by Ginger Scott
I like the change in music—to move from smooth to staccato, sometimes no transition at all. My father hates it, so I save these moments for nights like this. And before I know it, I fall into my routine, the blues rhythms coming through, taking over. My eyes open because this sound—the sound of my heart—has made me feel at home.
Without warning, though, my bliss is interrupted.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The sound is constant, halted only by the loud clanking of a ball shanking off of the metal hoop outside. The shadows of the trees are sharp and dark against my curtains, and I can tell someone has turned the driveway floodlights on. My floodlights. The ones attached to my home. Where the basketball hoop is also located.
After what feels like a full minute of deep breathing, I find a fraction of my calmness from before and let my fingers glide back into their position. With my eyes closed, I do my best to tune out the continual barrage of noise taking over outside, and I almost get back into my groove, when the thud from before ricochets off of the side of my house.
“Oh, come on!” I shout, standing quickly from my bench and spilling the hot chocolate onto the floor. “Damn it!”
Changing direction, I head into the kitchen first and grab the towel folded over the cabinet under the sink and race back to the spilled drink, doing my best to soak it up from the wood floor.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Maybe it’s the sound—the fact that it still continues—or maybe it’s the fact that I’m now on my knees cleaning up my spilled drink, my little night of happiness suddenly ruined.
Maybe it’s him.
Something pushes me, just enough, and I toss the towel back into the kitchen and pull my hoodie tight around my body, flinging the screen door open in front of me and leaping from the porch stairs. By the time I round the front of the house and start my way up the driveway along the side, I’m full of adrenaline, not even affected by the sting of the cold, and I ride the wave of bravery right into Owen Harper’s face.
“Uhhhhh, do you mind?” I say, grabbing the ball quickly and clutching it to my body, both arms wrapped around it tightly like I’m hugging a teddy bear.
Owen stares at the ground where the ball was bouncing just seconds before, his posture frozen and his face almost surprised. With a tiny jerk, he tilts his head up until his focus is on the ball in my arms, his gaze never quite making it all the way to my eyes.
“I never mind. Can I have my ball back now?” he says, the devil’s smirk creeping slowly on one side of his lips until the smallest dimple forms.
Asshole.
When he reaches his hand toward me, I shuffle backward quickly, squeezing the ball even tighter, and for a flash second, something happens to his eyes—they grow dark.
“Careful,” he says, his smirk curling slightly, like a fisherman’s hook waiting to catch me.
I’ve spent three years going to one of Chicago’s most elite private schools, which left me with some pretty solid experience when it came to navigating high school factions. I avoided the rich kids, and they avoided me right back, so that one was easy. I was friendly to the pot smokers, because those kids threw the best parties, but not friendly enough that I was ever guilty by association. I led among my circle—popular with the music students, crossing over to mingle with the drama crowd and the artists.
Owen—he didn’t fit any of those boxes. But I’d force him in one if I had to. I’ve already lost my practice room, my sanctuary. He wouldn’t take away my quiet moments alone with my piano too.
I match the dare in his eyes, take one step back, and drop the ball down to my foot. My kick is swift and purposeful, and despite my lack of any athletic ability at all, the ball flies down the street, into the darkness, the only proof of its existence the sound of its bounce growing fainter with every few feet.
“You’re in my driveway. Get your own hoop,” I say, folding my arms up in an act of defiance. Only then do I realize how hard my heart is pounding. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline still working its way through my arms and chest, or if I’m scared.
Owen’s gaze is still over my shoulder, out into the street where I sent his ball. He’s slow and resolute with every movement, and the longer it takes him to speak the more aware I am of what I’ve done.
I woke the tiger.
His soft chuckle isn’t friendly at all. Neither is his movement—the way he leans forward and spits on the ground, like a man does just after he’s thrown a punch. But Owen doesn’t make a move toward me, and he doesn’t say a word. He only backs away slowly, raising his hand as he nears his front steps, small puffs of fog coming from his mouth and nose—his breath like a dragon’s.
I should walk away. I know I should walk away. If I walk away now, he has no power over me. But I. Can’t. Move.
With every step up his porch, his arm raises higher, until finally, at his door, he’s pointing at me. He’s pointing, and he’s smirking. And then he pulls the trigger before winking and blowing the imaginary smoke from his finger.
With the slam of his door closed behind him, I fall to the ground.
Chapter 4
Sleep isn’t coming. I have been in my bed all night with the lights off, but my curtains open. I sent messages to Morgan and Gaby earlier in the evening, thanking them for the pictures they sent from the first few days at Bryce. I felt so connected to them still, and it broke my heart to see everyone in those images smiling, living—without me.
I did my best to fill them in on my mystery neighbor. Morgan summed him up quickly, texting that he was a “loser,” but Gaby seemed to think there was something else to him. She always understands me, and I knew she’d have a different take on things. Of course, she asked if he was hot; she always asks if the guy is hot. But she also asked if he looked sad, or just angry, trying to get at what it was I found so threatening—and appealing. I didn’t have to tell her I was attracted to him, which meant I didn’t have to admit it to myself. I didn’t have to tell her because she already knew. She always knows.
