Chapter Eight. Sam #3
Mackenzie nods. “We were more or less the same. Hannah wanted to start her line. Serena was ready to try something new.”
Now Mackenzie’s the one leaving something out. It’s in her face, even if it isn’t in her words—in that distinctive pucker between her brows. The heartbreak one.
“What did you want?” I ask.
She blinks back to herself, lips twisting to the side. “Some peace and quiet from all your punk rock racket.”
I lower the oars and let us coast. It’s quiet here. Just distant sounds of kids playing in the park and birds chirping in the woods.
“Really, though,” I say. “You fell off the map for a bit.”
Enough that she must not have been singing much. Twyla said not to ask about it, but I had enough vocal instruction on the road to know that your voice changes when it’s out of practice.
Which makes me wonder what on earth could happen to make a woman so stubbornly, unrepentantly full of love songs stop singing altogether.
“Well, we’re back on the map now.” She eyes the water, then looks back at me. “And—you’re right. We should head back. Get some writing done on solid ground.”
She’s clearly putting me off, but I let her for now. I don’t like the idea of us being in the boat if it scares her.
After we drop off the boat, we wander to find a place to sit, and Mackenzie spots the couple who took our photo by an ice-cream truck.
“I actually got a really cute shot,” she calls over to them, pulling out the photo she took.
After the girl who took the picture of us recovers from her absolute mortification and some clear hero worship of Mackenzie, she offers to AirDrop her picture in return.
“I’m so glad you guys are finally together,” she says to us, waiting for the photo to send.
Mackenzie puts up a hand. “Oh, we’re not—”
“You deserve it after that parade of losers,” the girl insists. “I mean, damn. Talk about kissing frogs.”
Mackenzie laughs, entirely unfazed, but my jaw drops. The girl turns to me sharply, pointing a finger at me.
“Do not fuck this up,” she says. “Our girl can’t take another hit.”
Ah. No need to ask which side of the Thunder Hearts versus Candy Shard divide she was on. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say.
But they’ve already moved on, chatting Mackenzie up about Hannah’s latest clothing drop while they wait for their ice cream. I’m still dumbfounded as Mackenzie lingers to buy two Powerpuff Girl ice pops, one of which she hands to me.
“For your valiant rescue earlier,” she says wryly.
She’s letting me milk that for all it’s worth, but I’m not in the mood. “I forgot how weird people were about your exes,” I say.
“Funny, isn’t it?” she says, unwrapping her ice pop. “You dated like it was a damn charcuterie board, but I’m the one who has ‘dating timelines’ on all the major new outlets. Scam.”
I consider it, leading us up to a spot in the Ramble with enough tree cover that nobody will bug us. “I guess everyone expected me to be the way I was. But you were America’s sweetheart. People got mad whenever someone broke your heart.”
She snorts. “Well, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Bad-boy phase officially over?” I ask.
Mackenzie bites off a hunk of Bubbles’ head and chews thoughtfully.
“I don’t think it was the ‘bad-boy’ thing that was the problem.
I think I just fell for guys who came on strong.
But in the end, they all just got insecure or intimidated.
Like anytime I got too happy or too comfortable they had to put me in my place.
They were all so damn predictable that it’s more boring than sad, looking back on it now. ”
She says it all so frankly that I know she means it, but my chest still aches. Some of it is guilt. I resented all those relationships, and was secretly relieved when they crashed and burned.
But the rest of it is for her sake. Mackenzie earned the name Sparkles for a reason. She was always looking on the bright side, even when she loved so hard that the internet wanted to make a fool out of her for it. I hate the idea that something finally took her shine.
“So cynical now,” I say. “Did Candy Shard’s angst rub off on you?”
She shakes her head. “It’s been good for me, being single awhile. Gave me some clarity on what I want.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, half-teasing, half-curious.
She shrugs. “I’ll let you know when I finish figuring it out.”
We’ve reached a quiet spot. Mackenzie unceremoniously plants herself in the grass, glancing up at me to follow.
Her lips are slick from the ice cream, the sun casting shadows from the trees against her face.
Not for the first time, I wonder who would be enough of a fool to win over this stunning, funny, ridiculously talented woman and let her go.
But I guess I’m not one to talk.
“For the record,” I say, bumping my shoulder into hers, “anyone who isn’t intimidated by you is an idiot.”
Mackenzie bites down a smile, tucking her legs to her chest. “Rules,” she says, with zero conviction.
