Love Songs & Other Lies

by Jessica Pennington

  “Tad,” I say.

  She giggles, a mischievous curl to her lips.

  I point to the edge of the blanket. “Can I?”

  She gives me a quick nod and I wonder if she’s hoping I’ll roll myself off the roof. “He’s afraid of heights,” she says.

  I slowly make my way toward the blanket, scooting on my knees, and gently lowering myself down.

  “And he’s not the only one, apparently.” She smiles, and I’m glad that for once, it doesn’t feel forced. Lying side by side, we look up at the sky. Vee whispers, like someone might hear her. “I wish you could see the stars. There’s too much light pollution everywhere we go.”

  “I didn’t realize light was a pollutant.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s not. It’s just what they call a bunch of lights that drown out the stars. Because the sky is polluted by light, I guess.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yeah, hmm,” she says. I keep waiting for her voice to get harsh with me, but it stays light. It’s not the indifferent tone I listened to for the first month of the tour, or the hostility I’ve gotten used to over the last two weeks. She almost sounds like the old Vee, and I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one. Maybe this is the calm before the storm.

  “I’m sorry about the other night.” I’ve thought of a million ways I could tell her how I messed up. What a jerk I was for making her say all those things to me. In the end, “I’m sorry” is all that comes out.

  “Don’t apologize.” She turns her head against the roof and looks me in the eye. “The way I’ve felt about you—the hate, the anger—I’ve been keeping it alive for so long. Feeding it, letting it grow and bloom.” She turns her eyes back to the sky. “I had to let it out—and I wouldn’t have done it on my own. It needed to happen.”

  “You used to open up about everything.”

  “No, I was always like this. I was just different with you. And I was different after you.” She’s quiet, and the soft hum of the nearby freeway fills the air. “It wasn’t all bad.”

  As we lie in the warm summer air, I’m reminded of all of the nights we spent on the sand, looking up at the same stars. She was like an unlocked diary on those nights, sharing everything. More than I ever deserved. I still don’t deserve her secrets, but I can’t help myself.

  “You told your mom you’d see her soon,” I say. “Are you leaving?” I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.

  “I’m going home next week.” A wave of regret hits me. Why did it take us this long to get to a place where we could talk? “Just for a few days,” she says, and it feels like a second chance. “My parents are getting remarried.” She says it like a joke, and even though I can’t see them, I know she’s rolling her eyes.

  “Wow.” I don’t know what to say; I didn’t even know her parents were divorced. “So are you the flower girl or something?”

  “Very funny.” She smacks my leg, and I grab her hand and hold it in mine. Maybe it’s muscle memory. Vee flinches, but doesn’t pull away. Her hand is rigid inside of mine, tense. “Close, though,” she says. “I’m a bridesmaid. Cort, too. As if it’s not weird enough that my parents are old and getting married for a second time, my best friend is also one of my mom’s bridesmaids. Mom’s stressed about my dress. I had to order it over the phone.”

  We stay this way, lying side by side in the silence, her hand in mine, our eyes on the sky, and she never relaxes. I’ve thought about a moment like this for so long, and now all I can think about is how different this feels from the way it used to be. I always felt like re-creating the past would be like a victory, but this just feels like a bad copy of what we used to have.

  She finally breaks the silence. “What would you do differently?” Vee picks at the buttons on her shirt with her free hand, and I realize it’s the first time she’s ever asked me something without giving her own answer first.

  I squeeze her hand. “Besides the obvious?”

  “Obviously.”

  “I would have taken you to Chicago,” I say. “We would have set up on some busy corner and busked on the street. We would have made bank—at least twenty bucks. You would have made your musical debut, and then we would have walked through Millennium Park and taken one of those cheesy pictures, kissing in front of the Bean.”

  “I would have liked that.” Her voice is soft and sad. “I’ve been to the Bean.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “I’m going to make it up to you.”

