based on this song.

“When you have no light to guide you, and no one to walk beside you, I will come to you. Oh, I will come to you.” The lyrics are sung in a small voice, a muttering one not meant for performance, but for learning. Casey sings them over and over, each time with a different part played on the keyboard in the corner of his room. He’d gotten it as a gift from his grandparents his last birthday and he’s played it every day since.

“When the night is dark and stormy, you won’t have to reach out for me. I will come to you. Oh, come to you.” Again, the part is played over and over, a switch in the keys. He stops to write a piece down in the notebook beside him, then suddenly tears it out, crumples it and tosses it behind him with his other failed attempts, then starts over again. He writes the part down again, with a few tweaks in he melody, then he finally moves along.

“Sometimes, when all your dreams may have seen better days… when you don’t know how or why, but you’ve lost your way. Have no fear when your tears are fallin’. I will hear your spirit callin’. And I swear that I’ll be there, come with me.”

He’s already perfected this part as far as he’s concerned. It’s the heart of the song — the origin line, and he’s been trying to build the rest around it for a whole week at this point. It has a melody. It has an instrumental part. It’s everything he wants, but the rest isn’t coming together as he’d hoped. He has chunks of lyrics and little else.

“You wrote that?” A voice chimes in behind him. The process is ruined. He’ll have to start over. Casey grits his teeth together and turns his head to see Richard standing in the doorway, his arms folded loosely over his stomach. “S’ pretty good, kiddo.”

“It’s not really finished.” Casey shrugs, looking over the papers scattered across the room, wondering how long he’s actually been sitting there.

Richard steps into the room, picking up a piece of paper along the way, unfolding it. He reads over the lyrics with a nod. “I liked this one, but you tossed it out?” He kneels down, holding out the sheet, which Casey snatches from him with his face flushed. He wasn’t expecting anyone to hear it, or care about it. He wasn’t expecting anyone to pick his work up and inspect it.

He scrutinizes the lyrics one more time, trying to decide whether or not Richard is just being kind.

( — We all need somebody we can turn to

Someone who'll always understand

So, if you feel that your soul is dying

And you need the strength to keep trying

I'll reach out and take your hand )

“I dunno.” Casey shrugs, then turns back to his keyboard, messing with some of the settings, shifting between different sounds. He’s given up finishing the song.

“You don’t know?” Richard asks, unexpectedly — and annoyingly — fixated. He picks up another sheet. Casey grits his teeth together to keep from snapping at him.

“Yeah, I wasn’t liking it.”

“This is good too.” Richard hands him another sheet. “How come this one was bad?”

“Because it was? Can you stop?” That one, he doesn’t look at. He just sets it aside, then goes back to doddling, his heart hammering in his chest, his body on fire from the inside out. Please let this end soon, he inwardly begs, but Richard sits down right beside him, as if to squash any hope he has of that.

“Did you write this for someone?” Richard asks, picking up the notebook.

“Dude, come on.” Casey snags it back. “It’s not for anyone.”

“About someone then?” Richard assumes. “Friend? Girlfriend? …Boyfriend?”

“No…” Casey looks over his newest page with his lips pursed together, shaking his head. Frankly, it isn’t about anything he’s ever actually been familiar with. Suddenly he realizes that’s why he can’t finish it. He can’t write about something he doesn’t know. To him, every lyric he’s written sounds insincere when he tries to sing it, because it it is, each line drawn from places he’s never ventured. Is it even possible to be that kind of shield for someone? To guide them when no one else will? He has no idea, but in a perfect world…

The realization has him furrowing his eyebrows. He ultimately opts to throw the newest page away too after looking at it too long. “It’s not about someone I know, it’s more… I guess about someone I want to know.”