Begin Again

The first time I record my segment in advance of the show, I rehearse no fewer than twenty times and sit with my notes so close to my face that when Shay shows me a picture she took of me, it looks like I’m trying to eat them. For the second one I’m still a jumble of nerves, but manage to maintain a respectful distance from my notes. By the third I only have to look at them a few times, anchored enough in my rehearsal that I even throw in some comments off the cuff.

But the real stress comes every Friday morning, when Milo plays my segment in the middle of the show. By the fourth week of it, I’m somewhat used to the strange dread and thrill of hearing my own voice play back at me, but I’m more than a little relieved when the recording ends and Milo takes the first call for “Call-in Friday.”

“Hi, I’m, uh . . . I’m calling because, well. I need some advice. Mostly about being in a long-distance relationship.”

My eyebrows fly up. We haven’t gotten live callers asking for advice since I started the segment. On our request, they’ve just been writing in.

“You got a name, or should I just call you Long-Distance Listener?” Milo asks.

The voice on the other end is throaty, like they have a cold. “You can call me . . . Bea?”

Milo makes brief eye contact with me. I’m already sweating like I’m competing with a puddle.

“Okay, Bea,” says Milo. “Shoot.”Exclusive content from NôvelDrama.Org.

“So I have this situation. I have this long-distance . . . almost relationship? I’m not sure exactly. We both say we’re open to making it work, but I’m not so sure how committed he is. Things have been really uncertain for a while. And I want to give it a chance, but I’m also kind of crushing on someone else. Someone who’s here.”

“Crushing, huh?” Milo repeats wryly.

“Well, yeah. I guess I don’t know if it’s because we’re actually right for each other, or just because we’re like, actually, physically close. So I was just wondering if maybe . . . you or the Squire had any advice?”

“Well,” says Milo, cutting another glance at me, “the Squire’s segment is already done for the morning. So, uh. You’ve got me. And my professional advice is just chuck the whole thing out, love’s a scam.”

“Milo,” Shay hisses.

“Which is, you know. Unhelpful,” he recovers. “So my actual advice is, uh . . .”

Only then do I realize Milo isn’t looking over at me in acknowledgment. He’s looking over at me because he has no idea what to say. He’s looking at me because I know what to say, and we both know it.

And then, for the first time, I’m not reaching for the braver version of myself I once was. This time she seems to reach out to me. This time she seems to shove.

I nod once at Milo, and he slides off the stool so I can take his place and lowers the mic down to my mouth. I’m expecting my heart to pound. Expecting to feel that same strange distance that makes me feel like I can’t connect with people as my actual self nearly as well as my practiced one. But when I open my mouth, I feel more myself than I’ve ever been.

“You’ve got the Squire, Bea.”

“Oh, good. Hello, there.”

I find myself smiling. “Hello to you, too. And listen . . . I know how hard long-distance relationships are. Trust me, I do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So I’m not going to tell you what to do, because I can’t. But let me ask you a question. Do you love the person you’re long distance with?”

It feels like slipping into an old skin. One I’ve been easing into now for a while, and am starting to make new again.

The caller blows out a breath. “I care about him.”

“Then you know the distance isn’t forever,” I say effusively. It’s my words I hear, but Connor’s broad grin I see. “Do you think if you can wait it out, you can make it work?”

Milo’s eyes are on me again, this time with a different weight. I try to ignore it to keep focus, but that’s the curious thing about Milo. I’m always aware of him. Where he is, the way he moves, the littlest of forces that push and pull and make up his world. Even my own self, when I’m one of them.

“Yeah,” says the caller on the other end. “If we both can wait.”

I settle onto Milo’s stool with the kind of ease I haven’t felt in all my weeks of doing this. With an ease I don’t think I’ve felt in years. “In the end, you have to follow your heart,” I tell the caller. “But if it’s just the distance you’re worried about? I’ve got faith that you can make it work.”

The caller lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you, whatever your actual name is. This . . . helps. A lot.”

I smile as if the caller’s in the room with me, and can feel every inch of it. “I’m glad,” I say sincerely, even though something rings false. Whatever your actual name is. Like calling myself the Squire is creating a distance between me and this caller that isn’t just airwaves, but something I’ve put up myself.

I shift to give Milo back the stool, but he doesn’t move—just points at the mic and makes a wrap-up gesture.

“Me?” I mouth, incredulous.

“We’re out of time,” he whispers. I forgot he went on a work-study rant a little longer than his usual fare before the segment.

I stare at the mic. The segment is so self-contained that I’ve never needed to do a sign-off before—at least one that isn’t my ill-fated “ta-ta” the day Milo overslept. I scramble, trying to remember Milo’s, even trying to remember one of my mom’s, but it’s like my brain’s gone static.

But then I shift my gaze from the mic over to Milo, and the static takes shape. It’s a mess. It’s pieces that need to be picked up. It’s looking forward and looking back. It’s everything I’ve been trying to do, and everything I want to instill in the advice I give from now on—not starting over, but starting with what you’ve got.

“Well, that’s all from us today,” I say. “Go make the most out of it, because every day is a chance to begin again.”

I feel Milo’s smile from across the small room, and smile one of my own into the mic.

After Shay turns off the mic, I sit and wait for the aftermath to hit—to start overthinking everything I said in a twenty-four-hour infinite loop, and pick apart every word of it—but it never comes. We collect our stuff to leave, and on the way out I let myself take a long, hard look at the picture of my mom and for once, smile back at her.

Milo’s waiting for me at the main door to the building, holding it open. “Too bad I’ll never see you on Fridays again, since you’re taking over the show.”

I let out a breathy laugh, still in a state of happy disbelief. “That was wild.”

“That was great,” Milo counters.

I fight the impulse to shrug off the compliment, but can’t help adding, “Well, at least it was an easy one to answer, since I’m in the same boat.”

Milo shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m glad it’s working out,” he says, the words quick, but sincere.

“Thanks,” I say, momentarily thrown. Milo hasn’t even referenced Connor once in these past few weeks. The deliberateness of it feels strange, like it’s testing some boundary between us. “Me too.”

But before I can feel it out, Milo salutes me in goodbye and splits off to another path to get to work.

I reflexively pull my phone out of my pocket. I should text Connor. Tell him about the broadcast. But the idea of it seems to puncture some of the magic, the feeling I’ve been riding since I first took Milo’s mic.

What if you did something behind the scenes instead? Connor had said to me. Every time I pushed myself, every time I tried to get past this fear, he was there with some variation of those words. If you were doing stuff and nobody knew it was you, would it scare you then?

Back then I thought it made me feel safe. But looking back, I think it might have just made me feel small.

When I reach the dorm, I compose an email to my old AP Psych teacher telling her I’m ready to pass the torch on the “Bed of Roses” column. I don’t hesitate to send it. Some part of me has known this was coming for a while now. But nothing confirmed it more than this—more than the energy of talking to someone in real time, of rising to meet a challenge as it was presented; more than the fire coursing through me, hot enough to fuel but not so much that it burns; more than the friends who quietly believed I could do it, and waited for me to believe in myself.