“I like your job, Jesse Scott!”

Crash Into Me

We take off on Jesse’s bike to escape the horse cop and then drive at, like, seventy miles an hour down back roads in Brentwood until we lose the paparazzi. When he pulls over to the side of the road so we can regroup, we’re both out of breath when we take off our helmets.

“I don’t think we can go back to my house,” he says. “I bet my uncle and Mark will be waiting there.”

“That sucks. I was really looking forward to playing your double-neck Fender Strat.”

He scratches the back of his neck. For a second, I expect him to say the polite thing—that maybe I can play his guitar another time. But then I remember who I’m talking to. Somehow over the course of the afternoon, Jesse Scott started feeling like a regular ole guy. But he’s not.

It’s only three o’clock. The schedule said shadow day is over at three-thirty, but I’m not ready to leave my new friend yet. Is that what we are? Friends? I would like that, but how can I make it happen?

“What do you want to do now?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“Let’s just drive,” I tell him.

As he zooms down country roads, my heart finally begins to slow. Did I really just run from a cop? I laugh at the idea, vibrations filling my chest. Jesse must feel it, my happiness, because his back relaxes against my front. I hold on tight as he dips around curves and flies over hills. He slides to a stop at a small gravel path leading into some woods. We’re way out in the country.

After exchanging his helmet for his cowboy hat, he takes my elbow and leads me up the gravel path into the woods. Birds chirp and sing, and I can’t hear anything man-made. No traffic, no tractors, no talking. It’s just us.

The gravel turns into a dirt path, which winds through the dense green trees. We walk for about five minutes until the path empties us in front of a sparkling lake. It’s tiny—not anywhere as big as Normandy Lake—but it’s a beautiful blue.

“Where are we?”

“My pa—my great-grandfather—used to bring me here as a kid. It’s his fishing hole. It was our secret.”

“And you brought me here?” I whisper.

Avoiding my stare, he adjusts his hat. “You said to just drive…and this is where I ended up. It felt right.”

I gaze out at the calm, blue water. “Do you come here a lot?”

“When I need to be alone, yeah. I write a lot of my songs here. I feel closer to my pa, you know?”

“So you were really close?”

He nods sadly. “He taught me to play guitar. He always encouraged me, but he never got to see me make it big. He had a bad hip, see, and one day…one day, he fell down the stairs, hit his head, and didn’t wake up.”

I touch Jesse’s elbow. “You must miss him, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jesse’s voice sounds raw with emotion. “To be honest, I’ve kinda felt alone ever since he died.”

“I get that. I’ve never really felt like I truly belong…with my choir, and now my band, and even my family.”

“Nothing wrong with being a solo artist,” he says with a small smile.

If there’s anything I’ve learned today, aside from the amazing lesson from Jesse and Holly, it’s that singing by myself is not as scary as before. I stayed calm when I sang for him, and my voice didn’t crack. Maybe one day, I could try a solo on my own again. I do prefer being part of a band though, where I don’t have to carry all the weight all the time.

Seeing Jesse all on his own and lonely, I can’t help but wonder if being a big star would be easier for him if he was part of a group. If he were part of something larger than himself.

“This seems like a good place to write,” I tell Jesse. “I usually write on our back patio.”

“You write too?”

“Uh, well, I write, but I don’t write well.”

“You got any of your stuff?”

Crap. I didn’t expect he’d actually want to read it. With a trembling hand, I reach into my purse and pull out my tiny Moleskine journal, the black one with gold trim that my brother gave me for Christmas. The small songbook is too pretty for my crappy songs, but I love writing in it. It makes me feel special, like the music I put in the notebook is important.

Jesse sits on the grass, takes his boots and socks off, and rolls up his jeans to dip his feet in the water. As he opens my tiny songbook, I skim my fingers across the lake’s surface. It’s cold but not freezing, so I copy Jesse and take off my booties. It reminds me of how we jumped in that fountain a little while ago. But this lake is quiet and intimate, and what we did at the playground feels like a million years ago.