Love Songs & Other Lies

by Jessica Pennington

  “I don’t want to talk, idiot. Vee is here—”

  I try to push away the question of why she’s at Logan’s. It’s none of my business.

  “She’s crying and shit, and Cort can’t get here for a few hours.” His voice is a harsh whisper. “I don’t know what to do. Can you just come over? I need backup. I need help, man.” He sounds like he’s dealing with an active burglary taking place in his house, instead of a frantic girl.

  “Call Anders.”

  “Be serious.” He snorts. “I need to stop the crying.”

  “She doesn’t need me, Logan. You’re her best friend.” Even as I say the words, I hate them. And I know they’re not entirely true. Not anymore, at least.

  “She’s not even talking to me. She showed up crying.” Logan sounds panicked. “And I’ve tried everything. I sat with her … I held her. I thought maybe she’d tell me what was wrong, but she’s just crying.” I’m pissed thinking of him holding her, his hands on her, comforting her. I should have said something. I can’t do it.

  “It’s Nonni,” I say. “She had a stroke or something. She’s in pretty bad shape, I guess.”

  I dropped Vee at her house, where she clearly didn’t want to be, only so she could run to Logan. I can’t even blame her, as much as I want to. I know I can’t give her what she needs. I can’t just lie and say it’s all going to be all right, and I can’t be honest and tell her that I understand what she’s going through. I’m useless. She doesn’t need to hear my truths. The truth is, everything ends. Things go wrong, people die. There’s nothing you can fucking do about it. It doesn’t matter if you saw them two days ago or two weeks ago, there’s no way to prepare for it. God, I’m messed up. Logan can reassure her. He can tell her everything will be fine, and he’ll probably even mean it. He doesn’t know any better.

  Logan is what she needs. Maybe, deep down, he’s what she’s always wanted, too. And he’d have to love her back, wouldn’t he? How couldn’t he? I’ve only known her for months and I love her. He’s known her for years—how could he not? He’s good for her. Logan’s her best friend. Part of her family. The history they share is complicated, but she knows everything about him. She will never—could never—know me like that. Vee deserves Logan. More importantly, I don’t deserve her.

  I hear my name in the distance and realize that I dropped the phone on the bed when I began stuffing clothes into the canvas duffle bag that lies beside my bed.

  “You coming, Cam?”

  “I can’t.” I press the END button and shove my life back into bags and boxes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  NOW

  VIRGINIA

  I spent the first seventeen years of my life in Riverton, but every time I come back it feels a little less like where I belong. When I arrive on Friday night, I go straight to the little chapel that will host the ceremony. Cort is waiting for me in front of the giant wooden doors, holding a dress bag in one hand and a paper plate covered in ribbons in the other. When she sees me, she does her best backwoods country impression. “Well, there she is, our little Virginia Miller. Television star!”

  I can’t help but laugh. Cort’s hair is a vibrant shade of red on top, with a thick layer of blond underneath. Mom must be thrilled. I throw an arm over her shoulder and pull on a strand of hair. “You’re going to look like a fry dipped in ketchup.” Our dresses are a hideous shade of yellow. “It’s going to be hot.”

  “So hot.” Cort loops her arm around my waist and we walk into the chapel. “Almost as hot as that duet last week. You want to tell me about that?”

  “I’m sure you saw it,” I say. “It was on national television, if you didn’t notice.”

  “Trust me, I noticed. Was it amazing, being out there?”

  “It was—” I don’t even know how to describe it. There are no words in my vocabulary, no other experience to compare it to that could do it justice. Being on that stage was like drinking freedom. It was like breathing in my dreams. “It was incredible.” The description is so lacking it feels like a lie. I can see my mother and father through the little square window in the door of the sanctuary when we stop outside the doors.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” Cort says.

  “There’s nothing to tell.” And it’s sort of true. It’s forty-nine percent true.

  “Okay. I’ll drop it,” she says.

  “Nothing to drop.”

