Chapter 1
Dahlia
Seven years old
Mama fixed my pigtails, and I put on my red dress, smoothing the silky fabric with my fingers.
Today had to be perfect. Carter and I were doing our first real concert in the backyard.
We had practiced three songs—Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and Dolly Parton.
The beating of my heart was weird, not calm and steady as it usually was.
“Mama, can my heart run away from my chest?”
“No, baby. Don’t worry, you’ll do great out there. Stress can be good. It happens to all your favorite country music idols too.” Mama kneeled in front of me and pulled me into a hug.
“Even Johnny?”
“Even Johnny, baby. It’s okay to be scared. To be excited. Or both.”
What was Mama even talking about? Since when was being afraid okay? Darkness, spiders, snakes. There was nothing fun about being scared of something.
Mama was wrong, like super wrong.
My heart raced, and a strong pinch hit my stomach every few minutes. With my eyes closed, I took a big whiff of Mama’s perfume. Vanilla. I loved that smell. It always made everything better. Like the way I wrapped myself in one of Mama’s sweaters when I was sick, sad, or tired.
Mama dropped a kiss on my forehead and got up. “I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready.”
At the doorway of my bedroom, she spun around and looked at me with her big blue-green eyes, bluer than mine, her red hair knotted at the back of her head. “You’ll do great, baby. I believe in you.”
My heart hiccupped inside my ribcage.
“Carter’s heart is in the right place. You two will be amazing together,” Mama said.
Why did she always tell me that? Wasn’t everyone’s heart in their chest? Or had I been wrong all along? I prayed mine was in the right place too.
With both hands, I cupped it to make sure and breathed out. Yes, my heart was where it should be. My hands stayed glued to my ribcage, feeling the flutter inside, not willing to risk it escaping.
“Are you ready, Dah?” Carter asked as he walked into my bedroom. I spun a half-turn to greet him. A blush crept onto his cheeks at my sight. “Wow, you look pretty. Now I know why you insisted on wearing your red dress. It’s like your hair is on fire.”
I twirled to show off my new dress, my copper pigtails flying at my sides.
My best friend stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dark-blue jeans, the ones he called his lucky pants.
He only ever wore jeans. Winter, summer, weekdays, weekends.
It suited him...in a way. Carter Hills had been my best friend forever.
Like we were the best of friends in the whole world.
I knew a secret about him…something I had never revealed to him.
Sometimes, he slept with his guitar in his bed, as if he considered it his friend too.
I snickered just thinking about it. Carter didn’t know I had caught him the other morning with his arm wrapped around his guitar neck.
I would never tell anybody, though. His secret was safe with me.
“Is your heart banging loud inside your chest?” I asked him as I turned around to look through my bedroom window.
From here, I could see all eight people sitting on white garden chairs, facing the wooden stage Daddy had built for us—the one I’d insisted he paint purple, my favorite color.
They were all there. My parents, Carter’s parents, his older brother, Jeff, Addison—my other best friend—her twin brother Phoenix, and my nana.
“It did earlier. Not anymore. Because we’re doing this together.
” Carter came to stand next to me and quietly laced his fingers through mine.
When I risked a look at him, a giant smile broke free on his face.
“It’s okay, Dah. I’m here. We can do this.
Just follow my lead, and I’ll take care of everything. ”
My shoulders didn’t feel so heavy now. I knew Carter was telling the truth. He would never let anything bad happen to me. Other than my parents and my nana, Carter Hills was my most favoritest person in the entire world. I trusted him with everything.
When I was six, I was scared to swim in the big kids’ pool at the sports center. Carter taught me how to hold my breath and swim with my head underwater.
And once, he carried me, piggyback, because I’d fallen from the swing at the park and skinned my knee. He had even dried my tears with the hem of his T-shirt that day and let me borrow Toby, his favorite stuffed monkey, for a week afterward.
I turned sideways to face him and bobbed my head—just like the discolored frog that Daddy had on his car dash—and returned his smile.
Carter’s eyes sparkled. “Let’s go then.” Right now—and most days—he looked as if he had just woken up with the wind in his hair, which I thought was funny.
My fingers itched to brush the strands away from his forehead, but we didn’t have time. People were expecting us in the backyard.
I grabbed my guitar from the little stand in the corner of my bedroom.
Last year, Daddy and I had painted my room walls purple, and they looked charming.
Everything else was white. The comforter, the curtains, the small square rug, the dresser, and the fluffy chair by the window. Mama called it my Princess Kingdom.
One day, after school, when we were busy doing our homework, Carter had said with a shrug, sitting cross-legged on my bed, “Dah, you should design beautiful things when you grow up. You always make boring and ugly things pretty.”
I liked the idea. Anything could be made beautiful with a little help. Even that chair my nana loved so much. We had painted it pink and added a white satin cushion, and it turned out to be charming. Charming was my nana’s way of saying amazing.
Carter grabbed the guitar from my grip, and with his left hand still grasping mine, we made it to the backyard. The warmth of his touch helped keep my heart from doing gymnastics inside my chest.
Daddy, with a huge grin splitting his face, set two folding chairs angled toward each other on the stage and placed a single microphone on a stand in front of us.
Mama had hung garden lights above the wooden platform, and Jeff had helped with the setup.
Carter’s brother was almost ten, so he was a lot stronger than Carter and me.
He always volunteered to help us out. Jeff was Carter’s other best friend.
Nobody talked when we sat. Was I supposed to hear my own breaths?
I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over my red dress.
Birds chirped in the trees, and the sound of a lawnmower across the street broke the silence.
I opened my eyes when I felt gazes on me.
Everyone was staring at us. My mouth went dry, and somehow it felt like my throat had closed.
With clammy hands, I strangled my instrument.
Carter placed his palm on my thigh, and as if he’d spread magic through me, I relaxed my grip around my guitar. “Don’t look at them, Dah. Look at me. I’m right here.” A wide smile brightened his face. Carter loved to perform.
The sound of his voice gave me goose bumps, and I anchored my attention to his face. The gray irises—the same color as the sky before a storm. Tousled dark hair—he never took the time to comb. His beautiful face—the one that always calmed me down. Carter was my safe place in choppy times.
I pinched my lips together, drew in a deep breath, and without a word, I nodded.
I could do this. We’d rehearsed those three songs at least twenty times.
Jeff had heard us play one night and told us we were pretty great.
He was older and knew more about life than us.
If he’d said so, then maybe we really were pretty great.
I surveyed the small crowd.
Jeff looked directly at me and gave me a small smile and a thumbs-up.
I inhaled through my nose, like my nana had taught me to do when my heart beat too fast, and rolled my shoulders back.
Carter struck the first chord, and my throat relaxed. Yes, I can do this, I told myself as the first words left my mouth.
My focus stayed on Carter the entire time my fingers strummed the guitar. A permanent smile seemed etched onto his lips as he sang with me all three songs.
Jeff was right. We were pretty great.