Savannah Cole had a rule about boys with guitars.

It wasn’t something she’d written down or told anyone — more like a law she’d worked out slowly, over years of watching her mother answer the phone at midnight and not say anything back. Over years of watching her father’s guitar case standing upright by the door like it was always leaving, which it always was. The rule was simple: don’t.

The first day of senior year, she almost kept it.

Mason Rivers showed up in third period AP English with a schedule printed on the back of what looked like a receipt and a Fender sticker on his notebook — the old kind, worn at the edges, the kind you put on something you actually use. He sat two desks to her left and spent the first ten minutes of class looking at the room the way people look at things they’re trying to memorize before they have to leave them.

Savannah had moved through this school for three years without letting anyone get close enough to complicate things. She had Caleb, who didn’t count because Caleb had been her best friend since they were eight and proximity had made them permanent. She had Tyler, who was easier than complicated and who she’d been slowly realizing she needed to end. She had her songs — the notebook in the bottom of her backpack, the voice memos on her phone, the ones she hadn’t played for anyone.

She told herself she didn’t notice Mason Rivers. She noticed everything about him.

Three weeks passed.

He was in her English class, her music elective, and apparently every Tuesday at the vending machines in the east hall at 7:40am — which she knew because she was always there too and had started taking the long way around to avoid it and still kept ending up there anyway.

He was from a small town two hours east. He’d transferred because his family had moved for his mother’s job, and he’d gotten into Belmont Prep’s music program by the skin of his teeth and intended to make it count. He wrote his own songs. He didn’t talk about them unless asked. When asked, he got specific in a way that most people didn’t.

“Mama said, ‘Girl, don’t fall too fast’ — but you held me steady, calm in your arms.”

She’d written that line in her notebook at 11pm on a Wednesday without being sure where it came from. She stared at it for a long time. Then she wrote the next one.

It happened on a Thursday. The east hall. 7:43am. He was leaning against the vending machine when she came around the corner taking the long way, and he looked up and said, “You always come from that direction?”

“No,” she said.

He nodded like that was a reasonable answer. “I’m Mason.”

“I know.” She said it before she could stop herself.

He smiled — not a big smile, the kind that meant he knew exactly what she’d just admitted. “Savannah,” he said. “I know too.”

She bought a water she didn’t need and walked to class without looking back. Her heart was doing something she didn’t have vocabulary for yet. She had three songs about Tyler Brant — the wrong kind, the kind where you’re trying to convince yourself of something that isn’t true. She had never written a song about someone in the five minutes she’d known them that felt more honest than all three combined.

She thought about her mother in the kitchen in the mornings, quiet in a way that filled the whole room. She thought about her father’s guitar case by the door.

She thought: Don’t.

She sat down in English class, opened her notebook, and wrote four more lines.

The song came out over two nights. Not painfully, the way songs sometimes did — where you had to drag each word out. This one arrived. The images were already there: a small-town boy with a steady pair of arms. Nights they hadn’t had yet but that she could already feel the shape of. Kitchen crying, rain dancing, every scar proving they’d tried — and she’d do it all again.

She was writing about something that hadn’t happened yet. She was writing about choosing it anyway.

Her mother had said, once, don’t fall too fast — meaning: don’t do what I did. Meaning: I fell too fast and look what that bought me. But Savannah sat in her room at midnight with the notebook in her lap and understood for the first time that her mother’s lesson wasn’t don’t fall. It was fall for the right one. And the only way to know if it was right was to fall.

She closed the notebook. She picked up her phone. She texted Caleb: I’m going to talk to him tomorrow.

Caleb texted back immediately: I KNOW. About time.

Savannah put her phone down and smiled at her ceiling. Then she picked it back up and finished the song.

No second guess.

Verse 1
Mama said, "Girl, don't fall too fast"
But you pulled up in that old Ford dash
Small-town boys got big-talk charm
But you held me steady, calm in your arms

Pre-Chorus
Life got loud, the world got real
But you stayed when it was easier to leave

Chorus
So here's to the nights we barely slept
Dreams we chased and the promises kept
Yeah we learned love ain't picture-perfect
But it's worth it when it's real like this
Got a little fire, a little faith
A whole lotta heart we refuse to waste
If this song's all the truth I get
I'd fall again — no second guess

Verse 2
We've cried in kitchens, danced in the rain
Heard "we're crazy" more than your name
But every scar just proves we tried
And I'd do it all again tonight

Pre-Chorus
They can talk, let 'em say
We know what we got, we ain't afraid

[Chorus]

Bridge
One day we'll laugh at how it started
Two kids betting on broken hearts
If loving you's a risk I take
I'll take it every single day

Final Chorus
So turn it up, let the windows down
Let this town hear what we found
Yeah we bent but we didn't quit
Still standing strong in the middle of it
If loving you's the hill I pick
I'd die on it, I'd live in it
If this song's all the truth I get
I'd fall again — no second guess