“Found her,” I told Grace, then handed the phone to Mom with a shake of my head. That’s right, I caught you, my feigned disapproval said. Then, quietly so Grace wouldn’t hear, I told Mom, “She sounds upset.”
Taking the phone, Mom patted me on the back to shoo me away. “Thanks, Noodle.”
My voice still low, I jerked a thumb toward the door, the universal symbol for I’m heading out.
Now that I’d freed myself, it was easy to ignore the rest of my homework. It’s not like it wouldn’t still be there when I got back. My brain needed a rest and some caffeine.
Slipping behind the wheel of my car, I rolled all the windows down and turned the radio all the way up. I never listened to my own music when I drove. Instead, I liked to pump pure, frothy pop through the speakers.
Before I realized where I was going, I had already turned down the right combination of streets. From my house to Will’s, without a single thought. It wasn’t hard.
Our neighborhoods were separated by a woody park, and money. My house was nice enough, but as I wended my way toward Will’s, the porches grew columns and the walks sprouted brick and landscaping.
Will’s house loomed in the distance. Weathered red brick and ivy, it stretched out beneath tall trees, presiding over a velvety lawn. It had sections, angular and visible. As if it wanted very much to have an east and west wing, and might someday if it would only wish on the right star.
I’d absolutely meant it when I told Will that it was up to him now. I wouldn’t be knocking on his door or calling to beg for his attention. But my subconscious hadn’t gotten the memo. How else had I ended up cruising past his house, misery slowly flooding my skin?
Slowing, I glided past his house. I couldn’t look away. It was like he was a flame, and I was a stupid, stupid moth. Suddenly, though, my heart leapt. Tricia’s car was in the driveway.
Touching my Bluetooth, I told it to call Will.
“Hey, Sarah. What’s up?”
Carefully neutral, I said, “Not much. What’s up with you?”
“Hanging with Tricia.” He sounded matter-of-fact. “Are you busy later?”
Over and over in my head, I told myself I had no right to be jealous. I made my choice, he’d made his. My heart refused to listen. Each beat turned my blood to acid. As I inched past his house, I stared at it, hard. Like somehow I could see them from the outside. As if I’d really want to.
Forcing myself to hold on to that neutrality in my voice, I said, “I’m not sure. I might have plans.”
“You might?”
“Yes,” I said. Then weakness bled through, and I added, “But you can call and find out for sure later.”
“Great,” he replied. “Will do.” Then the line went dead.
I was stupid. So stupid.
Grinding both hands on the wheel, I stomped on the gas. The acid spread to my stomach. A bitter taste rose in my throat, and I swallowed against it.
The phone rang.
It was Dave. Of course it was, with his uncanny ability to sense when I was stressed or sad. Nothing could be easy or clean or simple. The constant push and pull couldn’t ever let up. I considered letting it go to voicemail. On the third ring, I answered—guilty.
“Where are you right now?” Dave asked.
“Just driving around. What’s up?”
“The studio called. They had a cancellation and can get us in for an hour or two this afternoon to lay down our vocals.”
“Perfect,” I exclaimed.
Sounding a little surprised, Dave said, “It’s not too soon?”
“Absolutely not. Let me swing by home to grab some stuff, and I can meet you at the studio?”
Excitement bubbled up inside of me and pushed my bitterness over Will aside. Three years of hard work had finally paid off. Dave and I were finally going to record in a proper studio. This was a real beginning. The first step to a future where music was a profession and a calling.
And Dave, the heart of the band, the guy who had been there since the beginning, would be there at my side.
FIFTEEN
After our recording session, I turned down Dave’s invitation to go celebrate. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I wasn’t in a celebrating mood. I should have been. And deep in all the complicated mess that was my heart, I was proud that we’d finally cut a real demo.
Even though my musical chemistry with Dave was as strong as ever, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Will. But it felt like a birthday with one balloon and no cake. Somehow incomplete; somehow very, very lonely.
Surprise interrupted the introspection, because when I got home, there were two unexpected cars in the driveway. I went to the front door, and it swung open. My stark best friend shot me a knowing smile.
“So who’s a hot-ass rock star?” she asked.
I laughed and slumped against her. “How did you know?”
A voice rang out from the kitchen. “Mom has a big mouth and so do I.”
I tripped, nearly taking Jane down with me. “Gracie?”
My eldest sister stepped into the hallway, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in each hand. Shaking them, she raised her brows expectantly. “Is this happening or not?”
It had been months since I’d seen Grace. She’d been away at Loyola the entire year. It was too far away for her to come home for most breaks. The last time we’d seen her was Christmas, when she’d flown in with her boyfriend, Luke, on Christmas Eve. But by Boxing Day, she was gone. It sort of left us feeling like it hadn’t happened at all.
In spite of her sick obsession with higher mathematical functions, Grace was the magic in the holidays around our house. She was the one who loved trimming the tree. She was the one who insisted we still needed stockings—Mom, Dad, and the stray neighborhood cat included.
Throwing my arms around her, I hugged Grace. She still smelled like lavender. Her hair was silky as ever. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed her until that very moment. When I finally let her go, I pulled back to get a better look at her.
