Friended

by Kilby Blades

  I turned right, still stung and confused by his behavior, still wishing for a place to sulk and to let myself get a little mad. He had some nerve, being hot and cold like this. My phone buzzed in my pocket, interrupting my thoughts. Probably Zoë texting me. The part of me that could really use a pep talk and a vent wished I’d already come clean. But it wasn’t Zoë—it was an Instagram alert. I read my screen in disbelief.

  @moves_like_jagga sent you a private message

  English Lit be damned, I did go find a hiding place then: a spot behind the gym where no one ever went. Certain that smoke was shooting out of my ears, I knew I was in no condition to go to class. I didn't want anyone to see how unraveled I was by…

  "That enigmatic fuck!" I seethed aloud.

  Once I reached the space behind the gym, I didn’t sit right away. I thumbed in the code to unlock my phone and swiped the alert on the screen, raging internally all the while.

  Who the hell does he think he is, avoiding me like the plague and then PMing me?

  Does he get some cheap thrill out of luring girls with faux-emo bullshit, just so he can mess with their minds?

  Who does stuff like this?!

  Once I abandoned futile speculation, I saw the message:

  You rushed out of class pretty quickly. I thought you might like this version.

  A second message held a Spotify link and the preview picture of an old white guy with a baseball cap. The caption below the image announced that it was a version of Fade Into You by someone named J Mascis. I didn’t recognize the name. But it didn’t escape my notice that Jagger hadn’t sent me The Moth and the Flame version, which, in my opinion, was just okay. The hand that didn’t hold the phone was balled into a fist and I narrowed my eyes, as if glaring his thumbnail image on my screen would teleport to his consciousness. I’d wanted him to acknowledge my song. But, still, I was spitting mad.

  Yes, I’d rushed out of Civics. But only because he’d ignored me. Why hadn’t he just passed me a note telling me to check my phone?

  "I hate you, Jagger Monroe," I growled out loud.

  Even as I spoke the words the self-preserving part of me knew that I should feel, the larger part of me laughed at the lie.

  Six

  Love on the Brain

  Must be love on the brain

  that's got me feeling this way.

  It beats me black and blue

  but it f*cks me so good

  and I can't get enough.

  -Rihanna, Love on the Brain

  Jagger

  "Yo, Deck,” I said distractedly when he answered his cell.

  "What up, J-dawg?" he bellowed cheerfully.

  The Spice Girls jab was less than twelve hours old, and any other friend would've whined. That was one thing I respected about Declan—he really knew how to take things in stride.

  "Can you swing by Gunther’s place and take him to school? I'm running late.”

  "No worries, dude…everything alright?"

  “Yeah, man. I just overslept.”

  I was scrolling through my iTunes library even as I spoke, some blind sense of purpose in control of my actions. I mumbled an absent goodbye to Declan as my eyes continued to scan. There was a version I’d heard once—a solo track by the front man in Dinosaur Jr.—but it was in my other music library and I’d forgotten his name, so I had to look up the song. By the time I stopped to think about what I was doing, I was looking it up on Spotify, saving it to my private playlist, then opening the app on my phone and copying the link to the song. I must've been out of it not to have heard my mom come in.

  "Listening to music at…8AM?" she asked with her peaceful voice and a glance at the clock.

  "Just uploading my homework,” I lied smoothly.

  My mom knew I transferred my music comp assignments from my computer to my phone. She thoroughly approved of my high-tech set-up, though it didn’t hold a candle to her studio downstairs. Old friends from her industry days sometimes visited, taking inspiration from the nature energy. Some amazing tracks had been recorded, right here in this house.

  “Don’t forget to eat something…” she scolded lightly from the doorway. “I’d rather you be late than be hungry.”

  After mousing my desktop into sleep mode and pocketing my phone, I grabbed my backpack and made my way to the door.

  “Love you, Mom.” I leaned down to kiss her cheek and squeeze her hand as I passed.

