Played

by Jeanette Battista

  “Sponge off my parents,” he joked. When she laughed, he winked at her. “I plan to compose—I want to do video game and movie soundtracks.”

  “Cool. So you compose music now?” He nodded. “Do you ever perform any of it?”

  Jason grinned. “Not at a coffee shop, that’s for sure. But yeah, I do concerts here in the Music department.”

  “Can anyone go to one? Could I?” She wanted to be supportive of her bandmates—not that they were a band yet. They hadn’t even really played together except for that once.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll let you know when my next one is. My girlfriend is always looking for someone to go with to those things since I usually have to stay behind and break down instruments and stuff.” He strummed experimentally, his ear turned to his guitar. It was perfect.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Greg said, rushing into the room. He threw his backpack down on the floor and kicked the doorstop free so that the door closed slowly behind him. “I’ll be ready in a sec.” He began unzipping his guitar case. “Hey Lila. Glad you could make it.”

  “I was happy you called.” She felt herself flush a little, her face warming. She wasn’t sure if that had come out the way she’d wanted it to. Lila snuck a look at Greg, who seemed consumed with tuning his guitar. His blond hair fell across his face as he lowered his head close to the strings. Her fingers twitched with the desire to push it back.

  His face was angular, stubble dotting his cheeks. His nose was sharp, set off by strong cheekbones and jaw. His eyes were an intense blue beneath sandy lashes. His generous mouth was turned down in a frown of concentration as he tuned his guitar. His long fingers plucked at the strings, his hands broad and strong. Lila felt the hairs on the backs of her arms stand up.

  Lila held up her guitar bag. “I brought mine, but we can just focus on singing if you’d like.”

  “We can get to that later,” Jason said, strumming a chord. “You ready?” Lila nodded. “Let’s warm up.”

  Lila ran through some vocal exercises that she used to do when she was in her high school’s a-cappella group. Jason began to pluck out the tune of Stairway to Heaven, and Lila came in on the opening with him. They sang the first couple of verses together, before Greg joined in, his lower voice supporting theirs.

  They ran through some other acoustic tunes, with Lila handling much of the vocals. Jason and Greg came in whenever they felt it would add to the overall performance but mostly they kept to playing. There was some talk of songs and plenty of conversation about what songs each of them knew. It surprised her how familiar they were with most of what she knew or had grown up with.

  “How about this one?” Jason asked, looking at her. He began to strum.

  Lila listened carefully, unsure. She could swear she’d heard the song before, but she couldn’t place where or come up with the name. It wasn’t until Greg nodded and began to sing the lyrics that it clicked into place.

  “House at Pooh Corner!” she said. She remembered this song from her childhood. Her father had loved this song, in part because his father had played it for him when he was a kid, and he had played it for Lila when she was a child. Her mother had even sung along with it.

  She waited for the next verse and joined in, stumbling on the words at first. But the lyrics of the song came back to her and her hesitation fell away. She ended the last chorus with Greg. As their voices drifted into silence, she shared a happy look with him.

  “Nice,” he said quietly, his eyes soft on her face. She kept looking at him, marveling at the deepness of his voice, the calm strength of him. He seemed…steady. Yes, that was the best word for him. Someone who didn’t get riled, someone who could be counted on. Someone who was also incredibly good-looking in a rough and unfussy sort of way.

  Lila felt heat rise into her cheeks. She lowered her eyes to the strings of his guitar, not wanting to be caught staring. “My dad used to play that song a lot when I was a kid.”

  “Mine too,” Greg offered, strumming some random notes. The music fell into the room like confetti, a happy trill of sound.

  Jason launched into a Nirvana song, and Greg picked up the tune, his voice spare and almost broken as he sang the lyrics about a lake of fire. Lila sat rapt, watching the two of them perform. Her eyes focused on Greg: the way a lock of hair fell across his eyes as he strummed, the set of his mouth when he played, and his deep, golden voice that rose like a phoenix from somewhere inside of him. Chills moved through her, the hair on her arms rising to attention. She rubbed her arms, feeling a tightness in her stomach when she looked at him.

