Chapter 4.1: A Listener in Ohio

The only light in Jenna's room came from her phone, casting a soft blue glow in the dark Ohio night. It was late—the kind of late when the silence of the house started to feel heavy, like a weight pressing down on everything. Her room was her safe space, a little world she'd built herself. The walls were covered in posters of bands no one at school cared about, their corners curling with time. String lights hung above shelves stuffed with books, some stacked so high they looked like they might topple over. It was all hers. And yet, sometimes, it felt like a cage.

She lay on her stomach scrolling, bored and restless, her thumb moving out of habit. Vacation photos, fake grins, inside jokes she didn't get. The feed was supposed to make her feel connected, but most nights it just made the loneliness worse. Sixteen and sharp as hell, Jenna always felt like she was living slightly out of sync with everyone else—like she was tuned to the wrong station.

She was about to give up, drop her phone on the pillow and let the emptiness settle in, when something new popped up in her recommendations. No flashy thumbnail. No all-caps title screaming for attention. Just:

Lost Boy.

The thumbnail showed a kid sitting at a keyboard in what looked like his bedroom. Messy hair. Dim lighting. Something about it was different—it wasn't trying so hard. It felt real. Jenna paused, then tapped play.

The screen filled with the shaky video. The sound quality wasn't great. But then the piano started—four slow, haunting notes—and Jenna froze. She propped her chin in her hands and just listened.

Then came the voice. It wasn't perfect. Not studio-polished or autotuned. But it was real, slightly fragile and rough around the edges. And somehow, that made it hit even harder.

"There was a time when I was alone, nowhere to go and no place to call home…"

The words didn't feel like lyrics. They felt like something she'd thought a hundred times. A flash of memory hit her—standing in the school cafeteria, tray in hand, scanning tables full of kids laughing, shouting, none of them noticing her. No empty seat. No place to sit. No place to belong. Her quiet walk to the library, where the silence didn't feel like failure. No place to call home.

"My only friend was the man in the moon, and even sometimes he would go away, too…"

Her eyes drifted to the tower of books by her bed. Her friends weren't real—they were wizards, warriors, lovers torn apart by fate. Characters that lived in her head. They were there for her… until the last page. And then she was alone again. Even they would go away, too. This boy on the screen—he got it.

Then the chorus came, the voice rising, shaking with emotion:

"I am a lost boy from Neverland… usually hanging out with Peter Pan…"

The walls she built up every day—sarcasm, disinterest, don't-care vibes—started to crack. Neverland. That was the word. Her inner world. Her escape. Where her imagination built cities and forests and magic kingdoms that didn't hurt. He wasn't just singing about fairy tales—he was singing about her. About living in a dream because the real world never made room for you.

A tear slid down her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it away.

"He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe…"

The song was the pixie dust. A voice reaching her through a screen, saying: You're not broken. You're not alone. It's okay to feel this way.

He wasn't asking her to believe in Peter Pan. He was telling her to believe in herself—the girl who felt too much, who lived more in books than in the real world.

By the time the chorus came around again, she was crying openly. But it wasn't the sad kind of crying. It was the kind that happens when something inside you unclenches for the first time.

"…And we'll all be lost boys forever."

We. That word broke her. We. Not just "me." Not just "you." It was a quiet promise that others felt this way too. That she wasn't the only lonely kid staring out her bedroom window, dreaming of somewhere else. She was part of something. A tribe of lost boys and girls, scattered but connected.

The video ended. The feed returned. But the silence wasn't empty now—it carried the weight of everything she'd just felt.

She sat up slowly, wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie, and let out a shaky breath.

Then she picked up her phone again. Her fingers moved quickly this time. She hit share. The post field blinked, waiting.

She stared at the cursor, then typed four simple words:

You need to hear this.

She hovered over the "Post" button for just a second, then tapped it. A quiet, invisible spark sent into the dark.

The song was out there. And now, thanks to her, it was still moving—making its way from one lonely room to the next.

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