Chapter 21: Open Mic

I did not chase her.

I wanted to, so badly that I walked to the door twice and put my forehead against the wood.

But she had asked for room, and for once in my life the right thing was to give it.

At five o'clock Roz called.

"Where are you?" she said.

"Her loft."

"Why are you whispering?"

"Because there's an echo," I said, and then I told her everything.

There was a long silence on the line, and then a long, low whistle.

"Okay," Roz said. "First, you're an idiot. Second, I love you. Third, you have a slot tonight."

"A what?"

"The songwriters' open mic at the little listening room off Hillsboro. You signed up three weeks ago.

You told me it was the anniversary of your first song."

I had.

I'd forgotten entirely.

"I can't go sing," I said. "She's gone. My whole life is on fire."

"That's exactly when you sing," Roz said. "It's the only thing you're good at when you're sad.

Go. I'll be there with the bass if you want it."

The room held eighty people and smelled like old wood and coffee.

There was a stool, a microphone, and a brick wall with a hundred years of signatures on it.

Roz sat in the front row with her bass across her knees.

I shook my head at her and took the guitar alone.

"I'm Callie Crowell," I said to the room. "I sing at weddings. I'm going to do one I wrote at nineteen."

A few people clapped.

I began the verse.

It's a plain song, about a girl who sees someone across a room and knows she can't have her.

I sang it softly at first.

Then I came to the empty space in the middle, the four beats where I'd always left room for another voice.

I stopped.

Nobody answered, of course.

The room sat in the quiet with me.

I let it stay quiet for the length of one breath, and then I sang the next verse without her.

I had never sung it alone before.

It sounded like what it was, which was a woman telling the truth into a microphone because nobody had been brave enough to answer.

When I got to the last line, my voice cracked, and I didn't try to hide it.

I finished, and the room was silent for a second.

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