Page 87 of After We Fall

The ends of my lips tip up. “Yes, please.”

“Awesome,” he says, walking to the speaker and hitting the power button.

I sneak a glance at Harlan and Meredith.

Meredith winks at me. She cheers me on every time I make a choice to take care of myself. But Harlan can only be described as befuddled. He takes in every person in the room, stopping to study Luke’s movements.

Luke strides toward me, taking my attention off Harlan. He stops just a few inches away. “How’s your head?”

“A four, but calming down to a three.”

“Need to take something?”

Over the last week, Luke took time to learn what my pain scale means in the world of headaches. He also took notes of the appropriate medications that correlate with the numbers. He helps me talk through my discomfort levels and what I need to do about them.

“No need for medication yet. If the pain goes back to a four, I’ll take something to head it off.”

“Okay.” He pulls a wrapped gift from behind his back and places it in the space between us. “Happy No More Sling Day.”

Wonder Woman paper covers the box, taped in a manner worthy of a preschooler.

“Did my four-year-old daughter wrap that for you?” Harlan asks.

Luke flashes a cocky grin at me but addresses Harlan with his words. “Is she the one who taught you your dance moves?”

I try but fail to stifle a burst of laughter. Harlan is notoriously a terrible dancer. It’s a miracle not only that Meredith fell in love with him on a dance floor but that she’s never been injured while he’s twirled her through the music.

Harlan harrumphs in the background, but one peek around Luke tells me everyone else is having a similar reaction to mine. All grins and giggles.

Shifting my focus back to Luke, I whisper, “What did you bring me?” As I pick at the tape, my giddy scale rises.

“Penelope, rip it off, baby. Give it your best shot.”

A smile breaks across my face as I plant my fingers on the edges of the paper and yank as hard as I can. A seven on the satisfying scale. But when I catch a glimpse of Luke’s gift, it tips the balance on a different scale.

The high-end noise-canceling headphones in my hands push the falling-in-love-with-Luke scale to a solid six.

He takes the box from me, wrestles the headphones out of the protective Styrofoam, and holds them out for me to see. “Now Bianca can have her lessons, and you can have your low numbers.”

Tears prick the backs of my eyes, and I purse my lips.

“Let’s give these a test run.” He shifts my hair over my shoulder and places the headphones over my ears.

Can you hear me? he mouths.

I hit him on the arm. “Stop it. I know you’re not saying anything.”

He clutches his stomach and laughs. “Okay, but you’re talking really loud.” Through the protection of the headphones, his words are buffered. I can still decipher what he’s saying if he’s close to me, but the sound is muffled.

“Do you want to play for me?” I ask Bianca.

I glance around the room, and everyone is laughing in varying degrees. Heat flushes my face. The volume of my voice must be louder than I intend.

That is, everyone’s laughing except Harlan. His stare bounces from Luke back to me. And it doesn’t appear his happy scale is even registering.

Confused, I avert my attention from the brewing volcano that is Harlan Holcombe and shift my focus to Bianca. With a pride I’ve never seen her carry, she walks to the drum set, sits, and glances at me just before she closes her eyes and unleashes.

Written all over Bianca’s face is a glorious, peaceful concentration as she pounds out sounds she was surely born to create. The rhythm seems to come naturally to her, and even though she doesn’t have a melody behind her, she creates beautiful music.