Chapter Three
I’ve barely gotten a word in during the past half hour of our Buncha Punks Skype call, but I hardly care.
I miss my friends so much. My laptop screen is divided into six squares, my own face in the bottom right corner, the other five occupied by my friends, best known as the band Post Humorous.
Even when they tour, they don’t miss our weekly chat, and I appreciate that, even if seeing them all cuddled up on one screen while I’m all alone on mine makes me jealous—and guilty for feeling jealous.
It’s hard being on the outside of all their stories when I was once a key actor in them.
I romanticized moving away from home, going somewhere no one knew me, somewhere I could find myself and chase my dreams. No one warns you how lonely choosing yourself can be.
These weekly Skype calls are a lifeline back to myself.
Charlie is in the top left corner. With his soft brown hair and even softer brown eyes, he’s all boy-next-door charm and “aw, shucks” attitude.
I’ve known him since I was in diapers. There were two loose boards in the fence that separated his backyard from mine (literally the boy next door).
After his mom caught us sneaking back and forth, squeezing through the slats, my dad put in a gate.
Charlie’s house is as much home to me as my actual home.
In the bottom left of the screen is Reid, who is probably the only person on this call who has said fewer words than me.
The curtain of his straight dark hair hides his face as he cleans under his nails with a guitar pick.
All of my friends bring something different—but equally necessary—to the table.
Reid is the one you go to when you want to angst it out without actually talking about anything.
Reid and Charlie make up Post Humorous’s rhythm section, bass and drums, respectively.
While they may be the quietest members of the band, they’re its heartbeat.
In the middle of the screen, exactly where they’d want to be: Brooklyn and Drew.
B has foregone her usual armor of impeccable makeup today, the Chu family freckles on full display, her thick mane of black hair in a topknot that’s more chic than messy—an art I’ve never quite mastered.
Brooklyn is the only person who could rival Charlie for the title of my best friend.
We met when we were sixteen, at a show. I’d seen her in the corner of the venue, looking slightly out of place in her too-colorful clothes, but when she got on stage to sing a duet with one of the bands…
there was no question where she belonged.
I begged the boys to record a song with her.
After years of playing incrementally larger venues, that single blew up, playing on all the local Boston radio stations.
She didn’t officially join the band until after she finished college, but there’s no doubt she’s an integral part of the group, because:
Drew. Our frontman and lead guitarist. With dark brown hair whose life mission is to defy gravity, arching over his head in clashing waves, and eyes the gray of the ocean before a storm, he’s the quintessential sexpot frontman.
He could have chemistry with a wall, and his onstage presence with Brooklyn is mesmerizing.
Their will-they-won’t-they energy is no doubt responsible for a large part of their fan base.
The two of them are currently finishing each other’s sentences as they recount a story we’ve rehashed a million times, becoming more and more embellished with each retelling.
The only person who can match their energy is Tyler. Sweet, golden-retriever-in-human-form Tyler, our keyboardist. His hair is held in a perfect swoop across his forehead with an elastic headband, and between the thick blond hair, dark blue eyes, and chin dimple, we could easily pass as twins.
“I didn’t suck his dick at Disney World,” Tyler interjects. “It was the Disney hotel our fans got us a discount at so we didn’t have to sleep in the van with Reid’s smelly ass.”
“That was Drew,” Reid drawls. He’s now painting his nails with black polish, seemingly distracted, but he provides his expected response on cue, nonetheless. “You’re the one who insisted on Indian food, knowing damn well—”
I look to Charlie because my spidey sense tells me he’s looking at me. We share an eye roll while our friends bicker.
“I saw that,” Brooklyn chastises us. “And while we’re taking a walk down memory lane, anything you’d care to share with the class, Sloane Marie?” She fixes me with a glare through the screen. I cannot believe she middle-named me.
For the first time since we all logged on, everyone in the chat shuts up, waiting for her to continue. She was born to be a leading lady.
“No,” I say simply. Turning away from the laptop camera, I dump my ramen packet into the now-boiling pot of water.
“Wait, what happened?” Tyler stage-whispers. “What did Sloane do? Sloane never does anything.”
