Too real.
More like memory than dream. It didn’t feel imagined. It felt remembered.
I shake it off and force myself to fall back asleep.
When I wake again hours later, something in me has shifted. I feel lighter. Clearer.
I decide I’m done lying around, obsessing over what Hayes might be doing with my sister or whatever mess is happening with his family. None of it is within my control. Especially if he won’t let me in.
Instead, I’m choosing to focus on me. My wants. My goals. My future. If no one’s going to choose me, I’ll choose myself.
Maybe I didn’t land the role I wanted inHercules, but there are other ways to build my résumé. Other ways to boost my shot at NYU. I remember reading about a girl who grew her YouTubefollowing to nearly a million subscribers. She turned down a record deal and still got accepted to both NYU and USC, which has the best pop vocal program in the country. And she didn’t even write her own music. She just covered old Britney Spears tracks.
Surely, I can do better than that.
A burst of resolve moves through me as I turn my laptop back on and create my own YouTube channel. I choose a name that’s simple and low-key. Catchy enough to stand out, but subtle enough that no one from school will immediately know it’s me if they stumble across it.
Sander Sings.
With the account set up, I reach for my steel-string Yamaha acoustic guitar, the one always leaning against my nightstand. My mother bought it for me on my thirteenth birthday from a thrift shop near her studio. It’s still the best gift I’ve ever received.
I sit cross-legged on my bed and strum a few chords, playing with the tune. I already know which song I want to upload first.
It’s an angsty breakup anthem I wrote last year about a girl who falls for a guy she’s never meant to have. A little punk, a little rock-and-roll. Maybe more autobiographical than I care to admit. I’m especially proud of the hook, though the melody still needs some work.
I run through the song a few times, adjusting the lyrics here and there, but I can’t record yet because my stomach is growling so loudly I’m pretty sure the mic would pick it up. Not exactly the vibeI’m going for. The background of my first admissions track can’t sound like a dying whale.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing edible in the kitchen.
All I can find is Mom’s vile wheatgrass smoothies and a container of homemade kale chips that taste like seaweed and cardboard had a disgusting baby. Mom usually saves grocery runs for Mondays, since she doesn’t go into the Artists Co-op until later in the afternoon. Which means I have no choice but to wash my face, twist my greasy hair into a bun, and crawl out of my cave in search of real food.
A few minutes later, I pull my car out of the apartment parking lot and crank the volume all the way up, bopping my head along to an old Nirvana song. My adrenaline is still buzzing from all the singing. For once, it feels like maybe I’m not just reacting to my life but actually steering it.
I feel so good, in fact, that I decide to be generous and stop at Hayes’s favorite Greek restaurant, Souvlaki’s, to grab him dinner too. He’s probably wasted at the frat party by now and could use something to soak up the damage.
Souvlaki’s is pricier than I normally allow myself, which is why I usually only go when Hayes insists on paying. Still, I want to do something kind. Something uncomplicated. I even text Mom and Amber after I park, asking if they want anything.
See? You can do this. You can still be Hayes’s friend,I tell myself.Even if it feels like he’s slipping further away each day.
The pep talk almost works too—right up until I walk inside.
What the hell?
Hayes is here.
His black hair is damp, curling slightly at the ends like he just showered. He’s in jeans and his favorite Nikes, looking far too put together for someone who is supposed to be spending the afternoon getting wrecked with his frat brothers.
He sits alone in our usual booth beneath a framed photo of the cliffs of Santorini. Half the image shows the iconic, blue-domed buildings that cling to the hillside of the Greek island. The other half is the Aegean Sea, impossibly blue, dotted with sailboats near the shore.
One afternoon out on the archery fields, Hayes’s father told us of the Greek myth about how Santorini came to be. Jason and the Argonauts, a band of heroes sailing through the Aegean Sea, were on a quest to help Jason reclaim his rightful throne from a usurping uncle. During their journey, they landed on the island of Anafi. There, one of the men fell in love with a sea nymph who became pregnant and needed a safe place to give birth. To help her, the Argonauts threw a clod of earth into the sea, and the island of Santorini emerged.
Back then, I believed in stories like that. Magic pulled from nothing. Miracles born of love and desperation.
Now, I believe in science.
And I later learned that Santorini was formed bya volcanic eruption, not some ridiculous romantic myth.
“Hay?” I call out, walking toward the table.