  The notes of the song drifted away. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Lila said, “Wow.”

  Jason laughed, a shockingly bright sound. “That bad, huh?”

  Lila stood up and stretched, needing something to do with her body. She was stiff from sitting. “If by bad you mean insanely, stupendously good, then yes.” She glanced at Greg, satisfied to see him smile at her assessment. “You guys should totally close out the set with that one.”

  “A little depressing, don’t you think?” Greg asked, his fingers resting on the strings to keep them quiet.

  Lila shrugged. “Maybe a little. But it’s also pretty powerful. I don’t know, I like it.” She was imagining sitting in a coffee shop, the fall twilight deepening to night with a crisp wind leaking through the door every time it opened. To her, this was the perfect song to head out into that darkness. It made her want to seek out the light that was left.

  “You play something,” Greg suggested, gesturing to her guitar bag. When she hesitated, he put on a pleading look and whined, “Please?” He drew the word out until it buzzed like a saw blade.

  Slanting a look at Jason, Lila saw him nodding. “Let’s hear what you got,” he said with a smile.

  “Okay,” she said with a long-suffering sigh. “But be gentle with me. I’m still pretty rusty. I haven’t been able to play much.”

  “We’re always gentle the first time around,” Greg joked, then seemed to find something very interesting in his shoes. Lila thought the tops of ears were turning pink. He cleared his throat, then asked, “What’s been keeping you from playing? School already that busy?”

  Lila unzipped her bag, settling the guitar on her lap. She stroked the strings experimentally, bringing the instrument back in tune with a few minor adjustments. “Broken arm,” she answered, not looking up. “Over the summer, but it meant no playing. I’m finally getting back to it.”

  “Sorry,” Greg said, his voice soft. “Accident?”

  “I guess you could call it that.” Lila thought that her whole relationship with Tyler could be called one gigantic accident, if one wanted to be generous. There were other, less polite things, she called it—and him—now. She looked up. “You sure you want to hear my sad excuse for playing after that previous awesomeness?”

  “Shut up and play already,” Greg growled in mock frustration, a half-smile tilting at his lips.

  “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” Lila muttered, then launched into one of her favorites. She hadn’t been able to listen to it when she was dating Tyler; she hadn’t felt like listening to much of anything their last six months together, and then when she’d decided to transfer, this was the song that gave her strength. Tyler was, to her anyway, a very good facsimile of the Prince of Darkness. He was her Prince of Darkness.

  The words spilled out of her mouth, a flood of feeling lifting them higher and giving them weight. She raised her voice, unafraid to be heard, the song like a pulse inside of her. She’d spent two years locked in a cage of her own devising, learning how to occupy less space, being taught the lessons in pain and fear. In this rehearsal room, she cut loose. It didn’t matter if her fingering was perfect, didn’t matter if her voice sustained every note. What mattered was that she was here and alive and able to play at all.

  She hit the chorus and Jason’s guitar joined with hers, bolstering the sound of her playing. Lila felt the energy of a perfect jam flow through her,
and matched her playing accordingly. The song’s lyrics resonated in her gut, burst from her lips with a power they’d never had before. When Greg came in, singing the counterpoint about grace and growing stronger, Lila didn’t miss a beat, just opened her throat and reached for the notes, stretching for the breath and strength she knew was inside of her.

  “And I will not be a pawn,” she half-shouted, half-sang as she covered her strings. Jason stilled his, so she sang the last line in silence, “for the prince of darkness any longer.”

  The three of them sat there, staring at each other in the ensuing silence. Greg broke it with loud clapping. “That’s what we’re ending with,” he said with a grin. “Jay?”

  “Damn right,” the other musician agreed.

  ***

  “How did you even know the lyrics?” Lila asked Greg, as they walked from the rehearsal space. Jason had raced off to see his girlfriend for dinner between her last class and her lab. “I wouldn’t have thought that was a popular song.”

