Bright by Brigit Young

Author:Brigit Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

* * *

Days before Regionals, Marianne came home from practice to hear a smooth, cooing harmony coming from Lillian’s room.

As always, she threw open Lillian’s bedroom door without knocking. Even though she hated it when Lillian did it to her, it was almost like tradition. If Lillian ever did knock, Marianne would worry she’d been replaced by a cyborg.

Lillian sat in her desk chair across from a girl with half her head shaved. Both girls held guitars.

Lillian contorted her fingers around the strings, cursed, then said to the girl, “It’s taking me forever to get this. Argh! Let me try again.”

“Hey,” Marianne said, making her presence known.

“Oh hey,” Lillian greeted her. “This is Harper. Harper—my little sister.”

“Marianne.” Marianne waved. “You doing book club here? Where’s everyone else?” Marianne asked Lillian. They usually gathered at school.

“Huh?” Harper said. She continued messing around with the strings, plucking and playing even as they spoke, like she was writing a song while having a conversation.

Why hadn’t she invited Harper to Literary Lionesses? What was going on?

“I’m actually going to be singing with her band for their next show,” Lillian told her.

“Oh!” Marianne couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t tell me!”

“Yeah, Lil and I are working on a Jane Eyre concept,” Harper reported.

Lil?

Harper reminded Marianne of what you’d draw if someone asked you what it meant to be “cool.” She looked like an asteroid could hit their block and she wouldn’t flinch, she’d just keep strumming along, probably inspired to write an asteroid song. She had a flawless sienna complexion and the kind of eyelashes that just couldn’t be real, but you knew they were. She wore a silver crescent moon necklace.

“So you’re practicing?” Marianne asked Lillian.

Lillian nodded. She wanted Marianne to leave. Marianne could see it.

Marianne said bye.

The songbirds continued. Marianne stood outside the door and listened:

Creeping from the red room/I see too many ghosts/Oh, Mr. Rochester/Why do I love you the most/Why do I love you the most

Marianne didn’t know if the music was good or bad or neither.

She went to her room and blasted Pink Floyd.

And she wondered what Skyla was doing.

It had been months since Skyla sent her a pic of her clothes laid out on the bed with the text Good? Usually her choices were okay, but Marianne gave her tips. Nothing major, just no patterns-on-patterns or Sunday school–like dresses.

She peeked out her bedroom window at the redbrick wall that made up the side of Skyla’s house. Should she wait until dark and flash the flashlight into Skyla’s bathroom window to get her attention, like they did in the old days? They thought using lights would be like the movies, where neighbor kids use Morse code and stuff, but the two of them just ended up annoying Skyla’s dads by waving huge flashlights in their rooms in what must have been Morse code gibberish.

Marianne took her cell phone light and pointed it at Skyla’s house.

No response, of course. The shades were shut, anyway.

Oh, Mr. Rochester … competed with Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.

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