  “So it was just a blink then? That’s the story you’re going with again?” She gives me a playful smile and a wink as we push through the doors. We’re still linked arm in arm as we walk down the long aisle. I’m not sure what to say to her, because I don’t even know what I want. Worse yet, I don’t know what I should want. Since kissing Cam on the bus I’ve felt like a disappointment to strong, independent women everywhere. What was I thinking? When a guy abandons you during one of the most upsetting times of your life—and then disappears—you’re not supposed to take him back. You eat ice cream by the pound for a week, and you swear off all of his favorite bands. You write angry songs. You go out and create an amazing life for yourself, so you can rub it in his face. You are definitely not supposed to crawl into bed with him—nightmares or not. But there’s this voice in my brain that I can’t seem to turn off. It’s the same one that whispered in my ear in high school, saying “trust him,” “protect him,” “love him.”

  Attention, strong, independent women of the world: Please tell me how to shut this stupid voice off!

  “And if it wasn’t a blink? If it was a wink?” I say.

  “Then it was a wink.”

  I know she’s not letting me off the hook this easily. “And?”

  “And … I hope it works out this time. Otherwise I’ll hunt him down, and that pretty little face of his won’t survive.” She’s smiling while she slices her hand through the air like she’s a jungle cat.

  After the rehearsal, which seems totally unnecessary since the bride and groom have both been married before—to each other—Cort and I head to a viewing party at a local sports bar, to watch the band’s performance. Sitting at a corner table, away from the masses of local fans, it’s surreal to see it this way. Caustic Underground performs first, and Pax and the guys are on point. As the commercials play halfway through their set, I imagine Bri standing backstage, running bottles of water out to them, like she always does. Right now my guys would be going over their set list one final time.

  Cort points out all of her band crushes while we watch, giving me a list of guys she expects to be introduced to. Like I’m qualified to be a matchmaker. During the segment between bands, when they play footage from the tour, they show a clip of me and Cam sitting in the back of the bus, holding our guitars. It’s from the first few weeks of the tour. I’m sitting with my back to the camera, holding my guitar, while Cam sings “This Girl” to me. He looks like he’s serenading me. Maybe he was. Seeing it this way, on the outside looking in, it’s impossible not to see the look on his face as he plays, willing me to join in. Pleading. My eyes are on the table, but his are on me. They scream an apology. He might not have said the words until that night backstage, after our first performance together, but his eyes told me he was sorry weeks ago. I just didn’t want to see it.

  Your Future X has a rough night; Cam comes in too early on a verse of “Purple Shirt,” which throws off Logan. They’re visibly flustered, and not at all the confident future-rock-gods they usually are. It’s the first time I’ve seen them falter onstage. I look down at the purple shirt I pulled on over my sundress. Maybe it doesn’t count if I’m not there.

  “Don’t be stupid, Vee,” Cort says, when I tell her my theory. “It’s not the ugly-ass shirt. It’s you that’s missing.”

  My parents have been back together for less than six months and are once again living in the beach house. And even though it’s where I grew up, everything about it feels surreal now. The house is the same, but all of the furniture is new. “New furniture for a new life,” Dad said. Being
in this house feels like being on the set of a movie about my childhood. Except they didn’t get the details quite right. My most recent memories aren’t here; they’re in the little yellow house I shared with my mom.

  Mom is sitting at the kitchen table when I get home, stuffing mints into tiny yellow bags. She smiles when she sees me. “Have fun, sweetie?”

  I nod, taking a seat next to her at the giant oak table. “I’ve missed Cort.” I touch one of the shiny bags. “Can I help?”

  She pushes a bowl of mints toward me and I grab a handful of the tiny, pastel bricks. The house is quiet; my dad must be in bed already. Or they’re keeping up the charade of a traditional wedding and he’s sleeping somewhere else. Mom and I sit in silence, stuffing bags and eating mints. The windows behind us are all open and I can hear the gentle rhythm of the waves outside.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say.

  She nods, stuffing another bag. “Sure.”

  “How did you forgive him?”

  Mom looks up from her bowl of mints. “Who?”

  “Dad. Why did you take him back?”

  She laughs.

