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How long is too long to smile at a girl? Does the answer change if the girl is alive while he is six feet under and has been for over two decades?
Giving Julie the notebook paper that Bright was written in all those years ago—although it was only days for Luke—was the easiest thing in the world at the moment. Isn’t that kind of scary? Luke totally blames her wrecking ball voice, completely knocking him off his feet this morning. He’d rewritten some of it to take advantage of her higher range while she was at school, just in case she’d perform with him and his boys in her studio, but if he could get her back into her music program with this song…
It’d be cool, is all.
In times that I doubted myself,
I felt like I needed some help
Stuck in my head
with nothing left...
If Julie needs a little help, Luke is happy to give it.
Besides, Luke totally gets what Reggie meant when he said he could tell her dad had a good heart. When Julie passed through him, he felt her. They can’t touch, but Luke can see, hear, and feel people’s souls now that he’s dead. Seeing souls is kind of weird—it’s like another layer of reality, sort of like a fourth dimension that a ghost can turn on and off at will. All it takes is some intense focus and blinking, so it’s not too hard to figure out.
Being a ghost is easy; go figure.
It sort of reminds Luke of heat vision. Everything dulls out when soul vision is on, and everyone has their soul in the center of their chest. They’re all spherical and glow at a different brightness, not too dissimilar from a star. Luke is sure that indicates something, even if he has no idea what. Even ghosts have souls since their entire bodies burn bright when he looks at Reggie and Alex.
Based on that, ghosts are souls.
The point is passing through Julie was… profound. He understood her better than he understood anyone in that singular moment. Her fear, her anxiety, her longing. She isn’t afraid to sing, at least not for the reasons people think she is. She isn’t scared that she’s suddenly bad at it (because she clearly isn’t), or that her mom would be disappointed in her (Luke gets the impression disappointment in Julie is a feeling that Julie’s mom never experienced). What she’s scared of is way more simple and way more complicated all at once.
She’s afraid of it in two opposing directions: she’s afraid of it feeling different and of it feeling the same.
In that split second, Luke understood. Music was Julie and her mom’s thing, and now Julie has to do their thing alone. What if she still adores it? Does that make her selfish? What if it’s different in front of an audience, and she can’t do it, knowing her mom isn’t listening? Would she be disappointed? Would all the time and energy she’s poured into music be for naught, or would she be callous if she loved it just as much without her mother by her side?
Luke doesn’t think so, but they’re not his anxieties.
But he did his best to be gentle after he felt that, even if the immediately all-encompassing feeling of understanding faded. And in the end, it worked. Julie took the song. Even harmonized with him a little, and if that wasn’t the perfect appetizer...
God, he’s excited just thinking about it.
“Boys!” Luke exclaims, poofing into the studio where he’d left Reggie and Alex. “I’ve got epic news.”
“Did you figure out how to get us a puppy?” Reggie asks quickly, sitting up with an expectant gaze.
“No,” Luke frowns.
“Oh,” the bassist pouts, crossing his arms in disappointment.
Luke shakes out some jitters and bounces on his toes when he exclaims, “We’re getting Julie back in her music program!”
“We are?” Alex doesn’t look up from the magazine he’s perusing. “How? We’re dead.”
Luke rolls his eyes. “Not literally, you dork. I just mean that through the power of Sunset Curve, Julie is going to be fine. I guess I died with Bright in my pocket ‘cause I found it after our trip at the beach. And just now, I was with Julie—”
“You were?” Alex interrupts, closing the Cosmopolitan magazine in favor of leveling Luke with an unimpressed look. “Why?”
“I’m getting to that,” Luke rolls his eyes. “I was just telling her that she shouldn’t let something stupid like rules stop her from being in her music program. She clearly wants to be in it, badly, so why let rules stop her? She said she didn’t have anything prepared—and I totally get not wanting to sing Wake Up in front of all the people at her school—so I gave her Bright.”
The boys stare at him when his words sink in.
“What?” Luke asks.
Reggie shakes his head like he’s trying to get water out of his ears. “Sorry, dude, I thought I just heard you say you gave Julie a song.”
Luke frowns. “I did say that. I just said I gave her Bright.”
Alex and Reggie exchange a shocked expression. “Luke,” Alex says gently. “You… never give songs to girls.”
Oh.
Oh!
Luke lets out an amused puff of air. “Alex, Julie isn’t a girl. Well, she is, but this isn’t like that. She’s a person who needs a little help to get back in her music program is all. I’m not—hitting on her or something. That’d be creepy. We just met.”
Reggie looks like Christmas came early, but Luke focuses on Alex, who crosses his arms and mumbles, “Yeah, right, the we just met part is what would make you hitting on her creepy. Definitely not the you were born in 1978 or the you’re literally dead part.”
“Hey!” Luke protests. “There is nothing creepy about it because nothing is happening. Just because I think her voice is fuckin’ awesome—because it is—doesn’t mean I’m going to try to put the moves on her. Besides, she’s, like, good. She’d never like me, dude. I’m too punk rock.”
Alex snorts. “You’re not punk rock. You’re, like, grunge at best.”
“Yeah!” Reggie pipes up. “Out of the three of us, I’m the most punk rock,” he says, gesturing to his leather jacket.
