Chapter 3
Easton
Losing You—UNSECRET, Sam Tinnesz
“Rayne, wait!” My voice echoes through the empty store, but she doesn’t stop. I follow her before I can think about what I’m doing. Unfortunately, I’m too slow, I started too late. By the time I stumble onto the street, she’s long gone.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Cursing myself for my slow reaction, I tear at my hair. My heart is pounding, I can feel it in my whole body. It’s beating way too fast, way too hard. I’m panicked and confused. Completely overwhelmed. She was here. She was really here, and now she’s gone again.
Shit, she can’t be gone.
But she is, and that feels much worse than her ghosting me.
At least then I could convince myself that she might answer again, and it might eventually go back to normal, with questions and answers, songs and memes, with secrets both big and small.
Now that’s over. I have an awful feeling that she doesn’t want to get any more texts from me, either.
She ran away from me. I don’t know what that means. I don’t even know if I want to know.
“East?” It’s Beck, his voice curious and worried. I turn around to see my best friend standing in the entrance to the shop. He’s making a face because it’s raining, harder than before, and it’s icy cold. “Is everything okay?”
I nod and then shake my head. No, it’s really not. Nothing is okay.
“Who the hell was that?” Shivering, he crosses his arms over his chest, holding the door open with one foot and obviously waiting for me to come inside. But I don’t want to move. I just stay where I am, even though it’s cold and raining. Birdy is gone. Rayne is gone.
Her name strikes a chord in me, as if I should know it. But I don’t. Or do I? Frowning, I stare at the street. Yes, I’ve heard that name somewhere before, but where?
“East? Hey, get in here already, it’s freezing!” Beck complains, sounding annoyed now.
I don’t answer. Her name. Damn, where have I heard it before? Or read it? Yes, probably read it. But where?
“East! Move it.” Beck comes over to me, grabs my arm, and drags me back into the store.
“Colin will wring your neck if you get sick again. And maybe Jax and I will help him this time. We already missed two weeks of rehearsals before Christmas because of your tonsillitis. We really can’t afford to take another break right now. ”
The door closes behind us, the bell jingling softly, and Beck tows me between the record bins to the back of the café.
Evie is sitting at one of the round tables again, focused on her phone.
She gives us a quick, annoyed glance as Beck disappears behind the counter and grabs a dry dish towel out of the cupboard.
He tosses it to me and points at my wet hair.
“Thanks,” I mumble, rubbing my head. The adrenaline is slowly wearing off, and I’m starting to shake.
“That was really stupid,” he says, and yeah, he’s probably right.
“It’s okay,” I say, waving him off. But Beck doesn’t let me off the hook so easily. I should have known better.
“Do you have another sweater here? The one you’re wearing is soaked.”
Despite everything, I can’t stop the grin from spreading over my face. “Yes, Mom, I’ll change it right away.”
“Go ahead and make fun of me, but someone has to look out for you.” He snorts and reaches for the cup next to the espresso machine.
“It’s just a little rain.”
“It’s freezing rain,” he corrects me. “If it gets any colder, it will definitely snow. Go get changed!” He shoos me away, and I do him the favor because I know he won’t let up otherwise.
I go upstairs, cross over to the spiral staircase to the top floor where Rudy’s office is, as well as a small room where we can store our stuff.
There’s a hoodie in my locker that I left here once as a backup, just in case it got cold unexpectedly.
Today is obviously one of those days. I quickly change and go back downstairs, where Beck is standing behind the counter waiting for me.
He pushes a cup toward me. “So are you going to explain what the heck that was?”
“Birdy. That was Birdy.” I sigh and shake my head. “Her real name is Rayne.”
“Birdy? The girl you’ve been texting?”
“Yup.”
“She was here?”
“Looks like it.” I rub my forehead in frustration. I don’t understand how our first meeting could have gone so wrong.
“Why?”
“Good question. But it looks like she lives in Boston now.”
“What? She lives in Boston?” He puts down his cup so suddenly that coffee slops over the edge.
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“No clue.” I laugh, even though it’s not funny. “We didn’t get that far before she ran away.”
“Okay, I don’t get any of this. I thought she was ghosting you?”
“She was.” She just showed up, and I was totally unprepared. Shit, it really shouldn’t have happened this way.
“So she just appeared here? Why? I mean, what’s the point? She doesn’t answer your messages, but suddenly she’s living in the same city and turning up in the record store where you work?”
“I told her where I work. It’s not a secret.”
“It’s all a bit strange. You know that, don’t you?”
I don’t answer. There’s nothing strange about it. It’s just extremely complicated.
“Why did she run away?”
“I don’t know, man,” I groan. “If I knew that, I would be able to see the whole thing more clearly.”
“So ask her,” he retorts, as though it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“Sure. This time she’ll definitely answer me.” I can’t disguise the bitterness in my voice. We fall silent, and I take a sip of my coffee and make a face when I discover it’s only lukewarm. I hate cold coffee.
“What did you say her name is?” Beck asks a little later.
“Rayne,” I say, and in a weird way it feels good to use her real name.
“Rayne? As in Rayne Bellamy?”
“No, that’s ridiculous, of course not—” I break off, and all at once the world stands still. Rayne. Mockingbird. No photo of her whole face on her account, no mention of her name.
Liam. “Mockingbird,” the song. She messaged me just two days before Liam contacted us.
He said his daughter had found our video on YouTube and that she would have liked to meet us, but that wasn’t an option because she had school.
He always visited us in Boston and we never flew to LA, so we never met his family. None of us thought anything of it.
The countless articles about the accident.
Her name was mentioned repeatedly, that’s why it sounded so familiar.
I remember pixelated photos of a petite girl with purple hair and large sunglasses covering half her face.
Her hair was hidden by her hat today; she must have tucked it completely underneath.
“Fuck,” I whisper. My ears are ringing. How could I have missed this? God, what an idiot I am. She used the name of one of her father’s songs as her Instagram handle, and I didn’t get it.
But it’s her. Birdy is Rayne Bellamy.