  My phone burned a hole in my pocket all fucking morning, and when Roxy flashed me a blushing smile as she slid into her seat in Civics, I wasn't sure I could go through with it. Speaking to her right here in front of God and everybody would produce definitive evidence that something had changed. Maybe I’d overestimated myself—overestimated my plan—overestimated my confidence that Civics class was a safe haven where I could say a few words to her without anyone seeing or caring.

  Shit.

  I spent the entire period overthinking it—so long that I was surprised when the bell rang. She seemed in a hurry to leave. As she stuffed her books into her backpack and shot toward the front of the classroom, I kicked myself mentally. I’d let my moment pass. And what was I supposed to do now? Try again tomorrow? Like, hey “Roxy, remember that song you were listening to on Monday? It’s two days later, and even though I lost them yesterday, I found my balls again today. By the way, here’s an obscure cover I wanted to share with you.” Yes. If I was going to do this, waiting even another minute would make it extra weird. Before I could change my mind, I tapped out a quick message, sent the link and tried to forget about it for awhile.

  After school, I headed to my volunteer gig, glad to kill a few hours at the hospital before reprising my stalker role at home. After dinner with my parents and an uncommonly lengthy session with my piano, I ventured upstairs to the bat cave. The grin that arose when my eyes fell to her update was unstoppable. It was an image that only a die-hard music listener would understand. A white play button sat largest in the middle; forward and back controls flanked its side and an icon with crossed arrows on the left denoted shuffle play. The sole splash of green belonged to the icon on the right: curved head-to-tail arrows that combined to form an oval. Roxy was telling me she had the song on repeat.

  Roxy

  “Earth to Roxy!”

  Zoë’s muted voice reached me from over the sound of my music at the same time her waving palm entered my vision. I tugged out a white earbud as I thumbed the pause button my phone.

  “You are way too into your music,” Zoë chided lightly, and not for the first time. I muttered an apology and didn’t mention that it wasn’t my music—it was Jagger’s.

  Ever the chatterbox, Zoë was content to dive right into the afternoon’s news as we walked to the car. The only classes we shared in common were U.S. History in second period and, of course, lunch. Since this was high school, a lot could happen between lunch and the end of the day. I hummed and nodded in all of the appropriate places as we sped down mostly-empty roads. Traffic thinned the farther we got from school. I still hadn’t gotten used to certain things about this part of California—gray skies in most other places meant rain. Winters here were overcast, but half the time, it was bone dry.

  “Hey…” I remembered as I was getting out of the Cayenne. “Was there a quiz in English Lit?”

  “We started The Catcher in the Rye. Didn’t you go to class?”

  “I wasn’t feeling well.” Technically, it was true.

  “Send you my notes?” she offered.

  “Thanks anyway,” I replied. “I had to read it last year.” Actually, it had been twice—once at my old school and again at the new.

  The second I got inside, I dropped my backpack like a rock, shot up to my room, and threw my phone onto my speaker dock. I'd heard other versions before, but this one was…unbelievable. I listened to it over and over, each new play soothing my anger with Jagger like a salve.

  It was a nice gesture, I told myself now.

  He must love this song too, to hav
e a version like this.

  Maybe he’s an introvert.

  How quickly I had changed my tune. I didn't even think about dinner until my dad popped his head in my room. His presence startled me, and I shot upright in embarrassment, as if I had been caught doing something wrong. He’d have known by then that I hadn’t cooked. No set table and no smells coming from the kitchen meant nothing to eat.

  "The diner?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah.” I managed a sheepish smile. He smiled back. My dad was cool.

  "Five minutes.” He closed my door again on his way out.

  I agonized less over updating my status this time, some part of me knowing I had surrendered to playing this out. A little screen shot of my play buttons, a little filter to brighten up the green repeat symbol, and, boom!

