You put the little headphones on and everyone else did too, and then the music started but only inside your head. I waited to hear it. I pressed my ear against the air. Nothing. Just a whole room of people bobbing and spinning to a song I couldn't catch, laughing at a joke nobody said out loud.
At first I thought it was the saddest thing. A party where you can't share the good part. Where you dance alone even standing in a crowd.
But then you did the thing. You know the thing. You closed your eyes and threw your arms up and mouthed every single word, and you did not care one bit that you looked ridiculous, because nobody could hear you being off-key. You used to sing like that in the back seat.
Loud and wrong and completely happy. I thought you'd stopped. I really did. I thought grown-ups only sang along quiet, with their mouth barely moving, in case somebody was listening.
You pressed the little button and the color on your headphones changed and you laughed because now you were on the blue song, the one three people across the room were already on, and you found each other by the same glow. Like a secret. Like a password only you knew.
I didn't understand it at first. I thought you had to hear the same music to be together.
But you're still loud in there, aren't you? Still singing every word to something nobody else can hear.
Can I come next time?
I promise I already know the words.