  Vee doesn’t say anything. She gives me a tight smile—a hesitant smile—and turns her eyes back to the polluted sky.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THEN

  CAM

  Since we’re a high school band, ninety percent of the fans that come to watch The Melon Ballers are from nearby high schools and colleges. A few parents and teachers are mixed in. There’s an orange sea of underage wristbands waving through the air when we sit down after our show the following Saturday at Carnivale. We’ve played here twice a month since the first gig. Vee has gone back to wearing her purple Melon Ballers T-shirt instead of her Dakota Gray outfit. I like the leather pants, but it’s hard to argue with tradition. I wear the same pair of boxers for every show, and Anders has a lucky set of drumsticks he keeps in his pocket, even though they’re too beat up to actually use.

  We’re in a booth in a back corner. Vee is next to me, and Logan and Anders are squeezed in across from us. As Logan complains about taking an early break so Steve can run home to get a replacement string, Vee and I hold hands under the table. We’re planning a trip to Chicago next month, and hashing out details. I haven’t told her yet, but I’m going to take her to busk on the street. It will be Dakota Gray’s first public performance, and I think by then she’ll be ready. We’re also checking out the Northwestern campus while we’re in Chicago. Vee hasn’t officially told me she’s going, but we talk about it a lot. Things seem to be falling into place for it to happen.

  “Hey,” a voice says from the crowd of people around our table.

  “Can I get a Coke?” Logan says, and I ask Vee what she wants before turning to order.

  “I’ll have—” I stop when I realize it isn’t the waitress.

  “I’m not the waitress, actually.” Sienna gives Logan an apologetic smile.

  I’m not sure what you’re supposed to say when your ex-girlfriend who lives two thousand miles away is unexpectedly standing next to you. “Hey” is all I come up with.

  “Hey,” she says. She’s standing next to the table awkwardly, looking between me and the other three people at the table. “Um.” She raises her hand up in a little wave, and puts on the fake smile I used to call her Cheerleader Face. “I’m Sienna. I’m a friend of Cameron’s, actually.” Her voice always gets high and squeaky when she’s got Cheerleader Face on. I used to think it was cute, but right now it makes me cringe. Vee straightens in her seat and leans forward to get a look at Sienna.

  “Cool,” Anders says, around a pile of fries in his mouth. “Another chunk o’ cheese in the mitten.”

  Shit.

  Sienna looks at Anders, her face scrunched up in confusion. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Anders holds up his hand. “We call Michigan the mitten,” he says. “You can probably guess why.” He waves his hand in the air. “And you’re from Wisconsin.” He says it slowly, like she’s missed something really obvious. “So cheese … in the mitten.”

  Sienna shakes her head. “I appreciate the visual, but I’m from California.” Cheerleader Face is back in full force. “Cameron and I went to school together.”

  Vee’s eyes turn on me, along with everyone else’s. Act normal, Cam. “Sienna, these are my friends: Logan, Anders, and Vee.”

  “Cool,” Sienna says, cheerily. “How have you been?” She’s only talking to me now, ignoring everyone around us. “I’ve been calling you.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  Anders taps Sienna on the hand sh
e’s resting on the table. “So, why are you here?”

  Logan jabs him in the ribs with his elbow.

  “Fuck, come on. I mean from California.” Anders rubs his ribs dramatically. “Damn, it’s a legitimate question. We’re not exactly on the way to anything.”

  Sienna is finally starting to fluster, her smile pained. “Your aunt and uncle told me you were here. I’m at Michigan now, and I was driving through to Chicago for break.” She shrugs her shoulders, clearly uncomfortable. “It actually was on the way. So here I am.” Sienna looks around nervously and shifts on her feet, looking uncomfortable standing here.

  Shit. She probably is. “You want to sit down?” I get up to grab a chair from a nearby table, praying it isn’t the dumbest decision of my life. Vee is drumming her fingers on the table, glaring in confusion as she pieces it all together.

  Sienna sits down awkwardly, bending one leg and leaving the other mostly straight. “Thanks.” She’s visibly relieved. “Still sore sometimes, you know. Three hours in the car doesn’t help.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  Sienna is quick to fill the silence, looking past me to Vee. “So are you in the band too?”