  What the hell is wrong with her? I watched her suffer for two years. Going to night classes to finish her nursing degree; working nights at the nursing home, constantly exhausted.

  “I never really wanted to get into this”—she’s tying bows onto a pile of bags—“but it’s probably time you hear it. I realize how it looked and I should have said something a long time ago.” She folds her hands on the table and picks at her nails. “I resented your father for a long time. You’re the best thing I’ve done, but you weren’t in my college plan. And I always planned to go back, but life was busy. Your dad was successful, so I didn’t need to work.” She picks up a bag and starts tying bows again. “It didn’t make any sense to put you in daycare so I could go back to school. I thought I was fine with that, but it ate away at me.”

  “Dad didn’t want you to go back?”

  “He never said that, but he never supported me. He never pushed me. And the more successful he was, the angrier I became.” She drums her fingernails on the table and lets out a long breath. “I’m the one who asked for the divorce.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My father has been the villain of my mind’s story for years. “But he left.”

  “I left,” she says. “I went back to school, I got the job at Lake Terrace. I finally felt like I had my own identity. I had to do it on my own before your father and I could work again.”

  “And he just waited for you?”

  “No. He went on with his life and he gave me space. I had things to work out myself … I couldn’t give him what he needed. He didn’t like it, but he loved me enough to accept it. When I was ready I went after him and hoped like hell I still had a chance.”

  I’m staring at the pile of pink and green and yellow mints on the table in front of me, picking out all of the green ones. I can’t look at my mom.

  “When someone hurts you the way I hurt your father”—she reaches across the table, and her fingertips barely graze my arm—“it isn’t easy to forgive. I don’t know if I even deserved it.”

  “But you went after him.”

  “I couldn’t not go after him,” she says.

  And this, I realize, is the problem.

  * * *

  The wedding was beautiful. And now that it’s finally over, I’m lying on the sandy beach, slightly buzzed from the bottle of champagne I monopolized. In my bridesmaid dress. I close my eyes, listening to the waves as they greet the shore, and I finally feel at home on this beach again. When Cam left, the tiniest things—things I didn’t even know were connected to him—reminded me of him. I couldn’t sit on the beach without thinking of our nights under the stars, couldn’t hold my guitar without hearing his voice. Everything I owned smelled like him. It both hurt and healed me, being constantly confronted by those memories of him.

  Even the nursing home, where he had never set foot with me, became tarnished by his memory when I caught a glimpse of him as I sat next to Nonni’s bed one day, in late spring. Cam had been gone for months by then, and I spent an increasing amount of time at Lake Terrace. Because it was such a beautiful day, and Nonni wanted some sunshine, I pulled back the curtain that normally divided the room. There was a small cluster of photos on her roommate’s nightstand, and a gleaming silver frame with ornate curls at the corners had caught my eye.

  When I picked it up, Cam stared back at me. He stood next to a girl who must have been a few years older, and an older couple who were clearly his parents. They were outside, in what looked to be a backyard, and all wore khaki shorts and white shirts. Cam and his father wore ball caps, and the only way to describe the way they looked was happy. His dad had one arm around Cam, who had a huge smile across his face. His mom and sister both had long blond hair that was blowing in the wind and wrapping around their faces. The picture was filled with joy, and Cam didn’t look much younger than he’d been when I met him; maybe a few years.

  “My parents aren’t in the picture.” Cam’s simple explanation had clawed at my brain.

  “Hi,” I said, taking a seat between the two hospital-style beds. “It’s Grace, right? I’m Vee.” I smiled as I placed my hand on hers. I picked up one of the frames and turned it toward her. “Is this your family?”

  As the wind brushes past my hideous yellow silk dress and the cold sand seeps between my fingers and toes, I wonder if I’m as forgiving as my father. Or as strong as my mother. I think I’m probably just a watered-down version of both. Maybe I’m not cut out for this kind of love at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THEN

  VIRGINIA

  It all starts with an internet search. One I’ve thought about doing ever since I met Sienna. I couldn’t then, though. Deep down, I knew if we were going to work, Cam needed to tell me. Now it’s too late. He’s gone, and it’s over, and I’m sitting in front of my laptop in my dark room, feeling like I’m breaking a rule.

