Chapter 6

His words had been a crack with a drumstick so hard it had ripped through the membrane of the drum, and not even duct tape had managed to repair it permanently.

Leaning my head against the back of the chair, I rocked lazily and hummed his song as I looked up in the heavens. I fell asleep under the starry, starry night.

3

“Jude?” The sound of my brother’s alarmed voice jerked me awake. “Are you all right?”

“Huh?” I rubbed my eyes and grimaced as the muscles in my neck screamed at me for having spent the night sitting up. Why had I slept on my brother’s porch?

Harrison took a couple quick steps and crouched next to me. “Are you all right?” he asked again. “Areyou sick?”

“No,” I mumbled. “Not sick.” I shook my head in an attempt to clear out the lingering cobwebs and the previous day’s events came back to me. Knock on the door. Vee.

Right. That happened.

“Seriously. You’re frightening me.”