once I had everything, I gave it up,
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt.
and so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit, and with no seatbelt, and I'd do it again
.

She strummed out a simple melody, but scrapped it and started over, singing that stanza again, reaching a crescendo and ending in a whisper: "and I'd do it again..."

"That sounds really perfect," Carey said, leaning against the open door. He climbed the stairs in one step and sat beside her, reaching for the paper. "Apparently, this has been causing quite a stir today." He re-folded the paper and stuffed it back into his pocket, from which it had originally fallen.

"It's really beautiful. Did you write it?"

"Yeah."

"Do you mind if I put it to music?"

"Well, I wrote it for you."

She smiled and began to try a different arrangement when the meaning of what he had said hit her. He didn't mean he had written it for her act. He meant he'd written it for her.

"For me?"

He cleared his throat and looked away. She reached for his hand and started to speak, to tell him that it was really sweet, but that nothing could possibly happen, not now, but he interrupted her before she got the words out and sang his words to her melody.

tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion,
for I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see;
you were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa,
and you were not thinking of me...

And what could she say to that? Since he had returned from college and the old goofy Carey she'd known from childhood had somehow morphed into the new grown-up Carey, the one who wasn't afraid anymore to pursue what he really wanted from life, somehow their relationship had changed. She had never taken the time to add it up before, but it was clear now that he was standing at the precipice of the great, gruesome height and turning back, holding out his hand to her. What could she do but hold her breath and let herself fall?

She kissed him sweetly, and felt his great warmth melt against her. It would be scary to face what would happen next, but at least she knew they would stare down the great unknown together.