Out of Tune

by Beth Reekles

  Callum sighs, and leans on the breakfast bar opposite me. ‘Look. I don’t know what happened with you two, but I want you guys to work things out. You’ve been so good for Todd. He’s been doing so much better since you two started being friends.’

  I don’t say or do anything. I just mull over that for a minute.

  I swallow some more OJ.

  Callum opens his mouth to say something more to me, but there’s the sound of a car outside. We hear a car door slam, and a few seconds later the scrape of keys in the door. Every muscle in my body tenses up; the door opens and there’s a shout of, ‘I’m back.’ I gnaw on my lip before downing the rest of my drink.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ Callum calls back. I stand up and turn to face the door as Todd walks in. When he catches sight of me, he stops walking and stares at me like he’s just seen a ghost.

  Todd looks just the same as ever. He’s wearing a white, loose fitting T-shirt, and a pair of faded jeans, held up by a black belt. His hair is falling over his eyes. Some earphones hang out of the neck of his T-shirt, emitting a slightly tinny noise because he’s got music playing. He draws his cell from his pocket, pressing a button to stop the music, and tugs on the wire of the earphones where they’re attached to the phone, pulling them from under his T-shirt. There’s a seemingly endless silence between us all.

  ‘Long time no see,’ I say quietly. My voice catches as I try and keep the nervousness from my voice.

  ‘Yeah.’ His voice is quiet and strained.

  ‘Cup of coffee, anyone?’ Callum offers.

  ‘Sure,’ Todd says, wrapping the earphones around his cell, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me. I shake my head in answer to his dad. We wait in silence, looking at each other – me, shyly, and Todd, incredulously. Callum hands Todd a mug of coffee, and he cups his hands around it.

  There seems to be an unspoken agreement when he turns around that we’ll go to his room to talk, where it’s more private, because when he starts to walk, I follow him up the stairs.

  I shut the bedroom door behind me. Todd sets his mug down on the nightstand, takes a packet of guitar strings and his wallet from the pockets of his jeans, and then sits on his bed, propped up against his pillows with one leg bent over the other. I hesitate before sitting on the window seat; I don’t know if he wants me to sit near him.

  Todd clears his throat, but doesn’t speak.

  The silence continues for a couple of minutes. I know I have to say something, but I don’t know where to start. Todd surprises me by shooting to his feet, and pacing up and down. He laces his fingers together and places his hands behind his head.

  ‘Do you hate me?’

  He blurts the words so quickly that I almost don’t understand him.

  My eyes flash to Todd’s face, and I watch him with a steady expression. My voice is calm and quiet: ‘You’ve been avoiding me for the past two weeks, and I’m not sure I understand why. Of course I don’t hate you. I was angry for a while, that’s all. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  It’s a while before he responds.

  ‘I figured . . . you probably hated me. Why wouldn’t you? I was completely out of line, I put you in a position you shouldn’t have been in, and you didn’t deserve that.’ He lets out a huge gush of air, closing his eyes for a moment. He looks like a wounded animal when he opens his eyes again. ‘It’s been so – hard to deal with everything, and when I messed everything up between us, I freaked out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t open up to people easily, you know that. I opened up to you and I wrecked everything, and I couldn’t face you afterward. I was scared of losing my best friend, but I messed up and I didn’t know how to apologize when I knew you’d hate me.’

  ‘You should’ve just talked to me,’ I say, standing up. ‘I didn’t – don’t – hate you, like I said. But when you were avoiding me, I guessed you didn’t want to talk to me, and I didn’t know what to do once I stopped being mad at you. I thought that we just – you know, stopped being friends.’

  ‘It’s not that easy to stop being friends with someone,’ he mumbles.

  ‘No, I know. I still miss Allie, but it’s too late to do anything about that now.’

  He nods.

  ‘Wait – did you say . . . I’m your best friend?’

  Todd stops pacing and looks at me innocently, his now-gray eyes wide. ‘Of course you are.’

