Queen of the Headphone Zombies

Sharp

Nina Cried Power // Hozier ft. Mavis Staples

EMERSON

She's here. In my room. On my bed.

Okay, not in my bed the way I've been fantasizing. There is sheet music spread over the entire bed spread and she's bent over the pages with a pencil in her hand and her bottom lip between her teeth.

Dam, Zoe looks freaking good in my room. Like she belongs here. Belongs here among all the things I love the most, like my favorite posters, instruments, and music.

I give my room a critical look. The navy walls are a bit boring. I would have gone with Sex Pistols black paint, but no way my mom would agree to that. I started long ago to pick my battles carefully. There are some things it's not worth fighting over, and bedroom paint is one of them.

My mother had gotten me these things. She hardly asked my opinion about most of it, thinking she knew what I'd like. She wanted me to be happy in her own way. But if she'd bother to pay any attention she would have realized none of this is my style.

No way the old man would even give in if we were battling. My father never gave an inch in his business or his personal life. He certainly never cared enough to bother to learn what his son really wanted do with his life. He never tried to come into my room to look around. If he had, no way the old man would be happy to see all these instruments scattered around my room. Nor would he like to know his money was spent on a top computer system, not to assist with my classes, but to run my mixing board and sound system.

There was a big battle on the horizon. One that may be coming sooner than I planned, now that Zoe had warmed up to the idea of her and I working together on our music. That big fight I had been putting off, the one that chilled me to the bone, might be happening sooner than later. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.

But I do know how I feel about this girl. This girl makes me want to take risks. She makes me want to seriously start living my true life, now.

"Do you have this recorded yet?" Zoe asks without looking up. She has been staring down at the music for fifteen minutes. And I've spent all that time staring hard at her profile. She's been so lost in those musical notes I don't think she's noticed what a creeper I'm being.

"Just the melody. I wrote this one out last week and haven't had time to layer in the harmony yet." I'm sitting across from Zoe, in the desk chair near my sound system, so I swivel it around and pull up the recording. Seconds later the opening notes of my latest attempt at a song fill the room.

When the arrangement reaches the second round of play, Zoe begins to hum. I notice she's humming a harmony, but its not the one I wrote. She's using a higher register, hitting the octave above and adding some of her own touches. I am truly digging this new addition to my sound. Without asking permission, I spin back to the system and record her on a new line. I can listen back over it and write the notes later.

Before the song ends, Zoe stops humming and looks up at me, her eyes wide with awe or excitement. I'm not sure which. Maybe it's both.

"Wow," she whispers while shaking her head. "I love it, Em."

And now my heart is racing.

"You do?" I run my hand through my hair. Zoe leaps off of the bed and rushes over to me, jumping in my lap. I sit up straight in surprise.

"No. Do not freak out about this." She's looking at me pointedly. "This shit is good, Emerson, and you will acknowledge it right now." Her finger is poking me in the chest repeatedly as she speaks.