  I tried to maintain a façade of normalcy as I rode with my dad to the diner. He put on a mellow Iron & Wine. He was quiet like me and we didn’t say much when we were together, but he still felt more present than my mom. It still startled me sometimes—someone asking about my day, caring about my grades and telling me I couldn’t go out unless my homework was done. Maybe one day the novelty of daily parental supervision would wear off. So far, it hadn’t.

  “You hear from your mom?”

  I shoved half of the longest french fry I could find in my mouth and chewed it very slowly. I’d been avoiding my mother and didn’t want to talk about her. She didn’t call regularly, but when she really wanted to talk, she’d call me over and over. Lately, she’d been bugging me about plans for her wedding.

  “Yeah…I need to call her back,” I admitted vaguely. “The time difference makes it kinda hard.”

  Selfish Bliss was on the European leg of its tour, which made it plausible that my mother’s incessant calls would have come in at indecent hours. But my mother didn’t keep decent hours. She’d been calling around dinner time for me, which was around three in the morning for her.

  “You know what happens when you avoid her…” He gave me a look.

  “Yeah, I do know.” I picked up another fry. “She calls you. Then both of you get on my case.”

  When my dad put down his burger and sighed, I felt a twinge of guilt. He was only trying to do the right thing. I’d been around custody agreements long enough to know how her not being able to reach me could be perceived if she reported it to the courts.

  “She wants me to come in April.” I really didn’t want to talk to my dad about the wedding, even though he wasn’t in love with her anymore. She’d broken his heart twice: once by leaving him as a man, and again by taking his child. To add insult to injury, she’d left for the sake of a dream that had once belonged to them both.

  That was how they’d fallen in love: he wrote songs and she sang—he even knew his way around a guitar. They’d have moved to Nashville to perform as a duo. Then I’d come along. My dad had done what he had to, to support his family. My flighty mother had been impatient, but my practical dad been content to delay. It was the end of their romance—her resenting him for giving up on Nashville. Him resenting her for looking down her nose at the better-than-decent life he could give them by working his trade and staying in Rye.

  “April, as in, Spring Break?” My dad snaked one of my fries and dipped it in way too much ketchup.

  I didn’t know why I kept stalling. He would find out either way. “April, as in, pull me out of school for a week so I can go to Mexico for the wedding. She’s been bugging me to get a passport and to convince you to sign the release.”

  My dad stopped chewing. I winced. This recalled the most vicious fight between them—the incident that made it so they couldn’t even stay friends. When my mother had left him, she hadn’t negotiated him seeing me—she’d packed our things and taken me to Nashville with her. And she’d left like a thief in the night. It had been illegal for her to take me, without his permission, across state lines. He’d never forgiven her for leaving like she did and essentially kidnapping me in the process.

  “I’m not gonna stop you from going to your mother’s wedding.”

  “I shouldn’t miss school,” I hedged.

  He opened a napkin, wiped his mouth, and fixed me with another look. “I’ll write you a note.”

  “I don’t want to go.” I hated that it came out as a whisper due to the sudden lump in my throat.

  He looked at me hard—that sweeping kind of look that studied every inch of my face—with tawny eyes that were identical to mine.

  “She’s still your mother.”

  “I know.”

  “Something about Adam make you nervous?”

  I shook my head quickly. “It’s not that.” Nothing made my dad go all papa bear faster than thinking about whether it was safe to be around my mom’s men. There had been a lot of them over the years. Adam was an okay guy, but it was still my mom’s same scene: her partying like she was twenty-five instead of thirty-five; her treating me like I was twenty instead of seventeen; her performing for everyone—acting as if we were more like sisters or best friends than mother and daughter.

  “I’ll just be an accessory,” I finally admitted.

  My dad pursed his lips and gave me a sorrowful look. For a minute, I thought he’d say what it looked like he wanted to. Instead, he asked for the check. Outside, he gave me one of the kinds of hugs he’d been giving me since I was a kid and put on David Bowie when we got into the car.

