Chapter 15
Fleetwood Mac was playing Friday as I laid back on my bed going over the day I’d had at school. Cameron had been unusually down and just the thought told me what I had to do.
Still, it was so new to be this outgoing, this thoughtful, this caring.
I was getting soft.
And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
Cameron had been nothing but nice to me ever since I got to Meadow Grove. It felt natural to offer to hang out this weekend when she’d told me about her breakup yesterday. The thought of keeping my word felt good.
But first I had to get permission from Scott. I was grounded after all.
I padded down to the first floor where Scott was in his music room, this time at his piano.
He lifted his head at my arrival and offered a smile.
Warmth and fondness in his eyes. I could tell he wanted this relationship with me more than anything.
As much as I loved my mother and missed her, I couldn’t deny it felt good to be wanted here.
To know that my father wanted to right his wrong and be in my life.
I hadn’t realized how fucked up I was over my abandonment until he’d hugged me tight and told me he needed me.
“What’s up?” Scott asked as I came more into the room.
“Do you mind if I go over to Cameron’s? She just broke up with her boyfriend and I wanted to have a girls’ night to cheer her up,” I said.
Scott’s brows shot upward. “Cameron and Aidan broke up?”
I nodded. “She was pretty down about it earlier today.”
Scott faced his keys. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” He looked at me again and studied me. “If you promise to be on your best behavior from here on out, we can cancel the whole grounded thing.”
I jumped at the opportunity. “I promise.”
Scott smiled and went back to his playing. It didn’t seem like he was putting any thought into it as his fingers flowed across the piano keys. The chords were all too familiar and I soon recognized he was playing Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” A classic.
“God, I wish I could play an instrument someday,” I confessed as I watched him play. Pianos always seemed so poetic and majestic.
Scott scooted down on the bench. “Want me to show you a little note or two?”
My eyes snapped to his. “Really? Hell yeah!”
I went and sat beside my father, too giddy to hide my excitement. School could be a drag, but learning music was a topic that didn’t bore me at all.
Scott patiently guided me through the keys, the seven notes ranging from A to G, placing my hands in C position, and the basic patterns of different finger combos mixed with using the pedal to smooth it out.
There were four patterns he showed me and following his teaching, after a few rusty attempts, I was able to play all four, forming a simple song that had me smiling.
“When you speed it up, it’ll sound like this,” Scott began as he took over and played the patterns until a melody poured from the keys.
“You make it look so easy,” I said in awe of his skills.
Scott nudged me. “You’ll get it.”
I pressed a key. “I hope so. Nothing’s ever felt as good as music.”
“Nothing?” Scott repeated, curious as I now had his full attention.
Focusing on the keys, I thought of before and shrugged. Outside of the boys, life was just difficult for me. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
Briefly, Scott placed his hand over one of mine and squeezed gently. “Try. I’ll listen.”
There was no place to start but the truth. I was angry. I’d been angry for a long time.
I wasn’t sure when the anger started. As far as I knew, everything at the time had been normal, and then one day it bubbled to the surface and I couldn’t shake it.
“For a while, it was like I felt nothing at all. And if I did feel anything, it was just this anger. When I think about it, it was always there, beneath the surface. This unshakable rage. And at one point, it felt like I was looking for something—anything to numb it,” I confessed.
“I’ve always just felt wrong, you know? Like I’m running as fast as I can to get away from being this anomaly, and no matter how fast I run, how drunk I get, or high…
” I looked at Scott, tears rimming my vision. “…I can’t escape it.”
I focused back on the piano and played a few notes, sniffling a little as I gathered my words. Scott didn’t rush to say anything, and I liked that.
“But the thing is, my mom’s never looked at me like I did something wrong.
Like she regrets me. Her parents judged me and she cut them off.
I was just a kid and she didn’t think twice.
She’d go to hell and back for me. And I was so shitty to her.
” I wiped my eyes and shook my head. As much as I did want to stay here in Meadow Grove, I did want to go home at some point for a visit so I could properly apologize to my mother face to face.
To let her know how much I appreciated her for loving me even when I wasn’t the best daughter.
“Sometimes I look at you and feel nothing, sometimes I feel angry, and then sometimes I feel like it all makes sense. Music, rebellion, and just doing your own thing. That’s me. I’ll never be a Cameron or a Dreux, but if you could just love me as is, that’ll be enough,” I said.