She wore clothes I’d never seen before. And there was a new shape to her face. She was still Grace, for sure. But she looked neater. More refined. It took me a minute to realize that she looked a lot like Mom.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her, handily stealing the pint of Chocolate Therapy in her left hand. Tossing it to Jane, I dived for the silverware drawer. Teaspoons weren’t going to cut it. I hauled out the big tablespoons, one for each of us. “Not that I’m not glad you’re here—I am!”
“I can’t move into my graduate housing until the end of summer,” she explained. “My landlord wanted me to pay three hundred dollars more a month for a short-term lease.”
Jane made a disgusted sound. “There has to be a law against that.”
Always fair, Grace shrugged. “Maybe there is. It wasn’t worth it to me to fight it. I missed this place. And the monkeys in it.”
With a wink, she nudged me, then peeled the lid off her Cherry Garcia. Unlike her savage little sister, she delicately spooned her ice cream into a porcelain bowl.
“What about Luke?” I asked, wondering about her very efficient long-distance boyfriend. He was studying biological oceanography at MIT–Woods Hole.
Waving her spoon dismissively, Grace said, “Home is closer than Loyola or Cal-Berkeley. We’re going to meet up at the end of July for our anniversary.”
“Four years,” I told Jane.
“Impressive.”
“But really dull, comparatively.” Grace went from casual to cutthroat, skipping all the gentle, prodding questions. We were sisters. She didn’t have to be polite or delicate with me. “Because I heard somebody’s already living the rock-star life.”
“It’s just a demo,” I demurred.
Crinkling her nose, Grace said, “I’m talking about someone’s two
boyfriends.”
For that, I shot a look at Jane. She was an absolute lunatic, acting like I had been holding court and enjoying a harem full of boy toys. Dipping my spoon into Grace’s ice cream, I settled into one of the island stools.
“Uh, no. I acted like total trash and kissed another guy while I was still dating Dave. Then I broke up with Dave and found out the other guy didn’t actually love . . . I mean, like me.”
It was funny the way Grace got defensive of me when I was the one bashing myself. Very sternly, she abandoned her dessert to lecture me. “Is he stupid?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Does it matter?”
Grace’s defensiveness changed targets. “He’s obviously stupid if he doesn’t think you’re great. But you know what? Stop being hard on yourself.”
“Don’t you think I should be?”
“No,” Grace said firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with reevaluating a relationship. You started dating Dave when you were fourteen. You grew up. You’re a completely different person now.”
“No kidding,” Jane said.
Never one for banter, Grace started tidying up after herself. Her ice cream wasn’t even half-finished. Moving comfortably through our kitchen, Grace wiped and tossed and rinsed like she’d never been gone.
That was one thing Ellie and I both missed about our sister. Her borderline kitchen OCD was our gain. We never had to do dishes when Grace was home.
“Anyway,” I said, because it was nice to have somebody objective in the mix for once, “I think the friends thing is going to work with Dave. I mean, witness: demo reel ice cream.”
Tossing a sponge in the sink, Grace turned to lean back against the counter. “So why don’t you sound like you’re happy?”
Leave it to Grace and her analytical mind to call bullshit. Including catching her little sisters in the midst of semi-delusional lies. The ache started in my chest again, and I put my spoon down. “It wasn’t what I expected.”
“How so?”
It took me a minute to explain the boring, technical details of recording. How each person recorded separately in their own booth, then each instrument separately. To Grace’s credit, she looked riveted. And when I finally finished up the explanation, she was completely ready for me to explain what was actually wrong.
“The thing about Dasa is, you know, I’m at my best when I perform with Dave—”
“Bullshit,” Jane coughed into her hand.
With a prim look, Grace silenced her. “Enough.” Then she turned back to me. “Go on.”
“Well, recording isn’t with. You have to record separately, right? And he wanted us to record a song I wrote. Which was weird, because I wrote it when we broke up. And sort of wrote it about the other guy. Besides all that, it’s my song. He’s been making fun of it since I started it, and I didn’t want to share.”
Sympathetic, Grace curled her arms on the island. “You outgrew him as a boyfriend. Is it possible you outgrew him as a musician, too?”
That question surprised me. It struck hard, and left me feeling weak. Was that possible? Still reeling, I said, “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
“I do,” Jane said, still plowing through her carton.
Then it hit me. Will had known, too. He’d told me so, his back to my back, beneath the wavering light from the pool. If that was his whole purpose, to push me on—to push me up—maybe I could stop feeling bad about the parts of him that I hadn’t gotten. Just as I thought it, my phone bleated.
Another shock consumed me. It was Will, which was surprising enough. But the text itself left me breathless.
want to run away together?
SIXTEEN
It was a joke, but also an invitation to meet. Conflicting emotions ran through me. I was thrilled to hear from him, but just a moment earlier he’d had me feeling like a fool. So I replied, but not eagerly. I refused to look like I was desperate and jumping at the chance to get some attention.
Family night first, txt u later?
Ok, he replied.
