After telling her order to the cashier she turns to Jesse,
“Thank you,” she pauses, “Jesse,” emphasizing his name.
He smiles bemused, “You are welcome,” he pauses like she did, “Hazel.”
They go their separate ways.
A few weeks later in the afternoon, Hazel hears a beautiful melody while on campus and follows it to a man playing guitar on a patch of grass with a friend sitting nearby. As she moves closer, she begins to recognize whose playing—it’s Jesse. He looks up, they lock eyes—there’s something powerful about the way he looks at her.
“You play?”
Hazel looks down at the guitar for a moment; she does not play—she hasn’t ever played actually, nor does she know anyone who does—until now. He seems so familiar—the music he plays, how he talks—his presence. He feels like a dream she’s just awoken from.
“A little.”
She lies. Maybe nothing would come of it? Instead, Jesse takes the acoustic guitar beside him that a friend of his was playing on and hands it to Hazel. He begins strumming along again to a melody he’s just created—the one that lured her there. She puts her fingers above the frets on the strings and looks up to meet Jesse’s gaze.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”