Delphic Song

Chapter One

Liam and I grinned at each other.

After the ice cream had been eaten, Liz and Dad went up to put Joshua to bed and Alyssa disappeared to her room to talk on the phone with her best friend, leaving Liam and I to clean up the dishes. He was washing while I was drying, and we were in a rhythm as we chatted.

“So…” I started as I dried off a bowl. “Have any plans on my super-fun, everything-is-supposed-to-revolve-around-me-but-it-kinda-ends-up-revolving-around-Liz-and-Dad day? Or, to put it more simply, my birthday?”

“Nope.” He grinned. “I've been saving a particular birthday torture for that day.”

I made an indignant noise and smacked his arm. He smiled, but then went quiet for a few minutes. I let him mull over whatever was going around in his head and didn’t interrupt. The only sound was the clattering off dishes and the occasional, piercing “Oh my GOD!” coming from upstairs, where Alyssa had shut herself up in her room with her phone.

“Do you feel… any… different?” he asked finally.

“About what?”

“About turning 17. Do you feel different?”

Did I feel any different? I didn’t think so. I felt the same old, plain Jane girl who tried not to get too attached to things in case they left her like she had been left almost seventeen years ago, and based her life around her little girl college plans. I had always wanted to be a journalist, and that was still the easiest path for me to take since I’d been planning toward it my entire life. That was why I was applying to Harvard and for a summer internship at the New York Times newspaper after I graduated high school. I was still afraid of taking risks and getting let down.

 So, no, I guess I didn’t feel any different. And I didn’t think I would in six days, either.

“Yeah,” I lied. Why I was fibbing, I had no idea. I guess I just didn’t want to seem stuck in the past. Liam was three years older than me; he had already finished high school and moved on. I didn’t want him to start to worry that I was still the little girl he cared for all those years ago. Bandaging scraps I got when he helped me learn how to ride a skateboard, helping me with my homework, driving me around… he didn’t have to do those things for me anymore. I was an adult. Well, almost. “Sure, I guess.”

Liam dropped a plate in the sink with a loud clatter. It echoed through the kitchen, sounding deafening against the quiet. “You do?” he asked carefully, picking up the plate again. “How so? Are you having… like, weird dreams?”

I laughed. “Weird dreams? Why? Did you have weird dreams when you turned seventeen?” I wriggled my eyebrows.

Liam dropped another plate. This time, it bounced off a stainless steel pot and cracked into four pieces in the sink. “Oh no,” he said, quickly picking up the big shards in his hands and dumping them in the trash. “I’m so sorry -”

“It’s totally fine,” I interrupted, gathering the tiny shards that had chipped off up in a paper towel and dropping that in the trash as well. “No harm done.”

Liam sighed in relief, but I could still see the muscles in his shoulders tense, creeping up toward his neck. I had a sudden urge to reach up and push them back down, relax him. My hand twitched.

What are you doing, Gwen? You and Liam are just friends. You don’t want to make things awkward just trying to make him chill. Guys read into things all wrong.

Because I didn’t want Liam to read into that wrong at all… right?

Stop. Just stop. Now you’re over-thinking. Over-analyzing, like always.