  The way he says it, like it’s so obvious, makes my face split with a smile, and my heart swells. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a best friend, since I’ve been anyone’s best friend.

  Maybe it’s not precisely the right thing to do, but I close the distance between us to hug him. I hesitate just before I do, and stand an inch or so away from him; he looks down at me warily.

  Then I move the rest of the way and wrap my arms around his torso. His face is buried in my hair and my nose is a little squashed against his collarbone but I don’t care. We just hold on, our arms tight around each other.

  ‘I missed you,’ he mumbles.

  ‘I missed you, too.’ Then I say to him, ‘You’re coffee’s getting cold.’

  And Todd replies, ‘Oh, shit,’ and lunges over his bed to gulp down his drink before it gets too cold. I start laughing, unable to stop, and when I look back at Todd, I find him cracking a smile at me over the top of his mug, which only makes me smile wider.

  We put his TV on – reruns of Judge Judy are playing quietly in the background now, and we sit on his bed, side by side, half watching them, occasionally talking about something.

  After a while, Todd says, ‘Do you mind if I play you something on my guitar?’

  So surprised I’m momentarily speechless, I nod. He gets off the bed to go pick up his guitar, and after he’s finished checking the tuning, I manage to find my voice again: ‘Is it something you wrote yourself?’

  He nods. ‘It’s, ah, actually something I wrote about you. A couple of days after what – what happened at the Freemans’.’

  ‘Does it have a name?’

  ‘It’s called “Stay”. It’s – it isn’t finished, or anything, and it’s still pretty rough, because I’m still working on it, but—’

  ‘Todd,’ I interrupt, smiling, ‘just play the song.’

  He draws in a deep breath and then starts plucking at the strings with his gray guitar pick before he begins to sing.

  ‘Sometimes I think

  I should let it go,

  Forget about it,

  And forget about you,

  Because some days it feels like

  I don’t have the strength to move.

  Some nights I lie in bed

  Just waiting for the daybreak

  Just waiting for a sign from you

  That you won’t leave me all alone

  But the nights blur into days

  Blur into nights blur into weeks

  Don’t leave me now, I need you,

  Don’t listen when I say

  I never, never, never wanna see you again,

  Stay here with me

  Don’t leave me now, I need you,

  There’s an empty space left in my heart

  That’s reserved just for you

  If you’ll stay.’

  I don’t want him to stop. I’m completely captivated by his voice, the music, the lyrics, knowing that it’s all just for me – but the magic is broken when my cellphone rings, and I fumble to get it from my back pocket. Todd strikes a discordant note and stops.

  ‘Hey,’ I answer.

  ‘Hey,’ Josh says. ‘Where are you? You haven’t answered my texts.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you’d texted . . . I wasn’t looking at my cell. Sorry.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at Todd’s.’

  There’s a pause. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m at Todd’s,’ I repeat.

  ‘What the hell are you doing there?’ His voice is a little louder now, but he’s not shouting or anything. Just s
hocked, by the sound of it. ‘You told me you two’d had a big fight.’

  ‘Well, we did. I came over to talk to him, you know, sort things out.’

  ‘After the way he treated you? Ashley,’ he sighs my name. I can imagine the look on his face right now – resigned, his blond eyebrows pulled together tightly.

  ‘Yes. We did the adult thing and talked about it, patched things up.’

  ‘Ashley,’ he sighs again. But right now, I don’t want to hear what he’s got to say against Todd.

  So I say, ‘I’m sorry Josh, I’ve got to go. My dad’s on the other line. I’ll call you later, okay?’

  ‘All right,’ he says eventually. ‘Fine. I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too,’ I tell him, and hang up. I put my cell on Todd’s chest of drawers and go back to sitting on the bed. I look at him and snap, ‘Don’t even . . .’

  ‘Okay.’

  He comes to sit back on the bed, the guitar pick pinched between his long, thin fingers.

  ‘Sorry he interrupted your song,’ I say.

  ‘It’s okay. So . . . what – what did you think of it?’

