Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to he...

I could hear my heart in my ears. I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.

There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you’d better learn to know the sound of it. Otherwise you’ll never understand what it’s saying.

“Annabel?” Owen said. His voice was lower now. Closer. He sounded worried. “What is it?” He had already given me so much, but now I leaned toward him, asking him for one last thing. Something I knew he did better than anyone. “Don’t think or judge,” I said. “Just listen.”

And when I was finally done, he said the two words that usually don’t mean anything, but this time, said it all. “I’m sorry, Annabel,” he told me. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“The thing is,” he said, “there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities in life to really make a difference. This is one of them.” “Easy

“The basic fact is that I should have been here. I have no excuse. There is no excuse.” He looked down at the ground, scuffing his foot across the pavement. “I mean, there is a reason. But it’s not an excuse.” “Owen,” I said. “It’s—” “Something happened.” He sighed, shaking his head. His face was flushed, and he was still fidgeting. “Something stupid. I made a mistake, and—” Then, and only then, did I put it altogether. His absence. This shuffling embarrassment. And Will Cash’s black eye. Oh my God, I thought.

“Look,” Owen said, “the truth is, after you left yesterday, I was really pissed off. I mean, I’m human, right?” “You are,” I agreed. “I really only wanted to get a good look at him. That was all. And I knew he sometimes plays with that shitty Perkins Day band that was in a showcase last night at Bendo, so I figured he might be there. And he was. Which, really, when you think about it, is despicable. What kind of a person goes to a club—to see a shitty band, no less—the night before he’s due in court? It’s—” “Owen,” I said.

“I watched their set. Which, as I said, sucked. I went out for some air, and he was outside smoking a cigarette. And he starts talking to me. Like we know each other. Like he’s not the freaking scum of the earth, a total fucking asshole.”

There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.

me. It was a fresh start, and now I didn’t have to be the girl who had everything, or nothing, but another girl altogether. Maybe even the one who told.

The opening notes of Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” came on, and I pushed back my chair. Then I closed my eyes to listen, as I did every time I heard this song, my own little ritual. Just as the chorus began, I heard the door open and, a moment later,