgettable."
A steady drumbeat of her belief tamed the chaos of my inner chaos. "All I need is to get up the courage to allow my voice to be heard."
"I know the courage is there," she whispered over my shoulder, "it's just trapped under layers and layers of doubt." We'll uncover it together."
An unseen wind carried a leaf, just as thoughts flitted through my head. What if no one understands? And what if... And what if I put everything in there and it's still not enough?"
I got a reassuring smile from Mia. It's not about meeting expectations; it's about creating a connection. Your song will be heard by someone out there who will feel understood. And if you've made a difference for only one person, you've done your job."
Her unwavering support coaxed an unwavering hope into life. "You'll be there?"
"Every note, every chord." There was a promise unspoken in her voice. "With pom-poms if necessary."
The silence was serene and full around us. The park hummed its humdrum, but it hummed the same; it grounded me to where I wasn't. "Thanks, Mia."
She folded herself onto the bench, leaned back as if it were a throne. "No thanks needed. Just keep being you, Lily. "We could use a little more of your music in the world."
In the light fading now, the oak tree stood strong and true, a friend of the heart and not the head, and proof of beat heart done beating under the branches.
"Don't worry about what could go wrong, Mia said, 'imagine how amazing it'll be when they announce your name.' "
Her words cast an anchor in my turbulent sea, guiding me toward the truth unspoken: I must have believed that perhaps, despite everything, I was capable of making waves.
I said softly, 'okay' and it made it past the blockade of doubt. To letting the music, speak.
Mia said, "Finally, you step into your spotlight.'"
I believed it to be true for a moment, sitting on the edge of uncertainty. It was still there, the fear, but with my friend's hand grasped between mine, it felt somehow more manageable. I pulled out my guitar, close, bringing notes to a tapestry of courage, of truth.
* * * *
The leaves above were skittered with swirls of sunshine, dappling the ground where Mia and I sat. The lingering scent of honeysuckle wrapped around us like a comforting shawl. My fingers twitched restlessly beside me, wanting to pluck the strings of my guitar, but afraid.
"Mia, I just… I couldn't do this, I murmured, pulling at the grass around me as if I could anchor myself to the earth rather than float away with the edge of anxious thoughts.
The sun caught the spark in Mia's eyes, and she glanced sideways. "Lily, I've heard you play. It's your music; it's like telling a story, like giving everyone a piece of you."
"That's just it. But what if they don't like that piece?" All the times we'd had this conversation, the words slipped through with less resistance. As comforting as the old oak, we sat under, but still like pulling ice from a wound.
Mia said not unkindly, 'You always do this.' Her warmth was tinged with slight fury. More than anyone ever could, you doubt yourself."
I admitted, "It's hard to forget what people have said." "Trip and play at the same time, that'd be hilarious!" I said, and the way Alicia had sneered, "A limp's not exactly what you need to keep a beat."
"I'm saying but it's your own voice, your own music, people will hear in that competition," Mia had said, leaning forward now, her tone becoming soothing. Around her face her hair fell in spirals.
The air was still, waiting for some sliver of courage to pierce its surface. "What if I'm not... enough?" I kept looking at the worn rust-colored shoes that I had worn through so many uncertain steps.
Mia tossed back her head and closed her eyes, as if getting strength from the dying sun. "You always have been, Lily. Or maybe you just haven't heard it from the people that you needed to hear it from yet."
The clearing was quiet; the only sound was the rustle of leaves between us. My guitar sat there, looking back at me, almost afraid to touch it as if it were going to recoil from my hesitance.
"Remember the spring recital?" Mia nudged, a little teasingly.
I said, "That was different," and my lips tugged weakly at a smile, remembering how she'd dragged me onto the stage, and I'd felt my heart thumping like the bass drum of a familiar tune.
You played because you wanted to." In every note you struck felt it. That's when you shine, Lily." Her words swam around my head, their tips brushing against truths I didn't want to acknowledge.
A gust of wind ruffled my resolve, and I sighed. "But this? It's not the same, Mia. 'Everyone is watching. Everyone is judging. Up there.'"
"Music's about connecting not about what anyone thinks," she fired back. "If you can reach one person, wouldn't that be worth it?"
Every beat of my rebellious heart hammered bliss with a vein of conviction through her words. I held on her gaze, fierce and steady, nothing like my own faltering courage.
The pause stretched long enough for shadows to start their leisurely creep around us.
Mia could hear her breathing; the quiet period was broken by her words; 'We all have our insecurities.' Her voice dropped another layer down, to that place between us that was honest. "Of course, you always think I'm the confident one, and I project that well, but... there are days when this body of mine feels like an ill-fitting costume."
Taken (as I was) aback by the vulnerability inherent in her voice, I blinked. "Mia, really? I... I had no idea."
A glimmer of sadness played at the edge of her smile, and she shrugged. "You learn to cope. There are some days you're fine, some days you're not." She looked at something far away, like into an unfamiliar mirror. "I remember you saying it once, when we play a note, it's like learning to walk all over again."
The corner of my lips twitched with a faint smile. "I said that?"
That music has every part of you in it, flaws and all. But those are the same flaws that feed it, make it something real." She looked at me with more steel than spring in her gaze. "What if you let that be your strength?"
The air was crisp after the afternoon, and I slowly exhaled my breath. "Write my own song... "It might turn into something," I guess.
Across the space between us, Mia squeezed my hand. "I'd be in the first row, cheering the loudest."
"I'm even going to trip getting on stage?" My mouth lifted into a tentative grin.
"Especially then." Her laugh unfurled in the space between us and the light grew in that same space as the first rays of dawn driving out the night. In fact, it's not about being perfect anyway. It's about being you."
I traced the edge of a leaf, the veins of it delicate beneath my fingers, just as the thought of stepping onto that stage. "I really think I could make something... worthwhile with this?" It dared to whisper, my voice quieter than a whisper, hardly daring to reach her.
Mia's voice softened but there was a determined viciousness behind her words. It all builds into your story, every tear, every stumble, every damn step you take. Think about how many people are out there feeling exactly the same? "They aren't good enough, they don't belong, right?"
Her words had lit a spark in me I didn't even know I had. I began to pick up my guitar and run my fingers across the strings, resisting, promising sound.
'Yeah, I do,' I said, a brave flower after winter letting out its first daring bloom.
"Then do it your way, Lily. 'They should see who plays when those strings sing.'" Mia was the steady voice in the chorus of my doubts connecting fear and action.
I started idly picking a few notes. Nothing complex, no, just bones of something that would make a melody. The sound resonated; the sound filled the air with potential for creation yet the emptiness of insecurity.
Her smile one of quiet success, Mia leaned back against our oak. "See? There it is. Your own beginning of your own harmony."
An undercurrent of raw, unrefined notes, croaked out of my fingers, but real, much like the feel of my own journey. Perhaps this song may do more than just contain my fear; it may change it—reveal it as nothing more than part of the song, not all that there was.
The sun sank a little lower, making long shadows, fingers stretching out to draw us toward what was next. Sitting here, however, the fear was a little furthers away, the future a little less frightening.
"Together then?" One last nudge Mia asked, her words a promise as the prospect gave to twilight. "Step by step?"
"Step by step," I agreed, strumming the beginnings of a hopeful song with my fingers, hoping that each note would count as gratitude for her rock-solid friendship.
I played my music at that low volume, and Mia hummed along, both of us wrapped in the soft biotic symphony of the world until dusk settled in, and we stayed like that. Here we wove threads of courage and melody together, smaller than a single thread could weave over the distance, into our small haven, through Harmony Grove and our guarding whispers, guarding dreams, and the stories left to tell.