  I was proud of myself for staving off the impulse to check my Instagram feed as his truck hummed smoothly over empty, tree-lined roads. But I wasn't strong enough not to check the second I got back in my room. I smiled when I read a post from Gunther that had been hearted by Zoë. That had to mean that they’d become Instagram friends. I didn’t bother with the rest of my feed.

  Tonight I was anxious. Impatient. Relentlessly focused on Jagger. Resolved to stop for nothing else until I found his update. This one was an image that simply said “cover songs” and he’d written a question in the caption space.

  @Moves_like_jagga: What cover song is better than the original?

  Diligently avoiding thoughts of ponytails being tugged and sand down shirts and advice I’d given Zoë about how strangely boys acted when they liked you, I typed in the name of my favorite cover.

  Seven

  Hallelujah

  But remember when I moved in you,

  and the holy dove was moving too,

  and every breath we drew was Hallelujah.

  -Jeff Buckley, Hallelujah

  (Originally written/performed by Leonard Cohen)

  Jagger

  My parents looked rightfully suspicious when I practically skipped into the kitchen later that night, the polar opposite of their resigned, fretful son who had barely choked down dinner an hour before. I hummed lightly as I helped myself to a bounty of strawberry ice cream with crumbled Golden Grahams on top, too elated over Roxy’s reaction to find the will to care. I kissed my mom on the cheek, squeezed my dad's shoulder, chirruped a goodnight and (I'm ashamed to admit) flitted upstairs.

  I was maniacally thrilled by her status update. Roxy had it on repeat. And, somehow, I just knew she did. I pictured what her bedroom in her split-level house must be like, imagined what expression would be on her face and what thoughts in her mind as she listened to a song that had possessed me dozens of times before. I put the song on again myself after I read her post, sprawling out on my bed and staring at the ceiling, wondering whether listening to the same song at the same time made us cosmically joined. When I closed my eyes, I pictured her next to me, our fingers intertwined as we found each other in the music.

  Music was the one thing that I had ever really cared about, that I had never defiled with pretense or front. I protected the musical parts of my life jealously. I’d known how to read music before I’d known how to read the alphabet. Every music requirement I’d taken since the sixth grade had been an independent study. I’d gone to some of the country’s most prestigious summer conservatories. And I wen
t to a ton of shows—from classical to metal—with my parents or by myself.

  And Roxy…she wasn’t listening to whatever the radio was playing—not drinking whatever musical Kool Aid the industry was telling kids to like. I’d seen her with her little iPod Nano—noticed it even before we became on friends on Instagram. What I wouldn’t give to browse her music library. No woman had ever tried to relate to me on this level, much less understood it was the only language I really spoke. Yet, she did. And she wanted to speak it with me. Needing to feel close to her, I tapped to wake up my phone. Time had passed since I'd posted my question about covers. I could see already that the reply list was long.

  @LaurenHall0ran$ – Lissie’s cover of Lady Gaga: “Bad Romance”

  I scoffed. Like hell it was.

  @Tessa$tack – Jimmy Fallon’s cover of “Whip My Hair”

  Yeah. I wasn’t going to gratify that with a response.

  @DeckDeckG00$e – The original is always better.

  Et tu, Declan? Not only did nobody I know seem to have any taste in music—after three responses and no Roxy I was starting to get antsy. Thankfully, Gunther replied to Deck.

  @CivilWarBuff$ – Always @DeckDeckG00$e? Three words, son: Johnny Cash—"Hurt"

  Finally, a good cover, I thought in relief.

  @OhAnnika$ – Gunther’s right—what about The Clash doing "I Fought the Law"?

  @DeckDeckG00$e – You gotta do better than that, babe.

  @OhAnnika$ – Concrete Blonde: "Everybody Knows"

  I liked the Leonard Cohen version better, but I kept my mouth shut. Declan needed to be schooled.