Why?
“Well, she kind of broke up with me, I guess. She said she couldn’t handle being the third choice in my life.”
Third?
“Music…and, well…” He gave me a grin that was more of a grimace. “You.”
My chest tightened and I sat up straighter. He continued speaking. “She thinks I spend too much time with you, seeing you every day. She’s a bit jealous and has this crazy idea that you and I have something going on.”
Did we? Was there something going on between us?
He rolled his eyes. “Which of course, we don’t. I told her you and I are just friends, because we are.”
Right. Of course. We had nothing going on. I held the anchor necklace I wore around my neck each day in the palm of my hand and squeezed it lightly.
Brooks and I were just friends; why did that feel like a punch to my gut?
“Anyway, I thought I’d tell you before anyone else did. It kind of sucks because I spent all that money on my tuxedo for prom tomorrow. Whatever, no big deal.”
I knew it was a big deal to him, though, because whenever Brooks was hurt, he chewed on his right thumb.
I’m so sorry, Brooks. I’m sorry you’re hurting.
“Yeah, me too. I liked her, you know? Lacey was great. But…” He frowned at the words on the dry-erase board, then took the palm of his hand and erased them. “See? With one swipe of the hand, the hurting is gone.”
He stood up and started walking around my room, running his fingers across the spines of all of my novels. I knew the hurting wasn’t gone, because another thing Brooks did when he was sad was pace and thumb through my books.
The tiny bookshelf I’d had since I was a small kid was now stacked high with novels, and those that didn’t fit on the shelves were standing up around the perimeter of my bedroom.
Unlike most people, my books were not grouped together by genre or author name. My books were placed together based on the color of their binding. All reds sat beside one another, while all the purples stayed close together. So, when one walked into my bedroom, they saw a rainbow border wrapping around the space.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking up a small notebook with leather binding.
I shot up from the bed and hurried over to him.
He smirked wickedly. “Oh my…could this be Magnet’s diary?”
I leaped for it, and he held it over his head. I leaped again, and he moved it behind his back. My arms were wild, trying to rip it away from him.
“What kind of stuff do you write in here, huh? Your dirty little secrets? I can’t help but wonder…” He smiled wider and his grin made me happy, and mad, and excited, and scared all at once. The more he leaped up to avoid me getting the journal from him, the more I leaped up to try to snatch it. Every time our skin brushed against one another, I wanted to move in closer. Every time he touched me, I wanted more. He kept laughing and laughing. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I know you’ll never forgive me, but I gotta. I just gotta read one page to see what kind of thoughts go through your—”
He opened to the first page.
He stopped moving.
He stopped talking.
He stopped laughing, too.
“Maggie’s to-do list?” he asked.
My cheeks felt warm, my stomach knotted. I walked back to my bed and sat down.
He followed, sat, and handed me the journal.
It was reading’s fault.
Reading was both a gift and a curse for me. Those books made me able to escape into a world I’d never experienced, but at the same time, they reminded me of all the things I’d been missing.
So, I made a list.
A list so that if somehow, someway, I became able to step outside that front door of mine, I’d have things to do, to see, to explore. Wishful thinking, maybe, but if books had taught me anything, it was that dreaming was always a worthy cause to take part in.
My list grew each day, too. Every time something exciting happened in one of my novels, I added it to my notebook, along with the name of the novel where I got the idea. Horseback riding, thanks to National Velvet. Going to a ball and dramatically running away, due to Cinderella. Standing in two places at once, because of A Walk to Remember.
There were hundreds of items on my to-do list, and some days I wondered if I’d ever get to cross even one thing off.
“It’s a list of things you want to do?” he asked knowingly.
I nodded.
“You can do them all, you know.”
Maybe.
Then, I erased the word.
He wrote: Definitely.
Then, he erased the word, but it stayed in my mind.
We sat quietly for a moment, both staring at the blank board.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Maggie?”
