Chapter Thirteen
Raven
Kylen and I agree to meet after school. Actually, I told him we should meet after his band practice. He already canceled a practice last week and I’d hate to take him away from another one.
I’m super curious what his band sounds like, so I make my way to the music room.
Thankfully, the door is open and I can hear the music down the hall.
They sound like a pop band, and I recognize the song they’re playing.
It’s a popular pop song with a very upbeat track.
I like how they’re making it their own but are still staying true to the original music. They actually sound really good.
I wonder if they’re famous online. Digging my phone out of my pocket, I search their names and the word “band.” A YouTube channel pops up.
Their band is called Next Level Dudes and they have a few videos uploaded.
I walk off to the side and play one of their songs, which is also a cover of a popular song.
Hmm, it doesn’t look like they play original music.
All the songs they’re uploaded are covers.
It doesn’t matter—they sound amazing either way.
When I check their subscribers, I realize they have less than a thousand. Wow, that sucks. I think they deserve way more than that. And the videos don’t have that many comments. I wonder why.
When the music dies down, I walk back to the music room and peek in. The guys are packing up.
“Neat sound,” Jasper, who looks to be the lead guitarist, says to Beck, at the drums. “Sounds like you were really feeling the music.”
“I know, right? It’s like the drums and I were one. And your vocals were great, Ry. Leo can use some work, though,” he jokes.
Leo rolls his eyes. “You skipped a beat toward the middle.”
Beck’s jaw falls open. “I did not.”
“We all heard it.”
“What lies.”
“Hey, is that Rave at the door?” Jasper says, craning his neck toward the doorway. “Rave! What’s up, my favorite gamer girl?”
“We like to just say ‘gamer,’” I tell him as I walk inside. “And for the millionth time, it’s Raven.”
“Nah. You’re Rave to me.”
“Don’t fight it,” Leo tells me. “It’s a losing battle.”
“Did you hear us?” Beck asks. “How do we sound?”
My eyes slowly move to Kylen. I was kind of avoiding glancing at him because he looks so hot with the guitar slung over his shoulder, but it seems my eyes have a mind of their own.
He looks so at ease with it, just like he did at camp.
Like it’s part of him. It’s the same with my guitar, though I’m nowhere as good as him, or the other guys.
I pull my gaze away from him and say, “You guys sounded great. Beck didn’t miss a beat and Leo’s vocals were on point.”
Leo whoops. “I love this girl!”
Kylen looks away. For a second, I wonder if he’s hurt that I didn’t compliment him on his playing and singing. I don’t know if I should.
“Do you guys have a lot of followers?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Tons,” Beck says with a wide grin. “Our audience is mostly comprised of invisible people.”
Jasper chortles. “That would be a no, but we’re slowly growing.”
“Very slowly,” Leo adds.
I smile encouragingly. “You’ll get there one day. I know it.”
The guys, including Kylen, beam at me and thank me.
Kylen swings his guitar onto his back. “Ready to go?” he says to me.
“Where are you going?” Beck asks as he waggles his brows.
Kylen shoots him a look. “To her room to work on our project.”
After I wave to the guys, he leads me toward the door.
“Have fun, kids,” Leo calls after us.
“And make sure to keep the door open!” Beck shouts.
Kylen shakes his head, rolling his eyes. “Ignore them.”
“Your friends are funny.”
He smiles crookedly. “Depends on the day.”
That crooked smile again…
We head to my room and delve into the world of William Shakespeare.
***
My math teacher is running late on Wednesday morning.
Most of the kids are chatting, goofing around, texting, or are on social media.
I could spend the time getting some homework done or preparing for my next class, maybe do some more work on the Shakespeare project.
But there’s only one thing my mind and heart are itching to do.
Looking to my right and left to make sure no one is paying attention to me—they never are—I reach for my special folder that I always carry with me in my backpack.
Inside is every single song I’ve written.
The good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.
I rip them out of my lyrics notebook once they’re complete and place them in the special folder.
Sometimes I feel proud when I look them over while other times I want the floor to swallow me up.