  I reach out and put my hand over his, feeling the guitar pick bite into my palm. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Todd. I’m staying. I promise.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Christmas decorations are up in the stores in anticipation of the holidays as November begins. Mom starts fretting about Thanksgiving, and Dad mutters under his breath whenever she tells him to oil the hinges on the door to the dining room ready for when family come to visit.

  It’s a Wednesday, and one of the girls in my Calculus class, Carly, is throwing a birthday party tonight. She’s invited practically the whole junior year class, not to mention a handful of seniors and some college kids she knows – plus a couple of friends she has from nearby schools . . .

  A few people threw small Halloween parties last weekend, but they’ll have nothing on Carly’s ‘birthday bash’, as she’s calling it. Everyone’s looking forward to it – everyone except me, it seems.

  I finally manage to tame my hair into being straight, and pull on my shoes ready to leave. My outfit for this party is a silky camisole in a bright cobalt blue, a pair of black shorts and some tights. Josh is ready to go, lying on my bed flipping through TV channels as he waits for me.

  ‘Okay, I’m ready. Let me just send Todd a text to meet us at your car . . .’

  ‘I’m sure O’Connor can make his own way there,’ he grumbles for something like the hundredth time in the past forty minutes. I ignore him, deciding it’s not worth arguing over. I just want to go to this party and get the night over with so I can curl back up in my bed and sleep.

  I lean over to give Josh a quick kiss, an arm either side of him to support me. ‘You don’t have to look so grumpy about it. It’s just a ride.’

  ‘I do if I don’t like him.’

  I sigh. ‘I’d ask what’s so bad about him, but . . .’

  ‘Let’s see, he’s arrogant, tries to do that whole “strong, silent type” thing Danielle is always talking about and it just makes him look like a loner and a total loser, but he still acts like he’s so much better than the rest of us.’

  ‘Josh, can we maybe not talk about Todd?’

  ‘Why, do you have something else on your mind?’ He grins, the grumpy frown disappearing suddenly, and his arms close around my waist, pulling me down onto the bed, and he rolls over so that he’s on top of me. I can’t help but laugh, and he kisses my neck.

  ‘Josh, come on, we have to go . . .’

  One of his hands runs up my thigh before he kisses me full on the mouth, and I kiss him back.

  ‘We have time to kill,’ he murmurs, kissing my neck again, ‘we don’t need to leave for a while . . .’

  I mumble incoherently in agreement, but when he starts to slide a hand up under my top and around to the clasp on my bra, I push him off and pull my mouth away from his, sitting up to straighten my camisole.

  He sighs. ‘Ashley . . .’

  ‘I didn’t realize that was what you meant, Josh.’

  He sits up as well, and pushes my hair over my shoulder, running his fingers through it slowly. ‘We’ve been together almost two years. When do you think you will be ready for this?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve got planned out to the moment,’ I snap. ‘I thought we talked about this over the summer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  He does sound genuinely apologetic, and gives me a small, hesitant smile, so I lean in to kiss him briefly so he knows I’m not too annoyed at him. Then he stands up, pulls me to my feet and says, ‘Come on then, let’s go.’

  Josh slings an arm around me as we head downstairs, and we call goodbye to my parents before going outside to his car. Since he has to be up at seven tomorrow to get to football practice before school starts, he can’t afford the slightest hangover. Before we part ways to get in the car, I crane my neck to give him a quick kiss, but he holds my face in his hands.

  ‘Ah-ah, you don’t get away that easy,’ he teases, and pulls me back for a deeper kiss. And I try to let all my troubled thoughts melt away, but I can’t do it. I just kiss him back, trying to work out what I feel, until we break apart and get in the car. Todd comes out a second later, climbing into the backseat with a mild, ‘Hey, guys.’

  Once we arrive, after a car ride that was deathly silent, the party’s already in full swing, and Todd slips away from us quickly to some guys he hangs out with, and we find our own group of friends.

  After talking for a few minutes, Eliza says, ‘I think I need another drink?’ and I say, ‘I’ll go with you.’

