Begin Again(37)

I close my eyes. Not out of any kind of sadness, but appreciation. I’d been so fixated on keeping this part of me tucked away that it didn’t occur to me Shay would figure it out on her own. That instead of shying away from it like so many of my friends did growing up, she would quietly keep it to herself until the time was right to talk about it.

“Yeah,” I say, trying not to let myself get overwhelmed by the surge of gratitude, of strange relief. “But it’s not just that. I really do love answering the listener emails and spending time with you and Milo. It’s the best part of my day.”

Shay reaches out and puts her hand over mine, squeezing it for a moment before she lets it go. “Well, that’s fucked up, because I wouldn’t wish this sleep schedule on anyone.” I let out a sharp laugh, and she adds, “We like having you here, too. And it seems to me like this whole thing is kind of in your blood.”

“That’s just it.” I’m not looking at her, but the mic. “I feel like . . . like if I did badly, I’d be letting her down.”

Shay’s mouth twists to the side. “Your mom was what, eighteen when she started this? You really think she was perfect?”

It’s not that I expect that she was perfect. It’s that I used to be—or at least, my little-kid self thought I was. It used to come so easily, so thoughtlessly, and even if I try again, it will never be like it once was. I will never again be that guileless kid with the mic, the one who made my mom smile.

“Maybe . . . maybe some other time Milo’s out for the count.” My voice sounds pathetic even in my own ears, but it doesn’t change the facts. “When I’ve had some time to think about it.”

“Or overthink about it,” says Shay.

But she holds my gaze for a moment and relents with a sigh. I feel that light-headed swoosh of post-adrenaline and expect the relief to soften it, but the feeling is heavier than that, mingled with a strange disappointment.

“Fine,” she says. “But you have to sit next to me with the notes, so you can point out anything I’m missing.”

I push past it, hopping to attention. Shay positions herself at the mic. I position myself right next to her, scanning the notes so intensely that within thirty seconds I’ve managed to tattoo them to the insides of my brain. “Construct on Main 2–6, ribbon LA building 5, talent show signups @ portal . . .”

“Okay,” I say to myself, soaking it all in. “Okay.”

“Okay?” says Shay, holding the music stand with the notes on it closer to me.

I nod. “I got it.”

“Good,” she says. Then she inexplicably slides off her chair, and pushes the mic toward my mouth. “You’re live in five . . . four . . .”

I reach out to grab her arm, but she’s already out of reach. “Shay.”

She taps the record button to show me she is extremely not messing around, and mouths the words, Three . . . two . . . one.

A few seconds of dead air follow. Me with my mouth wide open, Shay with her eyes possibly even wider, the two of us locked in a game of chicken that may or may not end with me tossing my literal cookies (Ellie shared a massive box of Oreos with us last night) into the mic.

I suck in a breath. And then I say, “Hi.”

Shay scowls and mouths back, Hi?

I shrug, my shoulders jerking up so fast it’s a miracle they don’t knock off my ears. Shay points at the mic. I take a breath, but it gets stuck halfway up my throat.

“Um, hello. Friday.”

I wince, looking over at Shay, certain she’ll bail me out. This is the point where someone steps in—a teacher pulls me offstage. Another student steps in to grab my dropped line. And Connor tells me it’s okay, that we all have different strengths and I am lucky to have so many others in the first place.

But Shay doesn’t do any of those things. Instead she looks me right in my semi-hysterical eyes and makes a “go on” gesture.

“What I mean is—it is Friday. Today. So . . . good for us.”

Yikes. I look at the notes that I helped Shay compile mere minutes ago and they look like they’re written in hieroglyphics. At some point I must have started to sweat, because I can feel it itching at my armpits and my brow. Right along with the familiar churn in my gut.

I put my hand over the mic and mouth the words, I can’t do this.

“You’re already doing it!” she whispers back, with this unyielding, no-nonsense look that has some real Grandma Maeve energy to it. “Keep going. Anything other than dead air.”

Dead air. I remember my mom explaining to me what that meant. When she’d first gotten sick, they hired a temporary host for the radio station while she was in and out of chemo—“There’s enough dead air in his broadcasts to put people to sleep,” she’d complained. And when I innocently asked if that meant there was alive air, she’d laughed harder than she had that whole week.

I smile thinking about it. Thinking about her eyes gleaming back at me in the studio the days she brought me in for quick segments, the two of us like twin flames in the little booth. Thinking about a time when this wouldn’t have seemed like a nightmare, but an opportunity. A beginning.

My shoulders loosen and my lungs fill up with the cool air of the studio.

“Well, in case my voice being a full octave higher didn’t give it away, I’m not the Knight,” I say, scooting my butt farther into the stool to get my mouth closer to the mic. “I’m . . . I’m the, uh . . . Squire.”