Hear You Me

Joel David,

This letter is going to be about one of your talents…yes, I said talents. You do have more than one, you know. Stop questioning why I’m being nice. I can be nice sometimes. Seriously, I can be. Stop disagreeing! You’re such a jerk. Sometimes I wonder why I spent so many years with you. I’m just kidding. You can be a huge pain in the butt sometimes but your good definitely outweighs your bad.

Anyway, back to the talent of yours I want to talk about in this letter…your voice. Joel you have one of the best and purest voices I have ever heard. I loved those nights when you would sing me to sleep over the telephone. I’m not bringing up your voice though to reminisce. I’m bringing it up because you need to share it with the world. I bet you haven’t recorded anything with This Century since my death. Have you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Joel, you owe it to yourself and the rest of the guys to not give up on your dream. Remember how you guys were talking about starting to work on your first full-length CD before I died? Go. Do it. Call up Sean, Alex and Ryan and write some songs. Then go to the studio to record your CD. All four of you have talents that deserve to be shared with the world. Plus you know how writing songs helps you in tough situations. I can’t wait to hear your CD.

All my love,
Holland

Joel took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair as he set Holland’s latest letter down. She was right – he hadn’t touched his guitar or his lyric notebook since her funeral. She loved his voice and would beg him to sing to her constantly. Singing and playing guitar brought back all those painful memories but he missed music. He also knew that he was letting three of his best friends down by avoiding music and the band.

Joel grabbed the phone before he could change his mind and dialed Sean’s number.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Sean asked as he answered the phone.

“Not much. Are you and Alex busy right now?”

“No. Well unless you count playing video game as busy. Why?”

“I…uhh…I want to get together and start writing some songs again.”

Sean was quiet for a few seconds and Joel knew he was thinking how best to handle the situation. The guys were anxious to start their music again but they didn’t want to force Joel to or make him do it before he was ready.

“Don’t worry, Sean. I’m ready to start playing again. It will be good for me,” Joel reassured him.

“Ok, great. Alex and Ryan will be really excited. I’ll give Ryan a call and we’ll head over soon. I’m really glad you’re ready to get started again Joel.”

“Thanks man. Me too.”

Joel hung up before running to his room to dig out his guitar and notebook. He sat down and tried to think of some things before the guys came over but it was harder than he thought it would be. No words were coming to him so he set his notebook down and picked up his guitar instead. Playing guitar was hard too. His once nimble fingers felt big and clumsy, as if his body had forgotten how to play. Joel was about to give up and tell the guys to forget it but he knew he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to disappoint Holland or, even worse, himself. At that thought Joel stopped. He used to be more worried about disappointing Holland. He was worried that the fact he was more worried about disappointing himself showed that Holland was slowly becoming less important to him; and that thought scared him.

The guys finally made it to Joel’s house, not even bothering to knock before walking through the door. They looked around at the crumpled papers lying on the ground and the frustrated look on Joel’s face.

“Writer’s block?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Joel grumbled.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not going to come back right away,” Alex reassured him.

“Writing isn’t the hard part; it’s what I’m writing. Everything is sad and depressing. I want to write about Holland’s death but I don’t want to make the CD depressing.”

“Maybe you need to approach it differently,” Sean suggested. “Write about your memories of Holland or how you got through her death.”

“Yeah, you could right about how it was hard at first but you’ve been working through it,” Ryan said.

“Ryan’s right,” Alex agreed. “For the first few weeks you were pretty much useless.”

“That’s it!” Joel exclaimed as he furiously began writing.

The three boys sat and didn’t say anything as they watched Joel put his thoughts on paper. Fifteen minutes later he smiled and handed them the lyrics. All three gathered around to read them before Sean looked up.

“These are good.” He said as he reached for his guitar and started strumming. Ryan listened for a few seconds before grabbing his drumming box and began drumming a beat. Alex picked up his bass and joined in. Joel sat there with a smile on his face before picking up his guitar and then he began singing.

The boys messed with the song a little bit but soon got it how they wanted. Alex, Sean, and Ryan left a few hours later but by that point the boys had two songs finished and one more started. Joel felt the happiest and most content he’d felt in a while. He instantly reached for his phone because he knew there was one person he needed to share his breakthrough with.

“Hello.” Delilah answered as she picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, guess what I just did?” Joel asked.

“Did you finally come out of the closet? Joel, I’m so happy for you.” Delilah joked.

Joel rolled his eyes. “No, I’m still straight. Anyway, the guys just came over and we wrote two new songs.”

“Joel, that’s great! You haven’t done anything with music since the funeral. I’m glad you started writing songs again.”

“Thanks Lila. It was hard at first but then it felt right.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Seriously, are you 12?”

Delilah laughed. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. It was the perfect opportunity.”

“It was a pretty good one,” Joel agreed as he chuckled.

“Back to serious mode though. I really am happy for you. I was worried you’d abandon music.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that. So, are you busy? I was going to order Chinese and didn’t know if you’d want to join.”

“I would but I’m actually at the pizza place with Hunter right now,” Delilah said.

“Oh,” Joel said as he felt an odd sinking feeling in his stomach. “Well I’ll just have to take a rain check.”

“Sorry,” Delilah softly said.

“Don’t worry about it. It was rude of me to assume that you didn’t have plans.”

“I’ll come over tomorrow or something, ok? Once again, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.” Delilah said before hanging up. She put her phone back in her purse and looked up to see Hunter giving her an odd look.

“So what’s up with you and Joel?” Hunter asked.

“Nothing,” Delilah quickly replied.

“If something is going on between the two of you I won’t be mad. I’m not going to yell at you that he was Holland’s first or anything stupid like that.”

“We’re just friends, Hunter.”

“Ok,” Hunter said with a smile and a nod.

“What?” Delilah asked.

“Nothing. I kind of thought that you were and Joel were more than friends but now that I know you’re not that changes some things.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t worry about it. So what kind of pizza do you want?”

Delilah and Hunter spent the rest of the night talking and catching up but Delilah couldn’t get that conversation out of her mind. She couldn’t help but wonder if Hunter’s words meant what she thought they did; and if they did she couldn’t decide if she was glad they did or wished those thoughts belonged to a different Arizona boy.