  I don’t intend to drink much tonight. In fact, I wasn’t really going to drink at all.

  But Eliza doesn’t know that. She hands me a plastic cup of beer, and I down it in one without a second thought, filling it again before we leave.

  It’s maybe an hour later – perhaps longer, and time is just passing quickly – and I’ve had about half a dozen more cups of beer. I no longer have the aching desire to curl up in bed and sleep. A boozy adrenalin is pumping through me and the buzz of the beer is making this party turn out to be quite enjoyable. Everything’s just so bright!

  ‘Come on,’ I say in a low voice in Josh’s ear, pulling at the front of his shirt. ‘Let’s just go somewhere quieter.’ I tug at his shirt again, walking backwards so that he’ll follow me up the stairs. I gulp down the rest of my beer. I don’t know how many I’ve had now. I’ve lost count.

  It’s just so loud. Everything’s very loud and the music is very noisy and maybe the neighbors will complain about it to Carly’s parents in the morning, but maybe they won’t because they understand that teenagers will do these things and they would too if they were teenagers right now and—

  We get to the landing and I stumble sideways into a door, and since it’s not shut properly it opens with my weight against it. ‘Oops!’

  The bedroom on the other side of the door is empty, and the world starts spinning. I stagger toward the bed, and it feels like I’m walking on a waterbed because the floor seems to move beneath my feet, and I fall against the bed, giggling as I slump to the floor.

  Josh sits beside me, putting an arm around me, and I turn in to kiss him. We kiss for a long time, and at some point I splay my fingers out on his bare chest, wondering when his shirt came off. The world is spinning again, and I close my eyes to steady myself.

  ‘Ashley?’

  ‘Mm-hmm?’ I drag my eyelids back open, blinking at him and feeling surprisingly drowsy all of a sudden. I lean forward and kiss him again before he gets the chance to say what he wanted to say. I lean with too much gusto, though, knocking him off-balance. I laugh again at the look of surprise on his face when his back hits the floor and I fall on top of him.

  ‘Oh. Um, sorry . . .’

  I recognize that voice. I push myself up from leaning over Josh to look who’s at the door.

&nbs
p; Naomi giggles. ‘Oh, sorry! Carry on, we’ll find somewhere else . . .’ She drags the guy, someone I don’t think I know, away to find somewhere else private for them to make out. Josh sits up and I stand up, stumbling into the bed again on unsteady legs.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asks. ‘Ashley, you don’t look so great. Are you gonna be sick?’

  I shake my head slowly.

  He stands up and holds one of my arms by the elbow. ‘Come on, let’s get you a drink of water, and you can sit down.’

  Josh holds onto my arm so I don’t trip down the stairs, and shoulders through the throngs of people to get me to the kitchen, dropping me into a seat before giving me a glass of water.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d drunk that much,’ he sighs, straddling the chair next to me.

  ‘Mmph.’

  ‘Do you want me to drive you home? It’s only, like, ten thirty, but I don’t mind. I should probably get an early night anyway.’

  ‘What about Todd?’

  ‘What about him?’

  I scowl, blinking a few times because my brain feels like mush and my eyes won’t focus properly on Josh. ‘You said you’d drive him home.’

  Josh shrugs one shoulder. ‘He’ll find a ride.’

  ‘Josh.’

  ‘All right, all right, fine. I’ll go find him.’

  Josh disappears, and by the time he comes back with Todd in tow, I’ve finished my water and the elated buzz I felt not too long ago has now faded away and left me feeling heavy and lethargic, my head drooping and eyes struggling to stay open.

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s wasted.’ Josh hooks a hand under my arm and pulls me up, slipping an arm around my waist. I drop my head against his forearm, my feet dragging listlessly. ‘She shouldn’t have drunk so much. She doesn’t normally drink much, so she’s a total lightweight.’

  ‘How much did she have to drink?’

  ‘One too many,’ I joke, but my words slur together so much I don’t think either of them understand me. Josh puts me in the backseat of the car, and I fall across the seats like it’s a couch.