Yeah, when I was only seventeen, I could hear the angels whispering

“How do you think Nick and Gina are doing on their date together?” Mary asked. She and Holly were finishing washing the dishes after breakfast. Which meant that she was the one doing all the cleaning, while Holly nibbled on sunflower seeds in the corner.

“…Dunno,” Holly said, swallowing a mouthful of seeds and wiping her lips. “But it’s gonna be a short date, which means they don’t have time to waste. They’ll need to really lock in and focus on each other. Luckily, Gina isn’t the kind of girl who gets shy like Morgana or Ella, so she probably won’t be hesitant. But she’s not one for taking the lead, either…”

Stars flashed in Holly’s eyes and she started to drool as she pictured Nick pushing Gina down and having his way with her. She knew that he wasn’t actually going to do anything like that on their date, but it was nice to imagine.

Mary gave her starry-eyed friend an exasperated look and shook her head, smiling ruefully at her. “Holly… come on. Let’s not play around like this,” she said gingerly. “This is a serious moment for the two of them! You heard how Nick was before breakfast this morning! He was determined to show Gina a good time and treat her to the kind of date she deserves! Which means that’s something we need to take seriously too!”

She remembered how anxious he had been… but she also remembered the way he smiled when he was talking about the date. “It’s kind of sweet,” she mumbled. “Childhood romance…”

“Oh?” Holly perked up immediately, brought back into the conversation from her delusions upon hearing Mary’s musings. “What were you thinking about just now, hmm?”

“Eh? Ah!” Mary’s face turned scarlet and she waved her hands quickly. “Oh, no, it’s nothing, really!” She said hastily, shaking her head. “I just thought, um… that it was sweet, that the two of them have known each other since they were kids, that’s all!”

Holly blinked, looking confused for a second. She never knew Mary to care about stuff like that. “I mean… sure, I guess?” She said, walking over to her friend. “If you ask me, though, first loves are overrated. Did I ever tell you about that guy I had my first crush on, the one who-”

“The one who thought you were a weirdo? Yeah, you mentioned it,” Mary said, sighing. Only about a thousand times back when we were in college.

It had arisen as a result of one of their other friends complaining about breaking up with her latest boyfriend. Mary and Holly had gotten roped into the conversation and the topic had just popped out. Holly had never gone into the specifics of just what the rejection had entailed, and Mary hadn’t pushed the issue.

But now that she knew her best friend a little better, she could guess why things hadn’t worked out with the guy, and just what about her he had found to be “weird”.

“…Well, if that guy couldn’t appreciate you, that’s for the best,” Mary said with a sniff, crossing her arms over her chest. “He wasn’t anything like Nick, after all.”

Holly burst out laughing. “Yeah, you’re not wrong there!” She agreed, shaking her head. “But I think it’s cute, that you’re so jealous of Gina.”

Mary puffed up her cheeks. “I’m not jealous of her,” Mary replied. “One of the Ten Commandments is not to covet your neighbor’s wife, and that applies to her husband as well, certainly!”

“Isn’t Nick your husband, though?” Holly pointed out.

“All the more reason!” Mary nodded vigorously. Holly just didn’t get what it meant to be devoted to the word of the lord. But it wasn’t her fault. Holly was rather lax in her own religious views. But that wasn’t a discussion Mary intended to have with her.

Especially not with the way Holly was looking at her right now, like she was a crazy person.

“…Right,” Holly said blankly, slowly nodding. “Well… I’ve never had a childhood romance myself, but I suppose I get the appeal.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “Gina was a part of his life before either of us entered it, after all. He has a whole history with her that he never had with either of us.”

Mary and Holly both took pride in how close they were to Nick. But they had all met in college. Nick’s life had begun long before that, as Dakota could testify.