“Hey,” I call over my shoulder. “I do things.”
“Yeah, like ditch us and move across the country,” Drew says with a pout.
I splutter. “Brooklyn lives in LA! I’m so much closer now,” I remind him. “But if you don’t wanna crash at my place next time you tour—”
“Ignore Drew,” Charlie insists. “That’s just his way of saying he misses you.”
I flash them all a smile as I stir my ramen. “I miss you all, too.” So much, I don’t say, my heart squeezing.
“Okay, but what’s the drama?” Tyler cuts in, done with this heartfelt moment. I love him, but damn it. I know exactly what Brooklyn is going to grill me for, and frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long. The article came out a week ago.
Brooklyn clears her throat dramatically, holding up the latest volume of Alternative Press.
“Artists to Watch, curated by Sloane Donavan.” She pauses as all the guys whoop and cheer for me, my name in print for the first time ever.
She rattles off the first few bands, omitting the short blurbs I wrote for each one, until—“Hollow Graves. Ohio has a long history of producing household names, and under the tutelage of Final fucking Revelations, with their heavy riffs and Hudson Chase’s powerhouse vocals, Hollow Graves is primed to be the next big thing out of Cleveland. ”
I clear my throat. “I didn’t say ‘fucking.’”
Brooklyn purses her lips.
“So what?” Charlie shrugs, twirling a pen between his fingers like a drumstick. “We know half the bands in Boston. It’s not weird they’d know the Final guys.”
“True, but I find the choice to name-drop her ex interesting.”
Reid snorts. His half-lidded eyes always give the impression that he’s perma-stoned, but the slight redness around his green irises gives away that he definitely smoked before this call. “B, if I was working with Dax or any of the Final guys, I’d want everyone to know.”
“So, you’re not trying to bat signal to Dax that you’re living in his city now?”
Broth sloshes everywhere as I pour my ramen into a bowl. I delay responding by cleaning up my mess. “Dax already knows I’m here. I saw him at Battle of the Bands a few weeks ago.”
It sounds like the words were literally strangled out of me. Weirder yet is the complete silence that meets them. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen this group speechless. They always have words. And feelings. Or worse: feelings words.
I tap my laptop trackpad. “Did you guys freeze? Is my Wi-Fi…?”
“We’re here,” Brooklyn says, ruffling her pile of jet-black hair in disbelief.
Her eyes flutter shut as she takes a controlled breath, lashes casting a shadow on her freckled cheeks.
“You’ve been holding this back for weeks?
” She screeches the last word, glaring daggers at me through the screen.
“Details, Sloane! What happened when you saw him?”
“The usual,” I say, shoving noodles into my mouth. “I feigned indifference. Showed zero emotion whatsoever.”
“Yeah, that checks,” Drew mutters, running a hand through his already mussed hair.
“Smart,” Reid says, endorsing me.
Brooklyn waves off their commentary. “Did he see you? Did you talk?”
“We were trapped in a sound booth together.”
Tyler makes a noise of intrigue. “Like, in a sexy way?” He bites down on his fist, eyes rolling back into his skull in feigned orgasmic ecstasy.
I snort into my ramen, broth flying everywhere and speckling the counter. “No. In a terse-silence kind of way. We said hi and I’m pretty sure that’s it.”
Brooklyn sighs. “You’re a travesty, you know that?”
“I’m aware.” I grin goofily, a curly noodle hanging from the corner of my mouth.
“Do you think you’ll see him again?” Charlie asks cautiously.
I did my best to hide how much the breakup with Dax fucked me up, but as my neighbor, Charlie was definitely privy to how many nights I spent sitting on my roof, crying and blasting My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” on repeat through my bedroom window.
He had the decency not to comment on my lack of subtly in song choices, but a few nights in, he did note, It sounds really good through a wall.
I avert my gaze, dragging my spoon through the bowl of broth as I consider, as if I haven’t been wondering the exact same thing. “I’m writing a bigger article on Hollow Graves, so I might run into Dax again, depending on how hands-on he is.”
“And are you hoping to get ‘hands-on’ with him again, or…?” Tyler asks with a not-so-innocent affectation.