When my phone buzzes, vibrating my pillow, I smile, and my mood lifts for the first time in days. It’s late—almost two in the morning. Gaby’s been working on her winter ensemble performance, and it’s been keeping her at the school studio all night for weeks. She got permission to use the practice rooms and the recording equipment over the summer, when she began writing the arrangements. I admired her balls for even asking the dean, but of course he said yes. Everyone says yes to her. They say yes because she has a fierce determination that comes through in everything she does, and people can’t help but want to nurture it, to love it.
Despite how exhausted I knew she must be, she still called.
“Hey,” I answer, fighting through my own yawn.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” she asks. “We texted an hour ago, so I thought you might still be awake.” She’s fighting through her own yawn now, too.
“I’m up. It’s not a sleeping kind of night,” I admit.
“I had a feeling,” she says. She could always sense when something was wrong. It was her gift, her duty as my best friend. And hearing her voice now makes me cry, but I keep my tears silent, because I like hearing Gaby happy.
“This isn’t about the mystery neighbor, is it?” she asks, her question a formality. Gaby knows why I’m really sad. I’m homesick—desperate for anything familiar. And she’s my one thing—like a dash of medicine—that can make my new life survivable.
“No, it isn’t,” I say, breathing a heavy sigh and flipping through the pictures I have on my phone, on my Facebook page, and in the box I pulled out from under my bed. These pictures are both blessings and curses. I cherish them because they remind me that my life before was real. But they also remind me it’s gone.
“Does it help that I miss you just as much as you miss me?” she asks.
“A little,” I say, laughing, my heart slightly lighter than it was five minutes ago. “Okay, a lot.”
&nbs
p; “Good, well I miss you more. So that should help with that non-sleeping thing,” she says, unable to stave off the yawn that trails at the end. “Wanna talk about how sucky this is?”
It’s sweet she even asks. It’s sweet, because she’s heard me gripe and complain non-stop for weeks about this move and how unfair it is. She’s helped me try and decipher why it’s so important that we live closer to Wisconsin, why my dad always wins the decision-making game in our family. There’s nothing new to say, though. And I know she’s exhausted. So tonight I let her off the hook.
“Nah, I think I’ll just hang up and dream sweetly over the fact that you miss me more. That should do for tonight,” I say, and I swear I can hear her smile.
“Okay. I’ll send more pictures tomorrow. And maybe snap a shot of mystery neighbor for me,” she chuckles.
“Yeah, uh…no. I’m not coming near him. I’m afraid you’ll have to stick with your imagination,” I say.
When she says “Goodbye,” and hangs up, I let one more tear fall.
I carry feeling pitiful right through sunrise, which is partly to blame for my insomnia. The rest was the strange sensation that Owen Harper was lying on his bed, across our driveways and lawns, staring right back at me.
“Honey, take your breakfast to go. You’ll be late for the bus,” Mom says, folding the toasted Pop Tarts up in a napkin and handing them to me.
“Actually, I have a ride,” I say, sliding into one of the stools at the breakfast bar and breaking one of the pastries in half. The goo that oozes out the side is hot, and it burns my fingertips. “Damn!”
“Careful,” my mom says. Such a harmless word—one she’s said to me a million times, a million more as a nurse.
But hearing it this morning throws me back into a nightmare, and all I can hear in my head is Owen’s voice—the way he said “Careful,” and the sinister, barely-there grin that glowed as he walked away.
“Ken…did you hear me?” Mom is waving in front of me now.
“Oh, no…sorry, burned my hand a little,” I say, not feeling the burn at all anymore, at least not the one on my hand.
“Who is giving you a ride?” She has her hand on one hip, as if she’s concerned about me with someone she doesn’t know. I’ve been walking to school on my own in the city for three years, but a ride from a very harmless girl at my new high school is really giving her cause for worry?
“Oh…I made a friend,” I say, smiling as I take a bite. This will make her happy, because this will help abide some of the guilt she feels for moving me out here. “Her name’s Willow. She’s in band. Drum major, actually.”
“Drum major, eh?” Mom says, holding her hand out for my napkin, clearly irritated at the crumbs I’m spilling all over the floor. “The band marches out here, huh? Your father is going to HATE that.” She flashes her eyes wide when she says the word hate.
“So let’s not tell him. He’s never home on Friday nights,” I say, holding my mom’s sightline while she considers this. It’s true; my father will hate it. He’s a purist, thinks I should be practicing orchestra and classical and piano—nothing but technical-music-skills work, twenty-four-seven. But it’s also true that he is never home on Friday nights. Friday and Saturday, to be more accurate. Those are performance nights, and the full orchestra doesn’t leave the building until well after midnight. My dad is rarely home before two or three in the morning, and sometimes he stays there on Friday nights, like he did last night. He’s been putting in long hours setting up his new office.
“Depends,” Mom says, pausing at the garbage can before throwing my napkin away. She chews at the inside of her cheek for a minute, and then she flips her gaze to me. “Do I get to come watch?”