I’d thought about it a lot, that question. What did I want to be? What could I be? An author, maybe. I could publish books through the Internet, and I’d never have to leave my house. Or maybe an artist, and Daddy could take my artwork to fairs to sell it. Or maybe…
I picked up my marker and wrote down exactly what I wanted to be.
Happy.
Brooks picked up a marker of his own and wrote what he wanted to be, too.
Happy.
His fingers wiped away our words, and he leaped from my bed, went over to my desk, and began to scramble through my pens and pencils. When he found the one he wanted, he headed back over to me and began writing on the board.
Someday you’re going to wake up and leave your house, Magnet, and you’re going to discover the world. Someday you’re going to see the whole wide world, Maggie May, and on that day, when you step outside and breathe in your first breath, I want you to find me. No matter what, find me, because I’m going to be the one to show it to you. I’m going to help you cross things off your to-do list. I’m gonna show you the whole wide world.
Just like that, I was his, and he’d never even know it.
Promise? I wrote.
Promise, he replied.
I went to erase the words, and when my hand glided over them, only my promise disappeared. He smiled and showed me his Sharpie marker. “It’s not coming off. I want you to keep the board just like this. Keep it as my promise to you. I’ll get you a new board tomorrow for random conversations.”
My lips parted as if I were going to speak, yet no words came out.
He smiled knowingly. “You’re welcome. Music now?”
I nodded, and we both lay down on my mattress as he pulled out his iPod.
“Waterfall” by The Fresh & Onlys.
“The way the electric guitar climbs in this song is fucking amazing. It feels like you’re in the middle of nothing and everything at the same time. If you listen, you can hear how perfect the bass player is, too. The way they scale up the fretboard is…” He sighed, slamming his hand against his chest. “Gold.”
I hardly ever knew what he was talking about when he spoke about music, but I liked the way it brought him to life.
“Brooks.” Calvin poked his head in my doorway and cocked an eyebrow at his best friend. “We’re practicing in five. Come on. We need to go over the letter we’re sending off with the demo tapes,” Calvin said.
Brooks and Calvin were famous…well, kind of famous—the kind of famous only I knew existed. They were the lead singers in their band and were extremely well trained in performing in our garage. Even though they were undiscovered, I knew someday, they’d be something big.
They were too good to not be noticed.
“You’re coming to tape us, right, Magnet?” Brooks asked, standing up from my bed, seemingly chipper as ever.
Of course I was coming. I reached for my camcorder, picked it up, and then stood to my feet. In my other hand, I grabbed my current read. I never missed band practice; it was the highlight of my day. I always sat and recorded them from the kitchen, too. Mama and Daddy had gotten me a camcorder a few years back because a therapist said he thought I might
open up and speak to the camera or something. It turned out to be hours of me staring at myself, blinking, so instead of wasting the camcorder, I used it to record my brother’s band.
Before heading downstairs, I moved over to my bedroom window, which faced the street and looked across the road to Mrs. Boone’s front porch, where she rocked back and forth in her wicker chair while Muffins slept beside her.
Her lips moved as if she was holding a conversation with the invisible man sitting in the stationary wicker chair beside her. Her Stanley.
My fingers touched the chilled glass and her lips curved up into a smile. She chuckled at something she said then touched the empty chair beside her and made it move in harmony with her rocking.
Mrs. Boone’s life was slowing down, and for many days she lived in her memories. When she wasn’t living in her memories, she was telling me how I should’ve been making my own. It may have seemed sad to many the way she lived nowadays, but to me, Mrs. Boone seemed so lucky. She might’ve been lonely, but in her mind she was never truly alone.
My memories were sparse, and some of them—maybe most—I was sure I had stolen from storybooks. Parts of me were angry about the way she pushed me, but another part knew I needed to be shoved. She was part of the reason I had a to-do list at all. Even when she was rude, she still believed in me having a future.
Those who believed in you when you didn’t believe in yourself were the ones to hold close.