  “Ex-girlfriend.” Greg shrugged. “She played the Indigo Girls a lot. Especially after we broke up—there was that song about Romeo and Juliet that she especially liked to trot out.”

  “Ouch. She didn’t take you breaking up with her very well, huh?” Lila made sure not to whack Greg with her guitar case, then switched it to her outside hand.

  “She dumped me!” he said, his voice rising in disbelief. “And then she listens to the Indigo Girls like she’s the wronged party.” He shook his head, then gave her a wink. “Unbelievable.”

  Lila laughed softly. Greg made her laugh. She liked that about him, adding it to the rapidly growing list. “What sort of music did you listen to then, being the dumpee?”

  “Country music.” When she laughed again, he nudged her with his guitar case. “Hey! It’s the music of pain and heartbreak.”

  She tried not to chortle. “So, what? You just sat in your bedroom listening to songs about rain and trucks and unfaithful women?”

  “Actually, it was a lot of Johnny Cash. Delia’s Gone was on heavy rotation, if I remember.”

  “Isn’t that about a guy who killed the woman he loved?” Lila eyed him warily now.

  Greg looked elated. “You listen to Johnny Cash? That is so cool!” Then he paused, head cocked as he thought. “Um, yeah. I guess that song was pretty dark. In fairness though, I didn’t really pay attention to what it was about.” He grinned. “I was in tenth grade.”

  Lila burst out laughing. “That’s some high drama for tenth grade.”

  “I’m a musician,” he said with fake seriousness. “We’re sensitive.” He smiled at her. “And Miranda was in drama club, so it’s really no surprise there that we didn’t make it.”

  “It’s a tragedy for our modern times,” Lila protested with an undignified giggle.

  “Are you mocking my pain?” Greg waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything so heartless and cruel. I’m sure you are still devastated by the loss of her.”

  “See how I pine,” he said, then pointed to the campus sweet shop. “Want to grab a cup of coffee?” When Lila hesitated, he wheedled, “If you’re really good, I might even buy you an ice cream cone.”

  “Well, since you’re tempting me with dairy treats, okay.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You almost ready?” Gretchen called from the living room.

  Lila sat on her bed, playing with the laces of her Chucks. She’d been waffling all morning between climbing back in bed and forgetting about the football game or finishing getting ready. Now she was paralyzed with indecision. She stared down at her comforter, trying to come to a decision.

  Her roommate stuck her head in the room. “Lila?” When she saw her sitting on the bed, she cocked her head. “What’s up?”

  Lila didn’t look up from her untied shoes. There was a hollow place in her stomach that refused to go away. She didn’t move when she felt Gretchen sit down on the edge of her bed. “Li?”

  “We’re playing State,” Lila said softly, as if that was reason enough for her not to go to the game. She slanted her eyes to the blonde sitting next to her.

  “You can’t think he’s actually going to be there,” Gretchen said, giving Lila a funny look. Then her expression changed to one of sympathy. “I can see that you do.”

  “His frat,” she tried to explain without her voice shaking. “They like to go to the away games. They’ve got a house up here too, so it is possible he might show up.”

  Lila’s roommate shook her head. “But the likelihood of you running into him is pretty small, right? I mean, think of how many people will be on campus. He’ll just be another face in the crowd.”

  What Gretchen said did make sense. If she’d been talking about anyone but Tyler anyway. Lila hadn’t told her about the phone calls and messages and hang-ups. She hadn’t told G a lot of things. She knew he wasn’t done. If he came up here, he’d probably make it a point to find her just because.

  Lila tried to smile and found she couldn’t. The thought of Tyler here, in her safe zone, nearly made her puke. She didn’t want him anywhere near Davis. She had no idea if he’d actually come up for the game, and if she’d even run into him, but the thought of seeing him made her want to hide.