I choke on my noodles as Charlie utters, “Jesus, Tyler.” As I struggle to dislodge ramen from my windpipe, I gesture for them to move on. “I’m done being the main character of this chat. What’s the plan for Halloween—y’all still coming out for the AP show on the thirtieth?”
Brooklyn arches a brow. “Anyone we know on the bill?”
I sigh heavily. “Yes, Final Revelations is headlining. Dax will be there.”
On the screen, Brooklyn presses her lips into a thin line.
She’ll be texting me as soon as this call is over, wanting to hash this out further.
Thankfully, she knows I won’t want to do that on a call with all the guys, and heartily embraces the subject change: them coming out to see me for AP’s Halloween show.
But because she’s my best friend and because I’m hers, I know her next word is intentional:
“Okay,” she says simply, a dull affectation to her tone so unlike her usual chipper one.
It’s a message for me and me alone, the guys oblivious, happily chatting about their plans to road-trip out in the van rather than fly.
I barely hear them, knowing Brooklyn will email me all the important trip details in the form of a color-coded Excel spreadsheet.
It’s her subliminal message that has my full attention, echoing hollowly in my brain.
Okay.
Three years ago, at Punkapalooza. The memory I do my best to bury, the one that haunts me, nonetheless.
I’ve just told Dax we should end things, and I’m waiting for him to say something—anything.
The muscle in his jaw twitches like he’s preparing to fight me on it, but when he opens his mouth, all he says is Okay.
I wait for him to say more. He doesn’t. I want to provoke him until he does fight me on it.
I don’t. Because what’s the point? I’m going back to finish my degree, and Dax is continuing on tour.
I’m not going to follow him around and we both know it, and yet…
And yet.
That haunts me, too. Because it wasn’t just the distance that scared me.
The distance is the excuse I tell everyone, knowing it gives little room for rebuttal.
Mostly, I was just scared. Dax was like gravity.
I feared that if we tried to make it work long-distance, the gravity would win out.
That I wouldn’t finish my degree, that I’d follow Dax around on tour, settle down in Cleveland, get a job at AP, and never know if I was doing it for me or for him.
It’s why my mom left. I spent my angsty teenage years hating her, but the older I get, I understand her more and more.
And I hate her for that, too. She married my dad at nineteen, had my oldest brother, Nate, at twenty.
Her entire identity was being a mother, no life outside of us.
She put her dreams on hold to settle down with my dad, and it slowly ate at her until she felt she had no other choice but to leave, to find herself.
I rub the tiny scar on my ring finger. My brothers all have an identical one.
When Nate dragged his heartbroken self home from college—his third-choice school, having chosen to follow the girlfriend that dumped him two weeks into the first semester—we crawled onto the roof outside my bedroom window and made a blood pact: to never repeat our mother’s mistake, to never give up our own dreams for another person, because those people can leave.
I was ten. I didn’t fully understand the promise I was making, but I cut my ring finger and spilled a few drops on the scratchy roof tiles anyway.
And for the next eleven years, I kept my promise, made big plans for myself, and couldn’t imagine ever giving up on them for a boy.
And yet…
I chose my dream that summer, and that dream later blew up in my face.
And now, I’m back in the same city as the love I left behind.
A more romantic person than I might call it fate.
Brooklyn would call it fate. Instead, she’s reminding me of how, with two syllables, that relationship ended.
We spent months overanalyzing that one word, the monotone way in which he said it, picking apart those measly four letters for any hidden meaning.
Three years ago, she’d championed me and Dax, how good he was for me.
Both of us have changed since that summer—because of that summer.
I don’t regret Dax or anything we did, but I can’t have rose-colored glasses about it.
Not right now. Not when I know, without a doubt, I will run into him again. Soon. Possibly this week.
The noodles in my stomach turn leaden. I talk a big game, pretend like it doesn’t bother me, that I don’t feel anything anymore.
But the truth is, Dax is the only person who has ever made me feel, well, anything.
Discovering I could feel those things was important to me, special.
How do you hold all of the good inside the same heart they shattered?