The family night excuse wasn’t a lie. With Grace home, we had to have family dinner. She hadn’t seen Ellie on stage in a couple of years, so we caught one of the evening performances at the theater. After that, we had to get dessert and sit in our living room and catch up.
Shortly after midnight, I stood on my front porch and texted Will that it was time if he was still interested.
OMW, he said. And he didn’t lie. We didn’t live all that far apart, but I was surprised at how quickly his black Miata pulled up in front of my house. There might have been a time when I would have bounded down the walk. Not anymore. I was playing it cool, and I took my time to get to the street.
Sliding in beside him, I smiled as I buckled the seat belt. “My sister’s home from college.”
“Cool,” he said. Throwing the car into gear, he sped down my street. He drove much faster than he needed to, and he looked upset. The furrow of his brows cast shadows over his pale eyes. Leaning back in my seat, I watched him. I waited for him to say something.
As we sped along, it became more and more obvious that he wasn’t going to. Annoyance brewed inside of me. I didn’t appreciate getting called out in the middle of the night for . . . what? An angry, silent drive? As much as my fingers itched to touch his hair, to curl behind his ears, the rest of me really wanted to go home.
Rather than wait for him to deign to speak, I asked, “Did you break up with her?”
“Yeah, I did.”
I paused for a moment, unsure of what to say.
“How did she take it?”
Will cut a look at me. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
My throat tightened a little. Everything about him confused me. I wasn’t happy after I broke up with Dave, either. It was a sad and ugly day. But I hadn’t run to Will and stomped around and refused to speak and somehow expected him to make it all better. Leaning against the door, I peered out at the sidewalk. East River flew past, shadowy and gray in the dark.
“What are we doing?”
Jerking the wheel, Will pulled into a playground parking lot. Cutting the engine, he sat there, staring at the brightly colored swings and slides in front of the car. The swings swayed with ghostly motion. It was after midnight, and the playground looked haunted and desolate.
Will unsnapped his seat belt, but he didn’t move.
I was starting to lose my patience. “Say something, Will. Say anything.”
“No,” he said flatly.
I turned to him. I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. I wanted to catch my breath, but I couldn’t draw one.
“This,” Will said finally. He thumped his head against the headrest in frustration. If he’d been a different kind of guy, he might have punched the dashboard. Instead, all his anger was directed inward. “This is so fucked up.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“If you didn’t want to be with me, then why did you text?” I demanded.
“Graduation is ruined,” he said. It wasn’t cruel when he said it. He sounded desolate. Wounded. Finally looking at me, I saw it all in his eyes a moment before he said it. “I couldn’t invite you to my graduation party, I couldn’t ask you to be my date for the prom, because to the rest of the world we’re nothing. That trip to Marblehead, I wanted to take you. I wanted it for us.”
Now baffled, I struggled with my seat belt and said, “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because she was graduating, too. Because we’re friends. Because it seemed too complicated to change everything when I’m about to leave for college soon. Because I’m an idiot, I don’t know.”
He was slipping away. It was a fight to keep space between us, but I fought all the same. “I get that, but I’m not—it’s not okay for you to take your anger out on me.”
Pressing his hand to the windo
w, his fingers skated the glass. “I know.”
Wary, I said, “Do you regret it?”
“I regret everything,” he shot back.
Everything?
Tears welled in my eyes.
“I’m in love with you, and I wasted years standing two feet away from you,” he raged suddenly. “Four years of high school, girl after girl, I kept chasing and catching all over again because it was never right. They were never the right fit.”
Love? It was love? I’d been asking myself that since the very first kiss. It had felt so scary and so hard to figure out. Was love supposed to be comfortable and safe and warm and sweet? Was love supposed to be painful and intoxicating and terrifying? Was love supposed to keep you up at night, craving more? I never found an answer that satisfied me, but I thought I was starting to understand.
“Will,” I said softly, reaching for him.
“Don’t,” he said. The raw, undisguised emotion in his voice startled me. “Because I wasted all that time. I wasted all of our time. It kills me to realize how many times I didn’t get to kiss you. How many nights I didn’t know you were supposed to be mine. I know that now, and it’s wrecking me.”
I burst out of my seat belt and fell onto him. Catching him by the front of his shirt, I kissed him. I kissed him hard, and it wasn’t sweet or spiced. It was salted, with tears and heartache. Touching him, my flesh finally woke. All the thoughts that had been frozen by uncertainty melted at once.
On his lips, I murmured frantic whispers. “I love you. I love you, Will. I love it when you get philosophical, and I love your sly sense of humor. I love how good you are. You’re so good, Will. You try to hide it and I don’t understand why, but I want to find out.
“I want to write my name on your back with my fingernails, and try to braid tiny braids into your hair even though it’s way too short. I want to write songs about you. I want you to tell me everything that you think when it’s three o’clock in the morning and you can’t sleep. I want to keep your secrets, and I want you to keep mine. But I don’t want you to be my secret anymore—I want the world to know about us. No more hiding, no more whispers. I want to do everything out loud with you. Everything.”
While You're Away Page 11