A sigh passed Mary’s lips and she nodded solemnly. “That’s exactly what’s so sweet about it,” she murmured. “Meeting as children, falling in love with one another… holding hands… it’s the perfect little fantasy, don’t you think?” Having grown up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Mary had very few friends growing up. Certainly no boys, her father never would have allowed it. But she afforded herself the rare fantasy every now and then about how things might have gone, had Nick grown up in her small town alongside her.

Wouldn’t that be just lovely?

“Skipping through flower fields, sitting together on the porch swing, meeting up at the riverbank to play in the stream…” Mary’s voice ached with a whimsical yearning that Holly found just so adorable.

“Sneaking out behind the barn to make out a little, maybe touch some boobs…” But she just couldn’t resist.

“Holly!” Mary’s face turned red as she gave her friend a scandalized look. “That’s-! No, I’m talking about a chaste, pure romance, not- not something like THAT!”

“Oho?” Holly leaned forward with a gleeful grin, popping more sunflower seeds into her mouth. “I was describing an idealized childhood romance too, Mary,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes. “Don’t tell me it’s too stimulating for you…?”

Mary gave her a pouty look. “We would have had a perfectly sweet romance with no fooling around, and then got married after high school and lived happily ever after together!” She’d already plotted the whole thing out like it was one of her novels. The sweet and pure romance ones, not those trashy, vulgar books that were just smut peddled to women who didn’t know any better, and got fooled by the cover into thinking it would be-!

…Better to forget that had ever happened, Mary decided.

“Sure thing, Mary, I definitely believe that if you and Nick had grown up together, you could have saved yourself until marriage. Sure, of course. Hehehe…”

…And if Holly kept talking, the genre was going to shift to Mary’s specialty, **** mystery.

Deciding to ignore her teasing best friend, Mary went to go finish the last of the dishes. She sighed and glanced at the clock again. It was still so early…

I hope the two of them are having a good time together, Mary thought, wishing them both only the best. This sort of thing… it’s so beautiful. Having such precious memories you can only share with someone who remembers things the same way.

“TRIPLETS BORN! THE THRONE AWAITS! A SEER WARNS OF A DEADLY FATE!” Gina belted into the microphone. “GIVE UP YOUR CHILDREN, SEPARATE! BIDE YOUR TIME, LIE IN WAIT!”

What the hell am I doing?

“SONIC UNDERGROUND! SONIC UNDERGROUND!”

The music ended, and Gina’s face was burning with shame. She covered her eyes with the microphone and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the couch in the karaoke room.

“Nice job, Gina! That was amazing!” Nick applauded, looking at her like she was topping the charts.

“Amazing!? That was so fucking embarrassing!” Gina exclaimed. Her face was still bright red. She fought the impulse to chuck the microphone at him. “Karaoke? Seriously!?”

“What? You didn’t like it?” Nick frowned. He’d chosen a karaoke booth to be their first date destination because he knew how much Gina loved music and singing. Had he chosen wrong somehow? “I thought you would have fun. You really seemed to be belting out those lyrics. I haven’t heard that song since it was on the air.”

“And that’s another thing!” Gina turned her glare to the machine next, giving it a testy look. “What exactly is this music selection, huh!? No punk, no metal, just theme songs of children’s shows from the 90’s and early 2000’s?! Whose bright idea was that, huh!?”

If she had to hear Nick butcher the “Pokemon” theme song again she would probably gouge out her own ears.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Nick said, holding up his hands. “I picked out the spot, but I didn’t program the machines.”

Gina looked sulkily at the microphone and pouted. This had Dakota’s fingerprints all over it. She was definitely messing with them.

That being said…

“I guess… it wasn’t the worst thing,” she begrudgingly admitted, handing the microphone over to Nick so he could take his turn. It’s actually kind of fun, singing these old songs. Even if it is really embarrassing me!

Gina used to rock it at karaoke bars back in the day, even when her voice started to go bad. She really loved singing, and that mattered more to a crowd of drunks than whether she was actually any good at it or not.

