Chapter Sixteen
Noah
Evie follows me in her car as we drive to my house.
After she pulls into the driveway behind me, we get out of our cars and make our way inside.
I place my guitar at the foot of the stairs and then we head to the kitchen, where Mom and Dad are working on dinner.
My family knows I play guitar, but they don’t know where my passion lies.
Rylee sits on the counter, chatting about her day. As soon as we walk in, my parents greet us with warm smiles and my little sister waves.
“Hey, Noah. Hey, Evie. Guess who got suspended from school for two days?”
I frown at her. “You?”
She giggles. “Not this time. It was these two boys being stupid. Aren’t you proud of me for behaving?”
Smiling, I ruffle her hair. “Super proud. Evie and I are going to my room to do homework.”
“Are you still married?” Rylee asks, her eyes lit up as they travel from me to Evie.
“Pretend married,” I correct.
Evie wraps her arm around my shoulder. “Of course we’re still married. I wouldn’t give up on my amazing shnook—”
“Anyway,” I cut her off with a glare. “We’re going to my room.”
“Are you staying for dinner, sweetie?” Mom asks her.
“Sure, thanks. It smells delicious.”
Dad bows dramatically. “Liam’s new recipe.” He twists his mouth. “Chloe’s been helping him rewrite his recipes to be clearer, but I think they’re more confusing.”
I glance around. “Where’s Chloe, anyway?”
Rylee rolls her eyes. “At Liam’s, of course. She’s there, like, all the time. What’s the big deal about having a boyfriend anyway?”
“I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times,” Evie tells her with a light chuckle.
Mom and Dad exchange a smile, as though they’re hiding a secret or something. I hope one day a girl will make me happy and I will do the same, just like my parents.
“So your room?” Evie asks me.
We tell my parents we’ll see them later, I grab my guitar, and we climb the stairs to my room. Evie takes a look around and her eyebrows furrow. Then she rolls her eyes.
“What?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Nothing. Just this room is so…dry.”
“Dry? You’ve been in my room before.”
“Yeah, but it’s drier than usual. I mean, look at the walls.” She gestures around. “The only posters you have are of famous football players. And they’re so squeaky clean and boring.”
“Well, I can’t have any posters of my favorite rock bands, can I?”
She’s about to say something, but I go on, “And why are you criticizing my room?”
She throws her hands up. “Oh, like you didn’t criticize mine and try to clean it up the other day?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “That’s because your room was a hazard. Still is, I bet.”
She doesn’t listen to me as she continues examining my “dry” room. Her eyebrows knit as she heads over to the small dry-erase board hanging on my wall. “What’s this?”
“My daily to-do list. Every morning, I wake up and write down my tasks for the day so I don’t forget them. I also use an app…why are you looking at me like that?”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Why am I not surprised? That’s so you.”
“Yeah, it is. How about you stop attacking my room and we begin?”
Shaking her head again, she continues her assessment. “White, boring sheets on the bed. The floor is spotless. No food anywhere. No personality.”
“Evie.”
She turns to me. “What? This looks like a hospital room. Put some color, some life, into it. Your room is your place, your domain. The one place you can be totally, one hundred percent yourself. If someone walked in here, they wouldn’t know who you are.”
“Maybe I want to keep it that way.”
She shrugs. “Whoever your roommate will be at college next year…I wish him luck.”
I give her a look. “I feel bad for the person who will room with messy you.”
“Good thing we’ll be far, far away from each other.”
“Good thing,” I agree. “Now, can we begin or are you still not done with your criticism?”
She gestures toward my desk. “We can begin, but ugh, can I paint you something? Maybe a landscape or a portrait of you? Your family? Just to bring some life into this room.”
“No.”
“Stubborn.”
I give her a look again. “Do you always have to interfere in my life?”
“Yep.”
I sigh.
“Let’s get to work and turn that mediocre song into a winner.”
I cringe. Yeah, it was really bad.
“Don’t stress.” She gives me an assuring smile. “We’ll put our fabulous heads together and come up with something good.”
Except, she’s never written a song in her life and she’s not too familiar with rock music. But I need to have confidence in her. In us. Have faith, just like she told me earlier. Maybe if we do put our heads together, we’ll come up with something amazing.
We settle down at my desk and I pull my lyrics notebook out of my backpack, turning to the page where I’ve written and rewritten the new song. I slide it over to Evie. “Do your worst.”
She studies the lyrics, asking questions, offering suggestions.
Things aren’t really going well because my brain is flat and Evie keeps trying to stick romantic words in there.
While we can put romance in a rock song, I don’t think this is the right one.
It’s about darkness and light…and I thought it was a good idea when I wrote it. Clearly not.
We decide to listen to rock songs for inspiration. Evie gets a better feel for the genre and we slowly come up with something.
“Make sure it’s our own original song,” Evie tells me. “We wouldn’t want to be accused of plagiarism in real life like I was accused in our pretend life.”
I find myself chuckling. “Still can’t get over that, huh?”
She rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe Mrs. Duncan made that happen. But anyway, what do you think about changing these words…?”
