“My assumptions are strictly evidence based. You went on a date with a frat boy punk. You walked into the VIP entrance at the arena. And you own a cell phone and credit cards. All I’m saying is you don’t appear to be too angsty.”
Of course, Beats would view me like that. Light and airy. A pop princess. Miss Swift. That was probably the vibe I was giving off, but there was more to me than that. I mean, there were documentaries made about my family, for god’s sake. If that didn’t give me the required street cred, I didn’t know what would.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I replied.
“Don’t get mad. It’s what my eyes see.” He smiled, so sure of himself. “Although there is one bit of evidence that doesn’t fit with the rest.”
“What’s that?” I asked, shoving aside my irritation out of curiosity.
“The look you gave me before disappearing into the arena. I know you saw something in me. Something you didn’t like.”
Didn’t like? No. Shivers instantly prickled my skin. Jake. I’d seen Jake in him, that was all. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like he’d picked up on some trigger of mine that I didn’t know I had. I drew in a sharp breath. “That’s not true. I like everything about you.”
He sat, silently studying me before finally shrugging. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you don’t have any secrets in you. In which case, you might want to stick to pop songs.”
I bristled at the smugness in his tone but couldn’t let the conversation go. “Why don’t you tell me, Beats? What do you think I saw?”
“Why should I do the work for you? Everyone knows that what makes artists great is unleashing whatever it is inside that scares the shit out of them. If you want to go beyond the ordinary, then you’ve got to dig down deep.”
He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper. “But only if you dare.”
My blinking game was off the charts. I had no rebuttal. Nothing to say. He was right, of course. Look at Jake. He’d exploited the hell out of his tragedy and found the pot of gold at the end. But me? I avoided all mention of the thing that scared me most—the kidnapping. Why? Why couldn’t I read an article about it or scroll the web looking for clues? Was there something I was afraid to see? I’d always told myself the reason I kept talk of the kidnapping at bay was because I chose to live in the light, but what if there was more to it? What would happen if I unleashed whatever it was I feared inside me? Would it become my angsty muse… or be the death of me?
10
RORY: AFTER DARK
There were times when being an untouchable worked in my favor. The trip back to the arena, traveling upstream through thousands of exiting concertgoers, was one of those times. The normal people saw me coming, and like the hull of a ship carving through a school of fish, they parted down the middle, allowing Grace and me to sail on through.
Even she noticed the phenomenon. “Wow. It pays to carry a lot of baggage.”
“In more ways than one,” I agreed, relieved she’d seemed to bounce back from the stupidity of my words. What the hell had I been thinking, accusing this girl of having some unspoken secret when I knew nothing about her? More importantly, why did she react the way she did if I wasn’t right?
But all was forgotten when we walked back to the arena, that easiness between us restored. There was a weightlessness with her that I hadn’t felt in years… maybe ever. If Grace was embarrassed to be seen with me, she didn’t show it, and that meant a lot to me. If someone like her could accept me, were there others?
“Speaking of baggage,” she said, “you want me to wash your clothes for you?”
I stopped walking to gawk at her offer. A few minutes earlier, she’d watched me gather up all my clothes, limp with grime and inattention, and shove them in my buckets. I’d tried to keep the stench from reaching her nose by turning my back to her, but it was no use. My clothes were pungent, like overripe fruit that had plunged to the ground and split wide open with rot.
Poor hygiene was my biggest shame. Of all the shit I went through out here, being dirty and covered in filth hurt my pride the most. But washing my clothes always proved a huge ordeal. Laundromats required a full day commitment of travel, wait times, and judgment as I tried to wash as much of my wardrobe as possible with just enough of my body parts covered to keep me from being arrested for indecent exposure.
Some shelters offered washers and dryers, but most of the time they weren’t working. On the off chance they were, I’d have to drape my body over the machines to prevent my clothes from being forcibly adopted. For those reasons, I tended to put off washing my clothes until they were walking to the laundromat themselves.
“Seriously? You would do that for me?”
“It’s the only thing I can think of to extend our one day into two.”
“All you had to do was ask.”
“Really?” She blinked, like she couldn’t believe my time could be bought so easily, when in reality, I had nothing better to do. Ever.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with you?”
“I don’t… know.”
“But no takebacks on the clothes,” I quickly followed up. “You already offered.”
“I’m not taking it back,” Grace replied. “I want to wash them for you.”