I flip through them, my eyes skimming over them.
They all bring me back to what I was feeling when I wrote the songs.
Not all of them are about love. One of my favorites is the one I wrote after Carly, Sophie, and I met up after I got back from camp.
Even though we were only apart for six weeks, I missed them like crazy.
Hanging out with them after so long felt like my heart was whole, especially after it was shattered due to Kylen.
I guess the song is about love, but a different kind of love.
The unbreakable bond of friendship. Now with Addie, our bond is as strong as ever.
I believe we’ll always remain best friends, no matter what life throws at us.
Right now, we all live in different parts of the country, but I know in my heart that we’ll settle down near each other and raise our kids together.
Who knows, maybe they’ll be best friends, too.
My eyes catch sight of another song, this one stashed carefully between two other songs.
I treat it like porcelain because it’s one of the first songs I’ve ever written.
There are a lot of notes and corrections on this paper, since I’m always tweaking it, though the original is saved somewhere on my computer.
Reading over this song always hurts because it’s about what happened between Kylen and me, but I read it every so often because I feel proud of it as well.
I think it’s pretty good for an amateur.
I guess I needed to pour my emotions into something, since I kept my feelings all to myself. I swear it helped me heal.
The song is called “I Don’t Need Your Kisses.
” I don’t mention Kylen by name, and honestly, I don’t think you can tell it’s about the two of us because I tried to make it sound neutral.
Basically, it’s about experiencing the perfect love story, only to lose it shortly after.
It starts off innocent and full of hope, with dejection and hopelessness in the middle.
And by the end? There’s hope once again.
Hope that you can move on from the heartache, hope that you can find fulfillment in other parts of your life.
Other people in your life. You don’t need that person.
You don’t need their amazing kisses. You’re stronger after what you’ve been through. You can take on the world again.
Reading it over for the millionth time, I still manage to find some things to tweak.
I’ve never been able to compose music to this particular song.
I don’t know why. I’ve managed to compose music to some of my other songs, but this one?
Nope. But it’s fine because this song will never see the light of day.
It’ll remain hidden between two other songs all the years I’m on Earth.
My teacher walks in, forcing me to close my folder and drop it into my backpack.
The day goes by as usual, with my having two pop quizzes, a really hard in-class assignment, and one of the most grueling PE classes I’ve ever had.
By the time the day is over, I’m so exhausted that I face-plant on my bed.
I know I won’t be able to nap, though. Not when my brain knows I have tons of homework to do.
So with a groan, I pull myself off my bed and make my way to my desk, throwing my backpack onto the table and unzipping it.
Thankfully, Kylen and I decided not to meet up today, since we both have some research to do on our own and he has band practice.
Having to deal with him would just make me even more drained.
As I reach into my backpack for my school notebook, my brows crease. Why are there loose pages at the bottom of my backpack?
After tossing my notebook onto my desk, I yank everything else out and then grab the pages. I gasp when I realize they’re from my lyrics folder. How on Earth did they fall out?
It must have happened when my math teacher walked in.
I wasn’t careful and just dumped the folder into my backpack, not realizing that some of the pages fell out.
A wave of guilt passes over me as I carefully place the bent ones on my desk and straighten them out.
These songs are so precious to me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost them, especially because these are the only copies I have of most of them, not counting the raw drafts in my lyrics notebook.
After making sure they’re all straight, I add them back to my folder, then flip through them to make sure all of them are okay.
My hand turns into a statue mid-flip when I realize I don’t see “I Don’t Need Your Kisses.
” It’s not where it’s supposed to be between two other songs.
In fact, those two songs, which acted like the song’s armor, were some of the ones that fell out.
I quickly grab my backpack and rummage inside, desperately searching for the song. But the bottom of my backpack is empty.
“Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Throwing myself to the floor, I sweep my hands under my desk, my stomach swishing around as bile rises in my throat. This can’t be happening. Please don’t let this be happening. I lost my song? One of my most prized possessions? How could I let that happen?