Our Song by Jordanna Fraiberg Page A

sync with his stroke, like he was putting everything he had into the effort. That’s when I noticed that he was holding the club from the wrong end, like it was a baseball bat. The ball followed the exact same path as the previous ones, landing closer to the Mercedes, like he was deliberately trying to hit it. The graceful motion of his body seemed so at odds with what he was actually doing, with the intensity and passion inherent in every stroke.
    A jolt ricocheted through me as I watched him reach for another ball. The pivoting of his hips, the flick of his head, the swing of his arm. I was certain I had never seen him before. But the electric sensation that I had, that I
did
know him, surged up and down my limbs like a live wire.
    Before I knew it, my legs were propelling me forward, darting between the parked cars, leading me into the thick of trees beyond the lot where the ball had traveled, way off its target. Was it intentional? Did he mean to miss this time? Pushing the overgrown brush aside, I found the ball shimmering on a patch of mud, like it was waiting for me.
    Just then, I heard the faint sounds of a smooth, velvety voice. A male voice. I whipped around, hoping it belonged to the guy, that I would get a better look at his face, but no one was there.
    The voice grew increasingly louder. That’s when I realized why I couldn’t see who it belonged to: it was coming from inside my head, harmonizing with the melody like a siren call. Then, out of nowhere, words suddenly broke through, like clouds dissipating after a rain storm, clearing the sky.
    I see your face all over the place
    Like a haunting from above
    The only way for this to pass
    Is to let go of your love.
    All the pent-up emotion trapped in the melody came pouring out in the lyrics, his voice hanging on to each word like it might be his last. Combined—the tune, the words, the voice—it added up to something that seemed to match the mood of the boy hurling balls into oblivion, like it was his anthem as much as mine.
    And it was the first time I wanted to hear more.
    • • •
    Later that night, once my mother was in bed, I snuck out to the sunroom. Noah was long asleep and even though it was Sunday, my dad had gone to the office after dinner. It was the first chance I’d had all day to use the computer in private. My mother was already home by the time I walked back from the club, having ditched the rest of the Easter activities to keep a close eye on me. She didn’t even trust me enough to be alone in the house anymore, and hovered nearby like a swarm of wasps for the rest of the day.
    As the screen flickered to life, I went straight to Google and typed the lyrics into the search field. There was something about the way they danced in my head that made the melody not only bearable, but uplifting. It was like this mysterious voice, sweet as honey, was an organizing principle, turning the random chaos into something intelligible, something seductive.
    I scanned the results, turning the white dimpled golf ball,which I’d held on to all afternoon, around in my hand like it was a crystal ball. There were over five million hits in total. Yet not a single one yielded an exact match, or anything close to it. I clicked through the first few links. They led me to a bunch of random, unrelated websites. I tried to narrow down the results by inserting quotation marks and adding the term “song lyrics” to the search. When that didn’t help, I retyped every combination of those four lines I could think of, just in case I was remembering them wrong. But I knew I wasn’t. It was the only thing I was sure of. The voice was the clearest thing I’d heard since everything happened. Still, nothing came up, like the song didn’t want to be found. Like it didn’t exist.
    Maybe I really was going crazy.
    I gave up on the search and clicked over to Facebook. I didn’t even bother checking my page and went directly to Derek’s. I’d been stalking it daily since