There was just something so liberating about letting out your voice in front of other people. Even if you knew you were embarrassing yourself. That’s what people just didn’t seem to understand, she felt like sometimes.

…Of course, those nights, **** was involved. A ton of ****. This was the middle of the morning, and she was stone-cold sober.

It sort of changed the calculations just a little bit.

Gina felt her face burning. But as Nick butchered a rendition of another theme song from their childhood, a smile slowly tugged at her lips.

Did she really need to be taking this so seriously? He was having a good time and so was she. They weren’t talking about awkward topics or making a big deal about stuff that didn’t matter.

They were just… enjoying themselves.

And for Gina, that was pretty enjoyable.

Well worth any mental damage that singing a children’s song as a grown-up nearing 30 could do to her.

So Gina put aside her embarrassment and accepted the microphone when it was her turn, and put her whole heart into every last word. And when the music stopped again and she could finally settle down and take a breather, she felt surprisingly pumped!

She was going through such a rush that she didn’t realize Nick was staring at her until she was halfway through her glass of water.

“Wh-what?” She said, wiping her mouth. She could feel her face burning up again. “Is it so weird? Me, singing like that? Sorry if it didn’t meet your expectations…”

“No, not at all!” Nick said, shaking his head. “I actually thought you did an amazing job, Gina!”

Another wave of heat lit up Gina’s face and she squirmed in embarrassment for a second. “O-oh,” she stammered, her eyes flicking down before rising up again, meeting his gaze with more shyness than she expected. “Well, I, uh…”

Why was her heart pounding like this? It was just karaoke! She’d done way more embarrassing stuff with Nick around before!

Was it… because of her clothes? In this frilly dress, she hardly felt like herself. She felt so… **** and defenseless, like she was that little girl at summer camp again.

“I-I’m sure I made a complete fool out of myself,” Gina stammered out, slipping into her self-deprecating state as she sadly so often did. “I mean… come on. You heard me just now. I’m no good at singing anymore.”

“That’s not true at all!” Nick shook his head adamantly.

Gina perked up, and looked at him in surprise. “W-wait, what?” She stammered, not sure she heard him right. “You… you don’t think…?”

Nick shook his head again. “Your voice has really gotten better since the last time we sang together, Gina.” That had been months ago at this point. One of their very first days here on the island. They’d reminisced about the awkward childhood they’d shared, and Gina had tried her hand at singing again, only to show him how much her angelic voice had been butchered by her years of **** of her body and throat.

Gina never told him, but that night, she’d sobbed in the bathroom while looking at herself in the mirror, feeling like absolute trash for how much she’d ruined her body. Meeting Nick again had only exacerbated those feelings of disgust.

But now… now Nick was looking right at her. And he wasn’t scorning her.

He was being sincere.

“I think it’s because you haven’t smoked in such a long time,” Nick explained. “Your throat and your lungs are healing. Hey, who knows, maybe with some practice you could really do something wonderful with your words!”

Gina remembered the alternate reality version of herself, the one who had never fallen into **** and **** **** due to not sharing her trauma. She’d become a pop singer in that reality, with a flourishing career.

That could have been Gina… if not for all the unpleasantness.

It almost made her want to cry.

“You’re just saying that,” Gina muttered, shaking her head. “Come on, Nick… be serious. Can you really imagine it? ME of all people, dancing around like some… pop star?”

She wasn’t the best with words. If she became a pop singer she’d need someone else to write her song lyrics, for sure.

“Maybe not,” Nick conceded. “But I think if you wanted to, you could be.” He believed that from the bottom of his heart, and Gina looked shaken to hear him say it. When was the last time someone had ever had this much faith in her?

Probably not since she looked a lot more like she did today.

Her hand slowly trailed up to her throat, and she ran her fingers across her neck hesitantly, remembering when she was that little girl with her whole future ahead of her. The sort of girl who could state with pride that someday she was gonna “make it big” and be a professional singer.