We continue working on the song, taking breaks here and there to listen to more songs and chatting about school and the band.
“By the way, how are you feeling about the whole college thing?” I ask her after a little while. “Still scared?”
She rolls her shoulders. “I’ll always be scared, but it’s better, I guess. I’m trying to spend more time with my parents and siblings instead of being cooped up in my studio all the time.”
“That’s good.”
We get back to work, coming up with something we think is good. We tweak it here and there as I play my guitar and we sing along with it, but I think we have something solid.
“Nice.” Evie holds up her hand for a high-five.
I frown. “I don’t like high-fives. Seems silly.”
Releasing an exasperated sigh, she takes hold of my hand and slaps it to hers. “Someone seriously needs to teach you the word fun.”
I’m about to respond, when Dad walks in. I quickly shut the lyrics notebook and strum a few random chords on my guitar. Evie narrows her eyes at me in confusion.
Dad grins at us. “Hey, kids. How goes the studying?”
I gesture to my guitar. “Great. We’re taking a small break.”
“You’re getting good at that.” Dad nods to the guitar.
I force a smile. “Thanks.”
“Noah, I was wondering if you want to go running with me tomorrow morning.”
“Sure, Dad.”
He smiles again. “Great. Dinner will be ready in an hour.” He leaves the room.
Evie watches him go with furrowed brows as I strum a few more chords on my guitar. She turns to me, her brows furrowing more.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t get it. Your parents are so amazing and they love you so much. Why are you hiding your love of music from them?”
I sigh and continue strumming. “Doesn’t matter.”
She places her hand on mine, stopping me. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but seriously, Noah. Your parents love you. Do they even know the real you? Does anyone?” She takes a breath. “Do you even like football?”
“Sure I like it.”
She removes her hand from mine. “But you don’t love it, do you?”
I continue strumming random chords. “I’m going to Astor University on a football scholarship and then I hope to have a football career like my dad.”
“But that’s not what you want. You want to be a rockstar.”
I don’t say anything. Then, in a low voice, I tell her, “No one knows this, but I got accepted into a music school.”
Her eyes bug out. “Noah, that’s amazing! Why are you torturing yourself like this? If you don’t want a football career, then why are you heading in that direction?”
I pull my guitar over my shoulder and lower it to the floor. “Because that’s what’s best for me, okay? I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I don’t care if you want to talk about it or not. Noah, you’re miserable. I see how you light up when you’re up on that stage rocking it out. And your eyes are dead when you talk about football.”
“I’m good at football.”
“So what? It’s not where your passion lies.”
I grit my teeth. “Evie, just drop it.”
“No, I won’t. I know we’re not exactly friends and I’m only your pretend wife, but someone needs to knock some sense into you. Why are you hiding the truth from your parents? Why are you choosing football over music? What are you so afraid of?”
I shoot to my feet, not in anger but in frustration and pain. “I’m choosing football because that’s what they expect of me! My dad wants me to follow in his footsteps and be the next famous Barrington quarterback.”
Her mouth shuts as her eyebrows knit.
I pace my room. “My grandfather couldn’t play football, so my uncle Brock wanted to play for him, but then he died. My dad decided to play for his dad and Brock, and then Aunt Bailey did the same. Now I have to keep the tradition.”
Now she gets to her feet. “Says who?”
My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.
“Did your dad ask you to keep the tradition?”
I plow my fingers through my hair as I continue to pace. “No, but it’s been obvious my whole life. My dad has shaped me to be the next Barrington quarterback and I won’t let him down. I need to do this for him, for Uncle Brock, and for my grandfather.”
She drops back down on her chair with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s stupid.”
I give her a look. “I told you that you wouldn’t understand. Just leave me alone.”
“Not happening, Noah. You’re miserable and if you won’t do anything about it, then I will.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
She throws her hands up. “Nag you and nag you until you talk to your dad.” Her eyes soften. “Noah, you only have one life to live. Do you want to live your dad’s or your own?”
I sink to the floor as her words touch my heart, my soul. She’s right. Of course I want to live my own life. But my dad expects so much from me. I want to make him and my mom proud.
She gets up and lowers herself next to me. “I might not understand the pressure you’re under, but your dad loves you and he’ll understand. Just talk to him.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I can’t.”
“You can. This is your life and your happiness, Noah. If you won’t do something about it, no one will. Do you want to be on your deathbed and regret not going after what you wanted?”
I shake my head. “I could have a good, happy career in football.”
She places her hand on my arm. “Or you can have an amazingly spectacular one following your dream.”
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say.
She gets to her feet. “I’d better go.”
“What about dinner?”
She hoists her backpack over one shoulder.
“I think you need to be alone with your thoughts and with your family without me getting in the way. Tell your parents thanks, anyway.” She places her hand on my arm.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you have a special talent and it’d be a shame for it to go to waste.
I’ll see you tomorrow. Good luck.” She smiles reassuringly and leaves my room.
As I sit here with her words spinning around in my head, I can’t help but wonder if she’s right. Should I tell Dad how I feel? Will I hurt him by telling him I don’t want a football career like he wants me to have?
I’m not sure.