When I didn’t go on, Scott wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close. More, he kissed the top of my head and held me. It had only been a week and I never would’ve imagined feeling so right and comfortable against him when we’d met.
“Saylor, I’m going to love you no matter what you do, and that’s a promise,” he swore. “Nothing’s ever been wrong about you.”
I leaned into him and smiled, feeling content. I didn’t have all the answers, or any really, but as long as I had my parents and music, that was okay.
I went out to the front porch to wait on Cameron to come pick me up twenty minutes later. One look over next door and I spotted Dreux out on the St. Juliens’ porch swing. He saw me and tipped his head my way and I couldn’t resist going over to his place since Cameron was nowhere in sight.
The sun had set and their front light was on. Dreux was sitting back swinging on the swing, out of what he wore at school that day as I found him lounging in a plain navy tee and gray sweats. He wore socks and nothing else, and for some reason, he looked cozy in this setting.
His dark eyes drank me in as I climbed their porch steps and he smiled softly, going and patting the spot next to him on the white-cushioned swing.
The invitation caused my pulse to quicken as I crossed over to him.
I should’ve sat on the other end, with a seat between us, but I sat down right next to him, and for the longest moment I couldn’t breathe or look at him.
Dreux’s arm came across the back of the swing as he sank back, manspreading some more, so at ease with himself.
I was a ball of nerves and certain I looked stiff as I sat up straight with my hands buried between my thighs.
You’d think I’d never sat next to a boy before, but somehow, it just felt different with Dreux.
“ ’Sup?” He broke the ice and spoke first. From the corner of my eye, I caught him angling his head to look my way.
I started to mention my going over to Cameron’s when I realized he had a mini speaker sitting out by his feet.
“Is this…?” I had to train my ear to hear better, all too well recognizing the female musician that was playing from commercials, or the flashes I heard of her from the radio. I faced Dreux suspiciously. “Are you listening to Taylor Swift?”
Dreux bobbed his head. “Yeah.”
Lifting a brow, I challenged, “First Harry Styles, and now this?”
He shrugged indifferently. “I heard a song on the radio and liked it. ‘Shake it Off’ was catchy, and ‘Cruel Summer’ was a smash. But folklore’s a real cool sound all its own.”
He wasn’t bullshitting me. “God, you’re a Swiftie.”
Dreux kinked his nose up and snorted. “So…?”
It was that simple for him. And God, if I didn’t like that about him. “Shut up, Dreux.”
When I thought about it, there was nothing more pretentious than those people who hated certain bands like Nickelback or Coldplay simply because it was a trend to do so.
The same went for certain celebrities or musicians like Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber.
That didn’t mean that I liked any of those people for the sake that other people didn’t, no, I opened an honest ear and gave everything a chance.
And if I were being honest, just like with Harry Styles, the Taylor Swift song wasn’t bad.
There definitely was a world out there beyond classic rock.
“See…” Dreux went on, leaning close to my face, giving me a rush of feelings I couldn’t explain. “…when you let go of—”
“And just what blonde are you gonna fill in the blank with now, Andrew?” I prompted as I met him halfway and leaned into his face.
He stared at me as I stared at him. “That’s not my name.”
I nudged him. “It is when you’re being a pest.”
For a moment he gazed at me, right into my eyes, brown to brown, and nothing else was said. A heaviness settled into my chest as my palms began to sweat and my throat swelled. I swore to any god who was watching not to let me blush like an idiot, but I was almost certain I’d lost that war.
“I’ll have to give her a listen sometime,” I decided to say to lessen the tension. Was there tension? It definitely felt like it.
I thought to scoot away, for fear of any slight touch, because I was positive I would implode.
Thankfully, Dreux settled back and accepted this. “You should. She’s amazingly talented and can write her ass off.”
I really liked that he wasn’t shy about being a fan of hers. That he didn’t have a weird male ego about it. At the bar I’d go to with Danny and the boys, I was sure I’d heard a drunken rant or two about how her music wasn’t “real” music, which again was contrarian bullshit. “Okay.”
“You know another iconic female singer-songwriter you may like? Alanis Morrissette. Check out her Jagged Little Pill album, it’ll blow you away. Total classic,” Dreux swore. “They play her stuff all the time in Marty’s I realized one day when I Shazam’d a song.”