  “You said yourself that you were tired of him dictating your life,” Gretchen reminded her. “I don’t mean to push, but if you stay locked inside because you’re afraid you might see him—in a sea of like seven thousand people, I might add—I’d say that’s letting him dictate your life.”

  Lila put her hands over her face for a moment, needing to block everything else out. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?” she asked G from behind the cover of her hands.

  “Just a tiny bit.” Gretchen put her index finger and thumb together. “A wee. Less than this much.”

  Lila dropped her hands to her lap. Gretchen was right. She couldn’t stay locked up in her apartment every time there was a threat of Tyler. “Fine. I’ll go.”

  ***

  The press of bodies back to the quad after the game was intense. Gretchen grabbed her hand and dragged her along with her as they followed the human river down the hill to where it emptied into the bowl of green that was the quad. The lake of people eddied around as they waited for friends, or caught up with missing members of their group before streaming out in tributaries bound for cafeterias, restaurants, or local bars to celebrate—or mourn—the outcome of the game.

  “I told Van we’d meet him here,” Gretchen said, pulling her jacket a little tighter around herself. Shonda wrapped her arm around her girlfriend, pulling her in close. Lila smiled, then turned her gaze back to the sea of people.

  “Look, I think I see him,” Lila said, pointing at a dark head coming in their direction. She waved her hand above her head.

  Someone slammed into her, nearly throwing her to the ground. Lila staggered, grateful for Gretchen’s quick reflexes as the blonde caught her arm. “Dude!” she shouted, turning around to berate the probably drunken idiot who’d smashed into her friend.

  Lila turned slower, still a little surprised at the force of the blow. She froze when she saw the Greek letters they sported on their shirts. She felt the breath go out of her lungs in a long sigh.

  Tyler’s fraternity.

  There were five of them clustered together. A couple of them laughed out loud, including the one closest to Lila, the one who probably smashed into her. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.” This set off another round of drunken laughter among the group.

  “Hey,” Van said, sounding winded as he joined them. “What’s going on?”

  Lila shuddered, her good time at the game ruined. All she wanted to do was go home. It was probably just a coincidence, but that didn’t matter. Seeing those letters just brought Tyler back to her mind. It would be impossible to forget about him now.

  The group had moved off, staggering and hooting. Lila watched them go, dread pooling in her belly. She flinched when Gretche
n wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go,” Gretchen urged.

  “I think I’d just rather go home.” Lila pulled away. She saw Shonda watching them, a frown on her face.

  “Come on,” Gretchen urged quietly. “Don’t let them ruin your good time. We’ll go to Bosco’s.” She called over to Van, who was watching them with a dark look on his face. “Bosco’s good?” He nodded.

  Lila gnawed at the flesh on her inner cheek. Finally she nodded. She didn’t really want to be alone in her apartment and it wasn’t fair to ask Gretchen to spoil her good time to come babysit her.

  The four of them walked over to Main, stopping along the way to pick up Ryan and another friend of his. The six of them walked to Bosco’s. Lila felt like a fifth wheel, a dark cloud that tagged along behind the others, trying not to rain on their good time. They managed to get the last free table at the front of the restaurant, at the big plate glass window that looked out on the street. They ordered burgers and fries and made jokes and talked about the game. By the time the food came, Lila felt a little better and had actually almost forgotten about her run-in with the fratties.

  “Hey,” Lila said to Gretchen and Shonda who were blocking her way out. “Scootch in, I need to go to the restroom.”

  The table rearranged itself and Lila slid out. She wended her way through the crush of people, heading to the narrowest part of the back of the restaurant where the restrooms lurked in the darkness before the kitchen. She was in and out quickly, wanting to get back to laughing with the rest of her friends.

  She opened the door slowly, checking to make sure there wasn’t a server coming from the kitchen with a tray full of food. Before she could step out, the doorknob was ripped from her hand as the door was thrown open. Lila took a quick step back, certain it was just some drunk girl anxious to get to a toilet.

  Tyler stepped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.