When your eyelids rose, you hopped out of bed, excited for your sixteenth birthday.
And I was officially two years older than my older brother.
February.
Maggie
“Hey, Magpie,” my father says in the voicemail he left three minutes ago when I ignored his call. “I’m sorry I can’t be there tonight for your big debut.”
“Put the phone away!” Shana shouts. “That’s not helping us get in the zone.”
“Yeah, it really isn’t,” my friend and bandmate Ember agrees, their eyes closed, in some kind of meditative state. They play the drums, wear a faux leather jacket, and have short pink magical-fairy hair. They’re definitely too cool for our band.
“I know, I know,” I say. “Just wanted to hear what my dad said.”
The three of us are standing near the dumpster behind Bean-Age Dream, minutes away from our first-ever set, an odor best described asdead mouse lattepermeating the air. We’re all nervous af.
I figured Dad wasn’t going to make it from Pennsylvania, but it’s still a bummer. He’s an amazing father, but he’s not always so... parental. I listen to the rest of his excuse, something about not being able to get out of some fancy catering job. Though Dad is a very talented artist—some of his multimedia pieces have sold for thousands of dollars—he’s always grabbing various odd jobs to supplement that. Currently, his main ones are teaching after-school kids’ art classes, managing projects for a landscaping business owned by his old college buddy Bernie, and working asa captain for a catering company, which I assume means he helps lead all the servers or something.
Do I wish he could skip this random catering gig and come see my show?
Yes. Of course. But I know this is just Dad’s way.
There’s a buzz during the end of his voicemail, and I look down to see a text from Chord:Good luck tonight! You’re gonna kill.
“Okay, it’s gone,” I say, flicking the phone into my bag like a hot potato. “My dad’s not gonna make it. Chord is here, though. Which is both sweet and nauseating. So much pressure. I wasn’t even gonna tell him about it, but he saw on Instagram.”
“It’sgoodhe’s here,” Shana says. “Because you’re gonna sound fucking hot. And look fucking hot too. Playing that piano.Strokingthose keys.Caressingthose ivories.”
“Oh, geez, too much,” I say.
“It’s just the truth. The undeniable truth.”
“Teela’s out there too,” Ember says, finally opening their eyes. “So.”
“That doesn’t count,” I say. “You and Teela have been dating for like ayear.”
“Yeah, but that makes it worse in a way.” Ember pops a square of gum into their mouth and starts frantically chewing. “Because it means Teela is totally comfortable being herself with me. And herself is a very critical person. If our band sucks, she will let me know.”
“True. I don’t think Chord will let me know. He’ll just run away. And then ghost me forever.”
“Hm.” Ember holds out their plastic container of Ice Breakers Cubes. “Did you want a piece of this?”
“Okay.” I deposit the gum into my mouth and try to focus on nothing but the explosion of minty freshness, even though my brain has somehow found its way to Carter again. It was probably the thing Ember said about Teela being herself because they’ve been dating so long. Carter and I dated five months and twenty-four days (not that I was counting or anything) and I felt very comfortable being myself around him.
I miss that.
Still, it was a mistake to help him at the party. Not entirely, because he really was in no shape to drive, and that could have been disastrous. But talking to him again felt like a form of torture. Like trying on a perfectly fitting pair of jeans you know you’ll never be able to afford.
I know Carter was too wasted to remember our interaction Saturday night, but he clearly rememberssomething.Every time I passed him in the hall at school this week, he seemed like he wanted to talk to me; I’ve started taking longer routes to class to make sure we don’t cross paths. It’s exhausting. But the alternative is about eight thousand times worse. I don’t want jeans that suddenly stop fitting in a year and then I have to teach them how to fit all over again.
“Can we please stop talking about the opinions of these people who are notus?” Shana asks. “Weknow how hard we’ve been working on these songs and how fucking great we are. So let us focus onprocessand notoutcome.And also on our hotness.”
“I’m not sure we should play the song,” I say, suddenly seized by such intense panic my gum falls out of my mouth and lands on my Chuck Taylors.
“Which song?” Ember asks.
“You know,” I say, “the one about the—”