“Just watch, mom! I’m gonna be on TV someday! You’re gonna be recording me singing on TV on our VCR, and you’re gonna buy my cassette tape to play in the car! I’m gonna be in magazines! I’m gonna be famous!”

Gina’s ability to predict the future was rather laughably pathetic.

“You really think my voice has gotten better?” Gina whispered. She had just been meaning to make pleasant conversation (or so she told herself) but the hope in her voice betrayed her. Her cheeks reddened and she looked down, fidgeting awkwardly under Nick’s gaze.

She didn’t realize it until the words had already passed her lips, but she desperately wanted to hear Nick tell her “Yes!”

“I think it has,” Nick said sincerely. “Compared to the last time I heard you sing? You’re improving.”

“No, no way,” Gina said, shaking her head quickly. Why did they make the couches in this place so damn uncomfortable? “I haven’t, I haven’t even been practicing my voice or anything, so how could I have gotten better?” She demanded. “Come on, use your brain here, Nick! That doesn’t make any sense!”

Nick rolled his eyes. She was just being difficult at this point. “Gina, come on.”

“Or maybe your semen has magical properties,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe that’s it! Yeah! Hehe!” She chuckled and shook her head. “I should be thanking you!” She leaned forward and cradled her chin in her hands. “Sucking that magic cock of yours fixed my voice!”

“Come on, let’s not be vulgar,” Nick said, smiling in spite of himself at the raunchy description Gina provided. It was kind of an amusing thought if he was being perfectly honest. The idea that Gina’s addiction to giving blowjobs had somehow magically fixed her throat, when really the opposite should have occurred.

Gina could tell that he wasn’t bothered by what she’d said. And that… honestly made her feel a little better.

She relaxed slightly and smiled. “…I don’t know what I’d do without you, Nick,” she confided, earning her a surprised expression.

“Huh?” Nick looked at her with wide eyes.

“You’re just so… special,” she explained, shaking her head. “I can’t describe it. But when I’m with you… it’s like… I don’t know. All my fears and doubts they just kind of have a way of not looking so scary to me anymore.”

“Gina…” Nick honestly wasn’t sure what to say to that. He saw the depth of her gaze and wished there was some way to console her, but he couldn’t even tell for sure if she was sad or not. It seemed more like… she was lost. Drifting aimlessly down the river of consciousness and dwelling only on the more pleasant memories, but still not making progress upstream.

“I think it’s because… you don’t care about what I did before,” she said, rising to her feet. Before Nick realized it she had stepped around the table and plopped down beside him on the sofa. Now those big brown eyes of hers were staring right at him, and her lips curled up into a tender smile.

“Yeah… that’s it,” she said, poking him gently on the nose. “That’s the smile, right there.”

“Eh? Th-this?” Nick didn’t know what she was getting at. “There’s no real smile, this… this is just my smile, Gina…”

She giggled. “I know! That’s just it!”

What was it?

Gina shook her head. “That smile you give me… it’s not looking down on me. There’s no pity or judgment or any of that other crap. It’s like… you’re looking at me, and you’re seeing me. The person who I could be, the person who… the person who I want to be.”

For so long Gina had felt trapped. Like she had to behave a certain way. Like people expected her to behave a certain way.

First it was her parents. But in rebelling against them, she’d found herself trapped in another cycle of expectation. Now people assumed she would behave a whole other way.

But not Nick.

Nick didn’t judge her or **** his expectations upon her. He just looked at her like the girl he remembered. His old friend. All while not holding her to the expectation that she become that girl again, either.

Gina wore pink because she thought he would like it, but really he would have liked her in anything. Because he understood how much she had changed… and he was fine with it. She didn’t have anything to live up to when she was with him.

She could just be herself. Whoever that was.

And knowing that warmed her heart considerably and brought a smile to her lips.

So far this date… was exactly what she wanted it to be.