Watching Them Burn: My Rebirth Story novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Hum That Again

"No," I said.

"Just three notes."

"Dane, it's nine o'clock at night, and you have a girlfriend now."

"I don't." He swallowed. "She isn't. I haven't said that to her yet."

I kept my hand on the door.

Behind me, Bree sat up in bed and gasped out loud.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"You hummed at the fountain. And on Monday in class, when I gave you the letter."

"I hum when I'm nervous. It's a lullaby my grandmother used to sing."

"It's the same one."

"The same as what?"

"As Nightlight's," he said.

I did not move.

He leaned a little closer to the gap in the door.

His face was gray under the hall light.

"I've heard that song every night for two years, Darby. I've played it so many times I could pick it out of a thousand."

"Half the country knows that lullaby."

"It isn't the song," he said. "It's the way it goes down at the end, before it stops. Nobody does that. Only her."

My mouth had gone dry.

"Then ask Willa."

"I did."

"What did she say?"

"She laughed. She said she'd forgotten the tune." He stared at me. "She was in the room, Darby. She said it was her. And she couldn't hum a note of it."

For a second, the hall was silent.

"People forget things," I said. "Two years is a long time."

"Not that."

"What are you asking me?"

"I'm asking if you were ever on that server." His voice cracked. "Please. A swim forum. A late-night room. Any of it."

I had never used a swim forum.

I had never been near anyone's state final.

I was almost sure.

"No," I said.

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