10
Maggie
“One, two, one, two, three, go!” Calvin chanted in the garage before rocking out on his bass guitar with Brooks and their band. I sat on the kitchen floor, recording them from the garage door, and whenever they’d break to talk, I’d go back to reading my novel.
When I was younger, reading hadn’t been my strong suit, but as the years went by, it became the voice I had lost. It was almost as if the characters lived inside my head and shared their thoughts with me and vice versa.
In the past ten years, I’d read over eight hundred books. I’d lived over eight hundred once upon a times. I’d fallen in love about six hundred and ninety times, fallen in lust maybe twenty times, and fallen in hate about ten billion times. Through those pages, I’d smoked pot, been skydiving, and gone skinny dipping. I’ve been stabbed in the back by friends—both physically and emotionally—and mourned the loss of loved ones.
I’d lived the lives of each character within the walls of my bedroom.
My father brought me a new book—or five—every two weeks on his payday. I assumed he spent twenty percent of his life in bookstores, searching for my next read.
My favorite time of each day was when the boys came home from school and played their music in the garage while I sat reading and listening in the kitchen. I’d always take a break from reading when the boys started fighting over lyrics, or chords, or Owen’s drum playing.
“I’m just saying, Rudolph, you’re two counts off beat,” Oliver, the keyboard player, said with a groan. Oliver was a bigger guy who sweated more than he breathed. Every shirt he wore had sweat stains to the max. When he stood from his drum stool, the butt sweat stains were intense, and the guys always mocked him about it. Plus, Oliver was hungry—all the time. If he wasn’t eating, he was talking about eating. He was a regular meatatarian who loved any kind of meat more than anyone I’d ever met. Besides his excessive sweating and love for steaks, Oliver was also the biggest teddy bear in the group and never fought over anything with anyone, except when it came to Owen, also known as Rudolph. The two fought over anything and everything each day. That day, the fight started because Rudolph was two counts off; he was always two counts off.
“You don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, Oli. You’re playing too fast. You need to pull back.” Rudolph was the complete opposite of Oliver—a vegetarian, stick-thin, and always layered with clothes because no matter the temperature, he was freezing. He always had a red nose, thus the nickname.
“Dude, are you kidding me? You know nothing about nothing. You need—” Oliver started.
Rudolph cut in. “No, you need—”
“TO CLEAN OUT YOUR EARS!” Oliver and Rudolph both hollered in unison. It only took seconds before they were standing face to face, pushing and poking each other while screaming. Oliver wrapped his arm around Rudolph’s neck and forced his head under Oliver’s armpit.
“Argh! Gross. Come on, Oli! No one deserves this!” Rudolph shouted, his face turning the same color as his nose. “Let me go!”
“Say it! Say it!” Oliver ordered. “Say I’m the best at the keys!”
“You’re the best at the keys, okay, dickhead?”
“And say Mom loves me best because I was born first!” Oliver mocked.
“Screw you, Oli…” Oliver pushed Rudolph’s head deeper under his arm, making Rudolph whimper like a sad puppy. “Okay! Mom loves you best! She loves you best, you freaking meatball.”
Oliver dropped his hold on his younger brother—younger by seventeen minutes—and clapped his hands together with a wide smirk. The two were fraternal twins and fought like it, too. It was always entertaining to watch.
As I watched the guys continue to fight, Brooks and Calvin stood in a corner, looking at a notebook where they scribbled lyrics and any ideas they had for the band. Most of the time, Brooks and my brother were complete dorks like the twins, except for when they were rehearsing. They were driven, focused, and determined to be the diamonds in the rough from Harper County, Wisconsin, that made it to Hollywood.
Mama came walking into the kitchen with four pizzas in her hand and hollered, “Boys! Food!”
That was enough to get all of them inside the house. The only thing better than Hollywood was pepperoni pizza.
I sat at the table with the guys as they went over their plans of buying huge mansions, Ferraris, yachts, and monkeys once they hit it big time.
“Don’t you think we should come up with a band name if we are going to be huge?” Rudolph asked, stuffing his face with his gluten-free cheese pizza.