  “She’s the manager.” I say it quickly, not thinking. In some ways I know I don’t owe Sienna a thing. Not an explanation or a diversion. In other ways, I feel like this is my chance to protect her. For once.

  Vee’s drumming fingers stop suddenly. “Yep,” she says tightly, “I’m the manager.”

  “So, how’s Maggs?” Sienna turns to me again.

  Shit. “She’s fine.”

  “Have you actually talked to her, Cameron?”

  Vee leans to the side to see around me. “Who’s Maggs?”

  Sienna shifts in her metal chair. “Maggie? His sister? She and I were friends long before we dated.”

  Vee’s wide eyes burn into me. Her voice is casual, controlled. “Right, of course.” She smiles and rolls her eyes, as if she must have forgotten. She taps my shoulder. “Excuse me, I’m getting out.”

  I don’t move. “Vee—”

  She pokes me hard in the side but doesn’t look at me. “Move it, Fuller.” I can tell from the way her voice quivers and her cheeks have pinked-up that she’s upset. “Please, Cam?”

  I move out of the booth, letting Vee slip past me, watching as she makes her way toward the restrooms. Logan is staring at me like he’s contemplating murder, then he abruptly gets up and leaves, with Anders in tow.

  Sienna looks around at our now-empty table and her lips twist into a questioning pout. “This was bad.” She’s looking at me for confirmation and I don’t even have the energy to lie. For once.

  “It was bad,” I mumble.

  “Sorry.” Sienna rests her hand on my shoulder, then pulls it back like I’m electrified.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Sienna dips her head down to meet my eyes, where they’re fixed on the wall. “It’s not yours either, Cameron.” She’s not talking about Vee, or tonight, but she’s still wrong.

  * * *

  I don’t see Vee again until she’s silently getting into my car. Every time I try to say something to her she just puts her hand up to stop me, but for some reason she still comes home with me. When she crawls into my bed, I’m not even sure why. Her body vibrates against me, and I can tell she’s crying as I hold her, but I still can’t say any of the things I know she wants to hear. When her gentle shaking stops, I think she’s finally fallen asleep. Then she lets out a long breath and rolls onto her back, her eyes on my ceiling. “You told me you lived in Wisconsin.”

  I nod against her shoulder. It’s a lie I told so long ago it’s started to feel like the truth.

  “Who’s Sienna, Cam? She’s not your cousin.” She says it like it’s disgusting, like it’s the worst word she’s ever had to say. “She drove here from Ann Arbor. And it’s not that on-the-way.”

  “We”—God, I don’t even know what to call it—“dated.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  I can’t answer, because I don’t even know.

  She’s shaking her head back and forth, and in this long silence that hangs between us, I start to hope that maybe this is over. “Where are your parents?” She says it slowly, and it sounds like a threat, not a question.

  “Vee—” Say the words, Cam. “I just—I can’t.” I try to hold her hand, and she pulls away. “Please don’t ask.” Say the words, Cam. But even though my heart is breaking with her, I’ve never actually said those words out loud before. To anyone. She won’t look at me, won’t take her eyes off of my ceiling. “I love you. This doesn’t change anything, and I just—can’t.”

  “Right.” She roughly rolls away from me again.

  “Vee—”

  Her whisper sounds loud in the silence. “I didn’t even know you had a sister, Cam. I was ready to let you lead me to Northwestern, and I don’t know you at all.”

  It’s the last thing she says to me before she finally does fall asleep, and when I wake up at 6 A.M. she’s already gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NOW

  VIRGINIA

  We’re in New Jersey, and the guys are finishing up their set. The venues have gotten bigger, and I like watching from offstage, where I can see the show, but not the crowds. Even though I’m not the one up there playing, seeing the mass of fans gives me the chills. Thanks to multiple rehearsals, each live performance is timed to a tee. So when Logan walks offstage and pulls a stool up to the microphone, I know something is off. Cam, who usually plays lead on the band’s few acoustic songs, is already perched on an identical wooden stool at center stage. They’re playing a new song? One they haven’t rehearsed? I’ve skipped out on some practices to respond to the constant online comments and backlash from the recent video drama, but how could they have learned an entirely new song? And they didn’t even mention it? When they learned “Purple Shirt,” it was all they could talk about.

