That lightbulb of his #3
There’s an encrypted message from Kellan, the notification flashing in the corner of my screen.
It’s marked important, but not urgent. I don’t let myself think about how Keaton and Travis are less than an hour away from missing their check-in.
Or about how I’m almost out of search parameters and databases for Elliot before I have to take a darker approach to finding him.
I don’t think about work. I ignore the message. I open my music app.
“Well, everyone claims I have shitty taste in music. They’re wrong, obviously, but if you side with those traitors then you can lodge your formal complaints to me.
” Except he can’t, because he can’t talk.
Right. “Feel free to throw something at me. You won’t even hurt my feelings.
The softer the better, though. I should probably get some throw pillows, now that I think about it.
Do you think that’s why they call them throw pillows?
Surely not. That would be the weirdest thing.
I mean, what, the name for those is probably at least a few hundred years old?
Maybe? I don’t know. Did old-timey people have throw pillows?
I’m trying to think of, like, Downton Abbey or something and I can’t remember if they ever had them on their furniture. Bridgerton either.
“Wait, no, aren’t they always, like, cross-stitching in that show?
Maybe that’s how they make their pillows?
Anyway, the point is that these decorative pillows have been around for quite a while, but there’s no way they got named this because people threw them at each other.
I feel like decorum was too big of a deal back in those days.
No one was walking around doing pillow fights or whatever.
I mean, I don’t think they were. I guess I can’t say for sure.
It doesn’t matter. The point is, throw pillows are conveniently soft things for someone to throw at me, so I’ll have to buy some.
In the meantime, just make do with your surroundings.
If you don’t brain me with something too hard, I might even consider letting you make a song request.”
I look to the side to flash him a playful wink. His smile is gone, but there’s an imprint of it left behind. It doesn’t fade beneath the weight of my attention. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even look away.
I suddenly know a little of what he must feel like as every word in any language I know evaporates right out of my head.
Music.
Yes. Focus. Music.
I snap my attention back to the monitors.
“So, yeah, song requests if whatever you throw at me is soft enough. But only if your request isn’t awful.
Because there’s bad taste, and then there’s 21st-century country music, you know?
Except for the bluesy stuff. I’ll make a few select exceptions for some of that.
Or, god, disco. No disco, ever - apart from ABBA, of course.
If you support disco, then I might throw whatever you throw at me back at you.
Just kidding. Obviously. I won’t throw anything at you.
But I will refuse to play it. Vehemently.
We all have to draw the line somewhere, you know? And my line is disco.”
I scroll through my music app for a minute, a part of me aching to be able to flip through my record collection instead.
I miss the nights when I could unwind with a vinyl and a good bourbon.
There’s just something about the aesthetic that always did it for me, like I stepped out of my skin and settled into a version of myself that didn’t have to do anything but exist surrounded by music.
I feel like the adult I always pictured myself being on those nights.
Here, especially these past few days, I feel more and more like the little kid dropped into a world too bright, too open, too kind.
I wonder if Matt would like vinyls better, too.
If he’d enjoy rifling through my collection, feeling the worn sleeves beneath his fingertips until he finds the perfect album.
The perfect song. Something to soothe him, or to make him smile, or to make him cry.
Something to put words to the feelings inside of him.
I can’t give him that, not here, but I can give him the next best thing.
I fall back on my go-to playlist for when I need music more than I need air, full of the kind of songs that settle right in your soul.
I know the perfect song when I see it - three down from the top of the list. One of my favorites, sticking with me from that first night with Keaton when I heard it on the radio, the words having felt like they were meant just for me.
They can be meant for him, too, though. I’d love nothing more than for them to be meant for him too.
Just as Ben E. King starts to croon about not being afraid when the night comes, I see it out of the corner of my eye - Matt climbing over the arm of the couch and lowering himself into the hiding space.
I duck my head, hiding another smile.
For the first time in days, I don’t need the pills in my desk. Not for the anxiety attacks or the flashbacks. Not to stay awake.
For the first time in days, I remember what it’s like to feel safe.