I don’t bother hiding my own smile, using my free hand to root through her bag and pull out her notebook. “You said it yourself. They don’t count if you’re being a dope.”
She lightly smacks my hand, grabbing the notebook from me. “Quit being nice to me.”
“Why should I?” I ask, still going through the bag to find her pen.
“Because then I’ll have to be nice back.”
“Oh no,” I say, biting a chunk off my ice pop’s head. “Almost like we’re friends.”
Mackenzie kicks off her shoes, settling in with the notebook on her lap. “We were never friends.”
Can’t argue with that. “Yeah. You really committed to the bit,” I say, as if impressed. “You were meaner to me than you were to any of those bad boys.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, the faint smirk returning before she casts her gaze back at the trees. “You were the original bad boy. Gateway Bad Boy, if you will.”
I keep my eyes on her. “You’re saying I broke your heart?”
“Worse,” she says plainly.
Well, shit. That’s not how this back-and-forth usually goes. Somehow that one word lands harder than anything she’s thrown at me today.
“Oh, don’t get your Ray-Bans in a twist. I don’t mean romantically .” She clears her throat. “I just mean—that Noted Scene episode.”
“Sparkles, not to flex, but there were at least five of those.”
She sighs. “They’re too green. If that counts as good music these days then I hope we get some stiffer competition soon.”
She’s directly quoting me. Or at least, I think she is. It was so long ago that I’m not even sure if I’m the one who said it.
“Okay,” I say, prompting her to go on.
She shakes her head, exasperated. “You don’t remember.”
I tilt my body toward hers. “Then tell me.”
After a moment she lets out yet another sigh. “ Break Out is so unoriginal I feel myself losing brain cells every time I hear it.”
I laugh because, damn, do I remember now.
That comment got me roasted within an inch of my life.
Break Out was a wildly catchy debut album of breakup songs and power ballads, and my twentysomething self was nothing short of an ass about it.
Here I was finally getting featured on Noted Scene, and all the hosts wanted to do was talk about some brand-new sparkly pop group that took over the world in one summer.
“Joke’s on you, buddy,” Mackenzie deadpans. “You’re stuck with the album writer now.”
Well, that shuts me up. I turn to her, incredulous.
“You’re not telling me you wrote that whole album.”
I feel stupid for asking before I even finish. Of course she did. It’s probably right on the album credits, too. I was just so petty and focused on my own shit at the time that I refused to even google Thunder Hearts, or I would have thought twice before going after an all-girl group.
Still, I should have figured it out by now. The lyrics have Mackenzie’s style all over them—deceptively simple, but impossible to forget. I could write myself in circles without writing a hook as catchy as one of hers.
“Damn, Sparkles,” I say, impressed. “You never said.”
By the time the rivalry kicked off, Thunder Hearts had enough recognition that pop writers and DJs were knocking themselves over to collaborate with them.
But Mackenzie’s style was so distinct that people always knew which songs were hers, and had endless theories about which of her terrible boyfriends they were about.
Mackenzie shrugs. “I was embarrassed.”
“Yeah, bet those royalty checks were mortifying,” I crack.
Mackenzie’s smile is rueful. “I didn’t want to look like my love life was a mess,” she says. “If I’d known it was going to be a public train wreck, I’d have leaned into it from the start.”
That brings the conversation to a halt. Mackenzie bunches up grass in her fist and lets it go. I watch the blades crumple, my throat thick. I was so damn furious at all those guys for hurting Mackenzie. So careful never to be one of them myself. But it turns out I hurt her just the same.
“Well, I was young and stupid and petty as hell,” I tell her. “And wrong . You saw the way the internet ate me alive for it.”
Mackenzie doesn’t bother trying to hide her smirk, even as she shakes her head. “You hated my lyrics. It’s fine. Ancient history.”
“You know that’s not true. I mean, shit,” I say. “Whatever you scribbled in a few minutes on the boat is better than anything most people could come up with in their lives.”
I mean it, but Mackenzie just looks amused.
“All right, that’s enough groveling for one afternoon.”
“Too bad,” I say. “Already hired the apology skywriter. He charged extra to spell out ‘Sparkles.’”
She laughs, turning her attention to the gumballs on her ice pop.
I stare at my own, trying to wrap my head around Mackenzie penning all those hits herself and never saying a word.
It’s a reminder that for all the years we spent in each other’s orbit, there’s so much of Mackenzie I don’t know. So much I want to know.
“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if we’d written more back then?” I ask. “If the bands hadn’t broken up.”