  When I hit the SEARCH button, I feel like my heart is going to break through my chest. I sort through page after page, clicking on links to real estate agents, teachers, and doctors. By page eight, I’m thinking about giving up. Maybe it’s better that I don’t know anyway. I have nothing else to go on because I don’t even know what city he lived in. Again, I’m caught off guard by the realization of how little I actually knew about him. Funny, it’s hard to track someone down based on stories about their childhood pets, or their favorite candy. But I know his sister’s name.

  All of my searches come back full of strangers. I strip off my jeans, about to give up and go to bed, when I see the sweatshirt lying on my bed. Cam’s sweatshirt. I’ve been sleeping in it every night, as the smell of Cam slowly seeps out of it. I run my fingers over the rough “St. John’s Prep” embroidery, before hitting SEARCH again.

  There’s an image of Cam in a soccer uniform in an article from middle school; Cam’s hair is short and darker and his face is fuller. I pick him out in another photo, onstage at a school contest of some sort. It’s an online school newsletter. This one is from high school, two years ago. He doesn’t look much different, but his clothes look nothing like the Cam I know. He’s in an old concert tee and tattered jeans, a giant, almost unfamiliar smile on his face.

  I click on the article results and it’s finally in front of me—what I’ve been waiting for, hoping for, and also dreading. Tears well in my eyes as I skim the headlines, “Overnight Fire Claims Two,” “Two Escape Deadly House Fire,” “Two Dead and Two Injured in House Fire.” The articles feature a photo of a large home, engulfed in flames, or charred and roofless. One simply includes two headshots—Cam’s parents—and my breath catches in my throat at the words “two dead.”

  Cameron Fuller, 17, was home with a friend when a fire broke out in his family’s three-story home in a rural area along the river. The two teenagers jumped from a third story window to escape the blaze. Rescue crews on site were t
old the house was empty, but later found that the owners of the home, Trevor Fuller, 49, and Margaret Fuller, 45, were also victims of the fire, which claimed the lives of both. An investigation is under way. Both minors were taken to Municipal Hospital for treatment. Injuries are said to be extensive but both are expected to recover.

  Seeing the wreckage of Cam’s past doesn’t make me feel the way I thought it would. I wanted an excuse. Something I could tell myself, to explain away why he left. Instead, the new knowledge shifts everything inside of me. It hurts more, knowing that this is what he couldn’t tell me; what he didn’t want to share. A secret this big can’t be hidden forever; it has an expiration date. I can’t help but wonder what Cam had thought ours was. High school? College?

  The newspaper articles are wrong. One of them will never recover.

  * * *

  I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed, picking at the chipped glitter polish on my toes, when I hear my bedroom door squeak open.

  “Vee?” Logan’s voice creeps into the room cautiously, and then he does.

  Ignoring my visitor, I continue to focus on my dilapidated toenails. Is it normal that my second toe is so much longer than my big toe? Maybe it’s some sort of genetic defect. Is this why my balance is such shit? I pull on my toe, comparing my long, skinny toe to the short, fat one.

  Logan takes a slow step toward my bed. “You didn’t answer any of my calls. And you missed practice again last night.”

  I gouge my thumbnail into a clump of glittery polish.

  “He’s not answering his cell.” He doesn’t have to tell me who.

  I can’t believe how badly he wants to be done with me.

  Logan shoves his hands into his pockets. “Have you heard anything?”

  I shake my head.

  “Figured.” I think he mutters “asshole” under his breath, and I can’t help but agree. “We’re going to put up posters, see who we can find. We’ve got that big Winterfest gig coming up.” He’s been edging toward my bed one slow step at a time, until he’s standing with his knees against my mattress. “I heard Nonni’s doing a lot better. Your mom said she’ll be back at Lake Terrace in a few weeks? That’s awesome.” Logan is obviously nervous and rambling and I know I should talk, to put him out of his misery, but I can’t make myself do it. I don’t want to talk to him. Not about Nonni or college or Cam—not about anything.