  Logan pulls the stool next to Cam’s, positions the second mic in front of it, and then walks to the back of the stage next to Reese, who also seems to be sitting this song out. What the hell are they doing? I wave my hands frantically at Logan. He winks at me, with a giant, goofy grin that does absolutely nothing to ease my nerves.

  “We’re going to try something a little different tonight,” Cam says, in his sultry, raspy stage voice, running a hand through his hair. “If you don’t mind.” He looks out into the crowd of squealing and cheering fans, a sea of purple Future X shirts filling much of the auditorium. “This song is sort of special, so I hope you like it.” He strums a few notes and my heart sinks. No, it deep sea dives.

  Oh, God, no.

  “It’s a love song.” A few more notes. “The first love song I ever wrote, actually.” The crowd is going crazy, and he’s glancing toward me, without actually looking at me. “For the first girl I ever loved.”

  No, no, no.

  He gives the crowd his sexy half smile and again squeals and cheers erupt as someone in the back shouts out, “Love me, Cam!” during a moment of silence. “The thing is, I can’t play this one on my own.” His voice is sad and melodramatic and I think about choking him. “It’s actually a duet.” He strums a few more notes. “Does anyone want to join me onstage?” The crowd is erupting with volunteers.

  Hell, no.

  “What’s happening?” Pax is standing next to me, swaying a little on his feet. “Does he need someone? Should I go out there?” He’s about two seconds away from rushing out to join Cam onstage.

  “Something like that.” I put my hand across his chest to stop him from lunging onto the stage, though part of me thinks I should let him. Let him be the one to suffer this humiliation. He’s not the most hated person on the tour—they won’t eat him alive out there.

  I feel like time is standing still as Cam continues to pluck out the intro to the song, looking from the audience to where I’m standing offstage, in a repetitive loop. The time for their last song is ticki
ng away. What is wrong with all of them? Cam is seriously going to do this to me?

  Logan walks over, leaving the stage with his acoustic unstrapped in his hands. “Vee, come on.”

  I turn away from him, looking backstage. “I don’t owe him anything.”

  “No one said you did. Do this for you. Show yourself you can do it. Cam’s not going to let you fall out there.” He holds the guitar out to me. “You want this. You’ve always wanted this.”

  I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes, and I let the adrenaline push them back. The only thing worse than going out on that stage is letting Cam think I’m weak. I grab the guitar roughly from Logan’s hands, slinging it over my neck as I make my way onto the stage. I’d like to think I’m walking with a sort of confidence I’ve never had before—strutting—but I’m just glad I’ve made it to center stage without tripping or passing out. And no one has hit me with anything. They just don’t recognize you yet, a mean little voice in my head whispers. On the opposite side of the stage, Tad gives me a thumbs-up from behind his camera.

  Cam is still talking to the crowd as I take my seat on the stool next to him. “Give it up for Virginia Miller,” he says.

  The loud crowd has fallen silent, but there’s still a handful of people letting out small cheers. Maybe they don’t all hate me.

  “Hey, now,” Cam scolds them, “Vee’s our best friend and part of the Future X family. So if you love us, you gotta love her, too.”

  Logan picks up his own mic, shouting, “Let’s hear it, people!” The crowd lets out a hesitant cheer—more like a five-thousand-person golf clap—but I’m thankful no one has pelted me with anything … yet. My hands are shaking as I adjust the mic in front of me.

  Cam leans into the mic and the crowd goes quiet again. “We wrote this song a few years ago, back when we were young and stupid,” he says, smiling at me, and my racing heart slows just a bit. “I was stupid, at least. Vee was always perfect.” And then he begins the song again, strumming each note of the intro, until his deep, perfect voice joins along:

  There’s this girl, yeah this girl,