“Words hurt, you know,” Luke says through a grin. The boys rehash this ‘argument’ out constantly.
“That’s not…” Alex trails off before shaking his head. “Okay. Luke, this is just kind of weird for you. You’re… really protective of your songs.”
Luke crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. “My music isn’t in danger with Julie, man. She’s a musician, so she totally gets it. Like I said, I’m helping her out! It’s all for music.”
Alex tuts in clear disbelief. “If you say so… and Julie was okay with it? You didn’t force the song on her, did you?”
Luke frowns. “No? I wasn’t like, you have to sing this or else! She said she didn’t have anything prepared, and I said I thought you’d say that and offered her the song. I totally get it. Wake Up is super personal. That’d be like me trying to perform Unsaid in front of a crowd, man. I technically could, but the vibes would be…”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Alex agrees, but he wrinkles his nose like saying the words made a lousy taste crawl up his mouth. Rude. Luke sticks his thumb in his mouth and wiggles it threateningly towards Alex’s ear, but the drummer dodges out of the way quickly. Luke jumps for Reggie instead, who fails to move in time but grabs Alex’s ankle when he goes down, causing all three boys to topple over in a pile of ghost limbs.
Of course, that’s when Julie enters the studio.
“What’s u—hey!” Julie exclaims, eyes wide as Luke successfully shoves his thumb in Alex’s ear. The drummer shoves his hand away as quickly as he can, giving Luke the dirtiest look he’s ever received. Ha.
“Hey Julie!” Reggie cheers from the bottom of the pile. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s been, like, three hours,” Alex mumbles.
“I can miss her after three minutes if I want to,” Reggie counters.
“Hi, Reggie,” Julie greets, clearly bemused. She walks over to the grand piano cautiously, a thin metal rectangle in her hands. Her gaze shifts over to Luke, and she says, “I transferred your notes onto music sheets, so you can have your paper back. Thanks again, by the way.”
She slides the folded paper over the piano, and Luke stands up from his assault, taking it gratefully.
“You could read Luke’s handwriting?” Alex asks. “Impressive.”
Luke elbows Alex harshly, but Julie raises an eyebrow. “His handwriting isn’t that bad, is it? It looks perfectly legible to me. It’s not calligraphy, but I’ve seen way worse crap written by high school boys.”
“You should see his songbook,” Reggie says. “When he gets in zone, I swear he starts writing in a different alphabet altogether.”
Huh, where is his songbook, actually? If all the boys’ equipment was up in the loft, is his songbook there, too? He’d love to shove the loose sheet of paper in there.
He’s about to ask Julie if she’s seen it when a white-purple light similar to what happens when they poof bursts over the grand piano. Luke grins at the sight of his songbook landing on the piano with a satisfying smack. A little older looking and a little torn, but definitely his. He flips through it quickly, grinning when it’s just as he left it. Get Lost, Long Weekend, Crooked Teeth, My Name is Luke, Late Last Night, and Unsaid Emily in their full glories, while Finally Free was his last unfinished project.
Perfect. Luke tucks Bright alongside her sisters, where she’ll be safe and sound.
“Woah,” Julie stares, wide-eyed, at the songbook in Luke’s hands. “What was that?”
“It was like the bass thing I did earlier!” Reggie says helpfully. “Our music is attached to our souls, so we have a real easy time summoning our instruments. That’s Luke’s songbook—definitely an extention of his soul.”
“Oh, cool,” Julie smiles. She sets her thin metal rectangle on the piano and… opens it. Woah. She types on it quickly, and—oh, shit, is that a computer?
“How’d they get them so small?” Luke asks, amazed.
“Oh my gosh,” Julie mutters. “You guys are so old. I keep forgetting. Yeah, it’s called a laptop. We’ve gotten technology pretty slim and slick in the last, uh, two decades.”
“Gnarly,” Reggie grins, poking at the corner. “Your internet’s not dial-up, is it?”
“Dial-up?” Julie tilts her head at the phrase. “I… don’t know what that is. So probably not?”
“Oh, God,” Alex holds his face in his hands. “We do sound old. We sound like our parents. I can’t sound like my parents.”
Julie rolls her eyes but turns her… ‘laptop’ around and gestures at the screen. “Like I said, I transferred Bright into sheet music so I’m going to practice it for a bit, just to make sure I’ve got it. You guys cool with that?”
Alex and Reggie nod silently, but Luke isn’t quiet. “Duh!” he exclaims. “Julie, hearing you rock those keys to one of our songs would be killer.”
The boys start playing finger football while Julie plunks away at the song, and if Luke strains his ear for Julie’s gentle humming when it’s his turn and he totally fucks up his flick, well.
It’s not his fault. Wrecking balls wreck; Luke is only human. Formerly human. Whatever.
As Julie’s fingers work their musical magic, Luke hears the lyrics in his head;
And rise
through the night
You and I,
we will fight to shine together,
bright forever!
Julie will be alright.
No way she won’t blow her teacher away. The only thing that could make it better is if Luke and the boys could perform the song with her, but they’re ghosts.
That obviously won’t work, but a guy can dream!