“Imean, it would have made more sense to hang out or something instead of just lying there and staring at the ceiling,” I say. “Or doing whatever you were doing.” I widen my eyes and gasp dramatically, placing a hand over my chest. “You were watching porn, weren’t you?”
“Jesus,no,” he says. “I sleep in the goddamn hallway right outside your bedroom door and practically right behind George, and I’m sure neither of you would appreciate the sound of me jacking off at two in the morning.”
“Affirmative,” George says from the driver’s seat, and I choke on a laugh.
“Anyway,” he says. “I’m down to hang out whenever you want. The guys and I used to be up until all hours of themorning when we shared one of these things. It’s a lot harder to wind down when you’re alone.”
“As long as by ‘hang out’ you don’t mean watch whatever weird porn you pull up on your phone, then sounds good to me,” I tease.
“I don’t—I wasn’t—” he stutters, and I laugh. He narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t you have questions you’re supposed to be asking me?”
“Yes, sorry,” I say, picking up my notebook and pretending to thumb through a few pages of questions. “Do you prefer to watch the more traditional male female or—”
“Jesus Christ,” he says, throwing his head back, resting it against the wall behind him and covering his face with his hands. I toss my notebook back down onto the table and laugh again.
I unlock my phone, fire up my Voice Notes app, and tap record.
“When did you start playing?” I ask. He looks back at me, brow arched. “Thedrums.”
“Oh,” he says, chuckling. “Well, if you ask my parents, they’ll tell you I started when I was six months old and was drumming with silverware on the tray of my highchair.” I smile at the image in my head of a baby Eric happily drumming away with a little plastic fork and spoon. “I obviously don’t remember that, but I do remember pulling pots and pans out of the cabinets in the kitchen, flipping them over, and banging on them with wooden spoons. I was probably two at that point, but even at that age, I recognized that each one had a different sound, and I knew what sounded good. My mom said she never minded it because, even though pots and pans aren’t exactly instruments, I wasn’t just making noise. There was a method to the madness.”
“And when did you get your first kit?” I asked.
He smiled.
“I was eleven, and it just happened to be the worst day of my life.”
Track 1
Humble Beginnings
FOURTEEN
Eric
? I’m Just A Kid – Simple Plan ?
When the bus finally pulled up to the end of my driveway, I bolted. I didn’t even wait for my brother and sister. I couldn’t be on that bus with the whispers and the laughs and the pointing for another second.
Andrea Smith, my best friend since kindergarten and the girl I’ve had a crush on for the last two years, had kissed me at recess. My first kiss, and it was with my crush. I spent the rest of the afternoon with the biggest smile on my face, unable to remember a day when I’d been this happy. Not even when I got a PlayStation for Christmas the year before.
And then, as we were all filing into the hallway at the end of the day, Tommy Morgan put his arm around her and told me that she had kissed me on a dare. She was with him. She didn’t like me.
Ofcourseshe didn’t like me.
I was an idiot.
I threw the front door open and ran straight upstairs, not stopping to say hello to my mom who was always waiting for us in the kitchen with a snack, ready to hear about our day. I walked into my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed, face buried in my pillow, backpack still on my back.
I was thankful I didn’t grow up with a father who shamed me for crying when I was sad.“Men have emotions, too, and emotions are meant to be felt,”he’d said.
And man, was I feeling the emotions today.
I didn’t expect it to hurt this much. I always thought adults were being dramatic when they talked about heartbreak, that it was just some cheesy thing you said in movies or in songs. But now that it was happening to me, I realized it wasn’t something you can just shake off. It’s very,veryreal.
I didn’t even knowwhyit hurt so much. It’s not like we were together, but I still felt like she ripped something out of me.
Andrea and I had been friends since we met, and even though I’d had a small crush on her for years, I’d started to like her a lot more this year. I didn’t know when it happened exactly—it just kind of snuck up on me. I’d find myself thinking about her all the time, even when I was supposed to be doing homework or playing video games with my friends.
