'Finding Summerland' - Excerpt 5

Finding Summerland    

 **EXCERPT 5 

This scene is set right after Wes has gotten his tattoo & told his parents. Things are complicated with the family right now since Channing's disappearance....see how it goes. To read earlier excerpts, search the tag #SampleSunday.

Taken from Chapter 4 - Atonement

I felt guilty for upsetting her. I honestly expected that if anyone was going to be upset it would be him. That was tolerable for me—he was tough. My mother, on the other hand, was broken. It didn’t dawn on me that it would hurt her.

I didn't know what I should do to fix the situation. No good could come from me interrupting their discussion. Not that I was afraid of getting in trouble, I deserved that. At least they were talking, I reasoned. Maybe like me, they needed to feel something too. 

I headed upstairs to let them work it out. Hopefully mom would calm down soon. I walked into my room and grabbed Tess. Plopping down on the bed I pushed some pillows behind me, and settled back into them. Shutting my eyes, I began playing. 

I’d been working on this song for as long as I could remember. It was the first song I ever wrote, and it was still my favorite. A work forever 'in progress'. It was peaceful for me to write. Songs didn’t have opinions, or talk back. They were just created. Flawed and perfect…they just existed. I had written 100's of them, but I always came back to this one. Probably because it was my first. It was sentimental, familiar.
 
I kept playing, remembering the day I had gotten my guitar…

It was my 10th birthday and my parents threw a huge party. Everyone in my class was there. I hid most of the time, waiting for it to be over. I hated crowds. Once everyone had left, my mother found me, and gave me a package. It was a huge box and I wondered what it could be. I hadn’t asked for anything big.
When I opened it, I was surprised to see a hard black guitar case. I’d never played an instrument before, or had any interest in music, but my mother looked at me assuring and nudged. 

I undid the clasps and lifted the top, revealing the plush cobalt padding nestling a gorgeous cherry guitar, a single hummingbird engraved softly on the front. I was puzzled. It was beautiful to look at, and as I lifted it protectively out of it’s case it felt at home in my arms. But I didn’t know how to play. 

I sat for a minute just holding it. Feeling it out I guess. Then, nervous of disappointing my mother, I began to run my fingers over the strings unsure. The sounds began resonating through the room. From that moment I was hooked. I’ll never know what inspired her to buy it. Maybe it was nothing more than a novelty. Perhaps a mother’s intuition. Either way, it changed my life. 

She said that all good instruments needed a name, so I spit out the first name I could think of. A name that I loved. The only girl I ever had any feelings for. A pretty red head in my 1st grade class who had never even spoken to me. I’d watch her from my desk every year, up until last, when her father got transferred to Washington and she moved unexpectedly. 

Her name was Tessa Elizabeth Rhoden, Tess for short.

Since that day, I never went a day without playing. That guitar had gotten me through some of my darkest days when I was younger, and was still comforting to me now, with all the uncertainty surrounding me. As I listened to the song inside, I closed out the world and felt myself drifting off.

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