Chapter 13 #2
The bar quiets. I find Sophie’s eyes across the room and hold them.
“I had it all figured out at five years old?—
Every goal, every play, every story foretold.
Built my life like a ladder, each rung in its place,
Never stopped to ask why I was climbing like it’s a race.
But certainty’s just fear dressed in its Sunday best,
And plans are just cages we build in our chest.
So I’m learning that watercolors bleed past the lines,
That pottery wheels spin truth better than time.
I’m learning that poems don’t need perfect rhyme,
That falling apart might be falling in line?—
That the best map to follow might be no map at all,
And the bravest thing sometimes
Is just learning to fall.
And maybe that’s why,
And when, we learn how to fly.”
Silence hangs for a heartbeat before applause breaks out—genuine, warm, surprising. But I only care about one person’s reaction. Sophie’s clapping, but it’s her expression that stops my breath. There’s something raw there, quickly hidden behind her smile, but I caught it.
Like I accidentally said something that mattered.
I hand the mic back to Purple Hair and navigate through back-slaps and “nice job, mans” to our table. My legs feel shaky, like they do after a brutal overtime shift. Sophie watches me approach with an expression I can’t decode, but I dearly want to.
“That was—” she starts.
“Terrible? Embarrassing?” I grin, trying to make light of it. “Grounds for exile from New Jersey?”
“I was going to say brave.” Her voice is quiet, serious. “Also maybe a little terrible. But mostly brave.”
“Brave is just another word for too stupid to know better.” I collapse into my chair, adrenaline still buzzing through my veins.
“Hey.” She waits until I look at her. “I mean it. That was… you just got up there and were completely yourself. Do you know how hard that is for most people?”
The sincerity in her voice threatens to undo something in me. I force lightness into my tone. “Yeah, well. Your turn next?”
“God, no.” The serious moment breaks as she laughs. “I strategically signed up for slot fifteen. Maximum drunk audience, minimum retained memory.”
“So I get the stone-cold sober audience?” I flag down a server. “Two shots of tequila, please.”
“Trying to get me drunk, Altman?”
The way she says it—low, amused, with just a hint of challenge—sends heat straight through me. “Just leveling the playing field.”
“Mmm.” She accepts the shot when it arrives, our fingers brushing during the handoff. The contact burns more than the alcohol will. “To public humiliation.”
“To friends who sign you up for things against your will.”
We clink glasses and drink. The tequila sears down my throat, but I’m watching her—the way her nose scrunches slightly at the burn, how she immediately reaches for the lime.
“God, that’s awful,” she gasps. “Why do people drink this voluntarily?”
“Character building.”
The next performer takes the stage—a guy with a ukulele and no shoes on and the soulful expression of someone about to make everyone deeply uncomfortable.
“I’m putting down twenty bucks that says he rhymes ‘heart’ with ‘apart’ in the first verse,” I whisper.
“You’re on.”
She shifts slightly, and suddenly our knees are touching under the table. The contact jolts through me like stepping on a live wire. I wait for her to move away. She doesn’t.
Ukulele Guy strums his opening chord, and within thirty seconds has mentioned both a broken heart torn apart and a beach at sunset. But I barely hear him.
All my attention has narrowed to that point of contact—the warm pressure of her knee against mine, how she’s leaning slightly toward me now, close enough that I can smell her shampoo mixing with the bar’s chaos.
“We’re terrible people,” she murmurs. Her breath ghosts across my ear, raising goosebumps down my neck.
“The worst,” I agree, voice rougher than intended. “Good thing we found each other.”
“Yeah.” The word is barely a whisper. “Good thing.”
I turn slightly, and suddenly we’re too close. Close enough to see the faint scar above her eyebrow, to count individual lashes, to do something monumentally stupid if I don’t?—
“Two more shots!” The server appears like a cold shower, setting down tequila I don’t remember ordering.
Sophie pulls back slightly, color high in her cheeks. But under the table, her leg presses more firmly against mine. A secret. A promise. A spectacularly bad idea that I’m powerless to resist.
“To terrible musicians,” she says, lifting her glass with a slightly shaky hand.
“To friends,” I counter, loading the word with everything we’re not saying.
We drink, and the night stretches ahead of us—full of possibility, guaranteed regret, and at least thirteen more terrible poets to endure. But she’s here, warm and real beside me, laughing at my stupid jokes and looking at me like maybe?—
No. I shut down that train of thought. Tonight, I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give. Because, right now, Sophie’s here, pressed against me in this small, electric way.
And, for now, that’s everything.