The giggle escapes my mouth quickly, and I slide over and give her a hug, playing the role of good daughter—something we both need a little of. “Yes, you can come watch. But no going overboard.”
“So, I can’t become a booster or anything like that?” she teases.
“Oh god, no. You can come to one, two shows tops,” I say, holding out a hand for her to shake on our deal, knowing that’s all her schedule would allow her to attend anyhow.
“Two, with an option for a third—especially if you’re playing for homecoming and riding on one of those float things,” she says, and I laugh. My mom grew up in rural Illinois, and Bryce never had anything like she had in high school. She grew up with football games and bonfires. Instead, my old school was all about performance, with fall and winter and spring showcases. My mom’s been regaling me with tales of life at a normal, public high school for the last three years.
“Fine,” I say, giving her hand a firm shake. “If there is ever a float involved, you can be there.”
Willow’s honking outside ends our conversation, and my mom waves goodbye, grabbing her ringing cellphone and tucking it in the crook of her neck while she grabs a pile of magazines to head upstairs to nap before her next shift.
The music blaring from Willow’s car is just as loud as it was yesterday when she drove away, and as I climb in, I spare a glance to the Harper house and note that Owen’s truck isn’t in the driveway.
“Think he’ll bother to attend any classes today?” I ask, my stomach twisted because I know how many of those classes are with me.
“Hard to say. That boy…he does what he wants,” she says, backing out of my driveway. “Nobody questions him.”
No, I suppose they don’t. Why would they?
His truck is parked near the exit. I spot it the second we pull into the parking lot, but after a quick scan around us, I don’t see him anywhere.
“You’re looking for him,” Willow says, her voice startling me a little. She’s standing at my passenger door, holding it open for me. I didn’t even hear her exit.
“He just…I don’t know. He makes me nervous.” My explanation is met with an intense stare, and Willow drops her brow then quirks an eyebrow up at me. “We had an incident,” I confess.
“As in what? You bumped into his truck? Accidentally opened a piece of his mail?” she says, holding the door wide for me as I climb out and sling my bag over my shoulder.
“As in I drop-kicked his basketball out into the darkness of night because he was making too much noise,” I say, wincing now that I realize just how bold I was, and how stupid it sounds out loud.
“Oh my god, you went all cranky old neighbor on him?” she pauses, then her face gives in to laughter. I hit her arm, willing her to stop before Jess gets close enough to hear.
“You have a cranky old neighbor?” Jess asks, putting his arm around Willow and kissing the side of her neck.
“Oh, she has a cranky neighbor all right. But he ain’t old,” Willow teases, and I shove her again. “She lives next door to the Harpers.”
“Ha. You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Jess asks, leaning forward to check my facial expression for confirmation.
“Afraid not. And I doubt I’ll be going over there for a cup of sugar anytime soon,” I say. As we round the corner of the building, I notice a few boys all wearing beanie caps and hoodies sitting on a set of picnic tables down the hill. They’re smoking—blatantly smoking on campus—and one of them turns around to catch me staring, and smirks as he grinds his shoe over his cigarette butt on the walkway. He nods in my direction, and the guy sitting next to him turns around.
Owen turns around.
His eyes lock on mine fast, and even without words I can hear everything he’s thinking—I see my entire evening replay in the reflection of his eyes, the smallest twitch sending the corner of his lip up, and shivers travel down my spine.
One of his friends distracts him, and for once, I’m aware enough to take advantage, slipping into the music room before he can look back. But that look on his face stays with me, follows me for the rest of the hour, and I think it may also be there tonight, in my dreams.
My father would find my entire first period of school to be a tremendous waste of time. Today’s first half hour was spen
t on the school’s fight song—something that sounds pretty elementary, and the same every single time we play it. The second half of class was spent learning how to snap to attention on Willow’s direction. It was all so military; so very…unmusical.
So purposeless.
So…fun.
My first two days of band practice have been a break for me, a breather from the constant pounding of my fingers up and down the keys. I’ve lived my entire life with the constant drive to move my hands faster, make things louder, create fuller chords and stretch my fingers so far that they actually ache at the end of the day. But in here, in this room, with these new friends—could I call them that yet?—there was absolutely no pressure.
The second hour was mine, and I relished every second that ticked by, making up for my failed night of playing at home. I brought my music book with me, and spent the time working on that one line of notes, leaving the room almost happy with it.
I’m still humming the passage on my way to English, enjoying this little personal celebration of satisfaction, when my happiness gives way rapidly to tension, the kind that drowns.
It’s as if Owen was waiting for me to come, his feet perched up on the back corner of the only other open desk in the room. It was my seat yesterday, near the front, and surrounded by other students—other students who clearly moved out of the way for Owen Harper.
I take my last deep breath at the door and promise myself to not be intimidated, at least not on the outside.
“Excuse me,” I say, dropping my heavy backpack to the ground next to my seat and resting my eyes on his gray Converse. I will myself not to look at him, and it’s harder than I thought it would be. The challenge only grows the longer I stand there and wait for him to move his feet, finally realizing he has no intention of doing so.