“Wait, so Parrots Without Parents is a no go?” Brooks asked, wiping his saucy face with the back of his hand.
“I thought that was kind of awesome,” Oliver offered.
“I thought it was ridiculous!” Rudolph disagreed. “We should do something involving ninjas!”
“No, pirates!”
“Ninja pirates!” Calvin shouted. The boys all started talking over one another, and I sat quietly, nibbling at my pizza, taking in their actions. Most of the time I felt like a fly on the wall whenever I was around people, somewhat eavesdropping on their lives, because for the most part, they forgot I existed due to my silence.
But every now and then…
“What do you think, Magnet?”
Brooks nudged me gently in the side, and with the small touch from him, everything inside me warmed up. His eyes smiled my way and my heartbeat increased. I loved that about him. I loved how he could see me when the rest of the world forgot I existed. I gave him a small smile and shrugged.
“Come on,” he said, flipping open his notebook to a blank page and handing me his pen. As I took the pen from his grip, I allowed my fingers to linger against his hand. He watched my every move, and I made sure to make every move count.
Did he feel it? My heat? My want? My need?
As I began to write, he smiled, studying the curve of my hand as it ran across the paper. When I finished, I pushed the notebook toward him.
“Crooks,” he said out loud, holding the notebook in his hand.
“Crooks?” Rudolph bellowed, bewildered.
“Crooks?” Oliver echoed, a pitch higher than Owen.
“C is for Calvin, O is for Owen, the other O is Oliver, and then well, Brooks is the rest,” he explained. “Right, Maggie?”
I nodded.
Yes. Yes.
The fact that he understood the meaning of the name without me explaining it made my heart want to explode. How could he understand the thoughts in my head that I
never voiced? How could he read me so effortlessly?
“Crooks!” Calvin shouted, slamming his hand against the table. “I love it. I fucking love it,” my brother cheered. “Just think about being on stage: ‘Hi, we’re The Crooks, and we are here to steal your ears tonight.’”
I giggled to myself as they kept chatting.
“We’re The Crooks, and we’re here to steal your money tonight!” Oliver joked.
“We’re The Crooks, and we’re here to steal your hearts tonight!” Brooks laughed.
“Yeah! Yeah! Or how about: We’re The Crooks, and…and…and…” Rudolph frowned. “Well, hell, you all took the best one-liners.”
“You snooze, you lose, kid brother. Maybe if you added more protein to your diet, your brain wouldn’t be so slow.” Oliver chuckled.
“Yes, Oli, because you eating Bambi is what makes you smart. That’s it. That’s probably why you got an A in calculus, right?” Rudolph replied sarcastically. “Oh wait, you got a D minus.”
The twins started arguing, and I knew there was nothing that was going to stop them until she showed up. Cheryl. She seemed completely over her earlier interaction with her ex-boyfriend and back to her flirty self.
“Hey, boys,” Cheryl sang, swaying her hips and twisting her hair around her finger.
I taught you that move when we were kids!
“I didn’t know you were all going to be over here tonight.” Cheryl always did this weird voice drop thing whenever she talked to guys. She tried to sound seductive, but to me, she sounded like someone who smoked fifteen packs of cigarettes a day. Ridiculous. And of course she knew they’d be there practicing—they were always at our house.
“Oh, hey, Cheryl!” The twins perked up, and their eyes fell to her personal set of twins.
“You look good,” Rudolph barked.
“No, you look great!” Oliver shouted.
“Brilliant!”
“Stunning!”
“Sexy!” the twins yelled in unison.
Cheryl batted her eyes and completely ignored them, zooming her stare in on Brooks, who wasn’t giving her the time of day. Calvin’s and Brooks’ heads were back in their notebook, looking at their future plans. Brooks never seemed too interested in my sister, probably because he’d known her since she was wearing diapers. I could tell that bothered Cheryl, though—every girl wanted Brooks to notice her…including me.
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