I grin, shifting into reverse. "Be there in ten, Mads."
The couch sinks as Madison curls into the corner, tucking one leg under herself. She’s balancing her ice cream carton in her lap, her spoon scraping against the sides as she digs in.
I press play on the movie, but I don’t really care what’s on the screen. Not when she’s sitting next to me like this, completely at ease, like she’s been here a hundred times before.
Because she has.
I take a slow bite of my own ice cream, watching her out of the corner of my eye as she frowns at the TV.
“You know,” she says, waving her spoon in my direction, “you never let me pick the movie.”
I smirk, nudging her knee with mine. “Because your movie choices are questionable at best.”
Madison scoffs, turning to face me fully. “Excuse me? You act like I don’t have taste.”
“You thinkA Walk To Rememberis the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time.”
She points her spoon at me, all indignant and adorable. “Because it is.”
I shake my head, laughing, before a thought hits me, one I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked her out loud.
I shift slightly, turning to face her. “Alright, tell me something, then.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Something important, Montgomery, or are you about to roast my taste in movies again?”
I grin, licking my spoon clean before leaning back against the couch. “If you could have any job—like, ultimate, no-question, dream-job level—what would it be?”
The question catches her off guard, and she lowers her spoon, fidgeting with the edge of her sweatshirt sleeve. “You already know,” she says quietly.
“Humor me.”
She exhales, staring down at her ice cream, and when shefinally speaks, her voice is quieter than before. “I want to be a music therapist. Or maybe a teacher.”
I tilt my head. “Why?”
For a second, she doesn’t answer. Then, she shifts, sitting up a little straighter. “When I was a kid, before everything with my mom got bad, she used to play the piano for me, as you know.” Her voice is softer now, like she’s afraid saying it out loud might make it disappear. “Even when she was sick, even when she was too weak to do much else, she could still play. And when she did, it was like everything felt...lighter.”
Something tugs in my chest, low and deep, because I can picture it. I remember being there, sitting on that faded couch in her grandmother’s living room, watching Madison listen like the music itself was the only thing holding her together.
“I guess I just always held onto that,” she continues. “The way music can make people feel safe or calm or even just understood. It helped me, and I want to be able to do that for other people.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says it, just keeps tracing patterns along the rim of her ice cream carton, like she’s expecting me to say it’s a silly idea, like she’s been waiting for someone to tell her it’s not worth it.
But I don’t.
Because that’s not what I see when I look at her.
I shift closer, resting my arm along the back of the couch. “That’s why you’re leaning towards music therapy,” I say, piecing it together now.
She nods. “I know what it’s like to feel like the world is too much. Too loud. Too heavy. I know how much it means to have something that makes it feel manageable.” She shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s stupid, but?—”
“It’s not stupid,” I say before she can even finish the thought.
She glances up at me, surprised.
“I think it’s incredible, Mads.” My voice is steady, but there’s something heavier beneath it. “You’ve always had this way ofmaking people feel safe. It makes sense you’d want to do that for a living.”
Her eyes flicker with something I can’t quite name, something raw and unguarded and damn, if it doesn’t make my chest feel too tight.
