Forgotten Lyrics: A Watersong Story by Amanda Hocking Read Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t completely there.
    She rested her hand on her chin. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
    “Sorry. No,” he said sheepishly. “Should I?”
    “Probably not,” Lydia admitted. “The only time we met, you weren’t awake that much.”
    “Okay. Now I’m really confused, and a little scared,” he said, but he was still smiling.
    “The night of your accident. I took you to the hospital. Well, me and my grandma did.”
    “That was you?” Daniel asked, and his confusion fell away to awe and gratitude. “Sorry, I never got a chance to thank you. I wanted to, but I never got your names, and then everything was just such a mess afterwards.”
    “I would imagine,” Lydia said. “Don’t worry about it.”
    “You saved my life. Thank you .”
    She smiled at him and was taken aback by his sincerity. “You’re very welcome. You look good. So everything must be going okay?”
    “It’s pretty good, I guess. Everyone seems really impressed about how well I’m doing.” That was what Daniel said, but there was a flatness in his words, like he wasn’t really doing all that well.
    “So you’re healing up okay?” Lydia asked, trying to find out the truth.
    “Yeah.” He nodded. “I have to go in for another surgery, but they say it’s minor, so…”
    “Minor is better than major,” Lydia said.
    He stared down at the cup of clam chowder in front of him, stirring it absently. “I used to come here with John all the time. This is the first time I’ve been back since he…”
    “I’m sorry about your brother,” Lydia said gravely. “I went to school with him, and I didn’t know him that well, but he seemed like a nice guy.”
    John’s body had turned up a week after the accident, caught in an old fishing net at the bottom of the bay. Lydia had been back at college by then, but Delia had called and told her about it. The police believed that he’d been knocked unconscious in the accident and drowned.
    The funeral was a few days later, and Lydia thought about going to it. She and John had been in the same grade, but they’d run with vastly different crowds. It wasn’t until Delia told her about the funeral notice that Lydia had put it together that the John Morgan she knew was Daniel’s older brother. Her only real connection to him was Daniel, and Daniel didn’t even remember her.
    “It’s not true what they’re saying about him,” Daniel said, lifting his head so his forlorn hazel eyes met hers. “In the paper, after the accident, they called John a drunk and said he partied all the time. And it’s not true.”
    “Okay,” Lydia said, because she wasn’t sure how else to respond. The John she knew in high school had been a partier, and the police report in the paper said he’d been drinking the night of the accident, but she wasn’t about to contradict Daniel. Not now.
    “I mean, he was drunk that night.” Daniel leaned back in the booth and rubbed his temple. “And he was drunk more often than he should’ve been. But that’s not all he was, and that’s not who he used to be.”
    “Who was he?” Lydia asked gently, encouraging Daniel to let out some of the things he was clearly keeping bottled up inside.
    “He was funny, and he was really generous, and he just wanted everyone to be happy.” His jaw was set, and Lydia thought Daniel was trying not to cry. “My old man left a couple years ago, but before he did, he used to drink all the time. He used to beat on my mom, but when he started coming after me, John would stand up to him. John would take it so I didn’t have to.
    “My dad was a mean drunk, but John wasn’t like that.” Daniel shook his head. “John was just trying to have fun. He just drank to escape when things got hard, and I know that it wasn’t the right way to do things. And I told John.”
    He wiped at his eye and leaned forward on the table. “I told him he shouldn’t drink so much. That night, when we went out to the boat, I told him not to, but he