In silence, I still hear your voice.

She seems shy at first, her eyes fixed on the music sheets in her hands as she sings the first notes of that Taylor Swift song he just started learning a few days ago. Then he can feel how she slowly starts sounding more confident, as if she is testing the water and remembers she still knows how to swim just fine. And she is a delight.

Now that he recalls the first time he saw Claire, she had been singing this song, although it was a much more cheerful version back then. He'd turned this attention to the stage and saw her, and they had met before, but Evan had to admit it was only at that moment she made an impression.

To his defense, he had been smitten with Hannah from day one, and the sunny girl was one of her friends, so it made it a bit awkward for him when Claire invited him to Homecoming right after he started school in Green Valley High. He was young, and admittedly a bit of an asshole, because he can't remember having ever started a conversation with Claire those first weeks