Out of Tune

Chapter Twenty-Five

Music is to the soul what words are to the brain—Modest Mouse

It took three weeks after her first therapy appointment for Lennon to work up the courage to go see her mother.

Three weeks of grappling with whether or not she should open that door, even as she and Jenna worked through ways for Lennon to process all that had been said and gone wrong between her and her mother. Hours spent with Lennon learning how to sort through the jumbled knot of grief that was inside of her.

It was still knotted, still hurting, but she had begun to notice improvements in herself. Most of that came from the journaling that Jenna had suggested Lennon try. She'd been skeptical at first, not quite seeing how it would help. Yet writing down her innermost thoughts, the things she didn't dare say to anyone else, was therapeutic.

What had started off as random scribbles, a line here and there, had become full-on pages of letters. Some were to her father, things she wished she could have said to him. Others were to her mother, though these were often darker, anger-fueled pieces.

The difficult part, for Lennon, was learning to work through that anger. Because the more she wrote, the angrier she got. Especially as her mother had continued to incessantly fill Lennon's inbox with messages, begging for a chance to meet in person, to discuss things.

Perhaps Lennon should have felt thrilled about the fact that her mother wanted to try and repair the broken bridge between them but as she sat in Rafa's truck outside of a café in downtown Los Altos where she was meeting her mother, the only thing she really felt was dread.

"Are you sure you don't want us to come in?" Anna asked from the front seat. She twisted around to face Lennon directly and reached back to place a hand on Lennon's knee. "We don't mind."

In the driver's seat, Rafa met Lennon's gaze through the rear-view mirror. Steady and calm. Allowing her to make the decision, whatever it may be.

Lennon had mentioned the previous night that she was going to be meeting her mother after school to talk. She had been sitting down to dinner with Spencer and his parents when she'd brought it up, a few words meant to be spoken in passing, but it had taken less than a second for both Anna and Rafa to offer to join her – as if they were her own personal backup.

Spencer had offered too but Lennon had told him not to join them. She hadn't wanted to affiliate this memory with him because she was more than a little certain that things were not going to end well. Instead, she'd told him that when she was done dealing with her mother, she would undoubtedly want a distraction.

Which was why she and Spencer had planned their first official date to occur later that evening.

They'd tried to plan it twice already since that fateful conversation they'd had at The Cherry On Top. Both times had been cancelled not for lack of wanting but because of opportunities that the band had needed to take part in.

The first was when they'd been invited as guests onto a local and popular podcast run by students at the nearby Palo Alto University. They'd gone on the show for thirty minutes, discussing music and their rise to internet stardom.

The second was because one of Quincy's regular Friday night headlining bands had unexpectedly needed to back out of a performance and so he'd called Imagine Reality to fill the spot. They'd played two shows that weekend, the Friday and their regular Saturday slot, and both had been completely sold out. The restaurant was packed with only standing room at the bar left.

So here she and Spencer were again. Trying to plan a quiet night out just the two of them. No lounging around in the basement at his house, tinkering away on the piano or working at new compositions on her guitar. No homework at the kitchen table. No game nights with their friends.