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Chapter 26— Never a Question, Never a Second Thought
190Please respect copyright.PENANAF6ZuHkDktn
“This is the room where Jeremy and I first made out. And that’s the spot where his mom caught us making out. She was really upset about that.”
“Angie, I really don’t need to know—”
“Oh, and here’s all of Jeremy’s debate team trophies. And all the photos he took in L.A. this summer. In my opinion, the depth and saturation were way overdone, but we’re working on it.”
Angie gazed at the photos and trophies as if they were masterpieces. I looked around Jeremy’s bedroom, messy and cluttered in spots. But not nearly as bad as Rodrick’s. Angie had shown me around most of Jeremy’s big house, including the garage, the kitchen, and the game room. It was a lot to take in, especially since most of those places were crowded with drunk teenagers. Jeremy’s room was the only spot where we finally got a moment to breathe.
I sat on Jeremy’s bed and sunk into the duvet a bit, watching Angie explore Jeremy’s photos and most prized possessions with wonder. She walked the room like a museum, her attention completely captured by the mundane objects of her boyfriend.
“Angie?” I spoke up.
“Yeah?” she replied without ever pulling her gaze away.
“Why do you like Jeremy so much?”
She blinked several times, taken aback by the question and finally facing me. She shrugged and crossed her arms. “I don’t know. I never really had to think about it. It’s just always been something I felt.”
“There must be some reason though.”
Angie took a seat next to me and stared ahead, a calm and pleasant smile on her lips. “Jeremy is…very perceptive. Just like me. When I thought I was completely invisible to the world, he saw me. He showed me how to view the world around me differently, in a much more freeing and expressive way. He brought me onto the yearbook team because he saw something in me that I just couldn’t see in myself. But I think the reason I like him the most is that he loves so deeply. When you find someone who will lay everything down—their popularity, their friendships, their pride, their future—just for you, you hold onto that person. That person will never stop running to make you happy. That person will never stop running to love you the way you deserve.”
We both sat in silence, alone in the bedroom of a teenage boy. Angie’s words echoed in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Angie was lucky enough to find that person in Jeremy Redford, a boy I’d only hoped was worthy of Angie’s kindness. And as happy as I was for her, her words formed a hard stone that sunk into the pit of my stomach. But all the while Angie described Jeremy, my mind was stuck on the face of a different boy—one whose playful smirk I could never wipe clean from my memory. So much was turbulence and confusion controlled my life that, sometimes, when an answer is so clear, there’s no possible way of ignoring it any longer.
“Hey, um,” I began, getting back to my feet, “You haven’t shown me the backyard yet.”
The crowds of teens were easier to wade through when more and more of them were off making out or passed out on the couch. The still-standing ones were mostly tipsy or too caught up in their own drama to become an obstacle. Out in the backyard, fenced off with a snow-covered hedge and gate, kids were partying to the hard punk music and the danceable beat hitting in the background. Bright floodlights were set up on the blanketed lawn, illuminating four guys dressed in black and shredding on their instruments. The cold air was clouded with a mixture of cigarette smoke and dragon breath, making our approach easy.
When Angie and I rounded the corner of the house and entered the scene, I could quickly feel the eyes of others hovering over me. Thank god the music was too loud for any whispers to pass through. We stuck to the far corner of the wall. I gripped my Solo cup full of Jack Daniels and forced my eyes on Angie. She brought me over to a couple of her yearbook friends who were surprisingly nice and complimented my hair.
It took everything in me not to stare at Löded Diper, but in the shadows, I caught a few hidden glances. Ferret-face led the pack, pounding on his guitar and nearly devouring the microphone. His voice was scraggly and grating—everything needed for a good screamo vocalist. He headbanged like a feral animal and nearly bumped into String-Bean who played that sick Stingray bass from Rodrick’s garage. I gazed on the thing in all its pearly blue beauty and seethed in jealousy. And as much as I wanted to ignore it, my gaze always found its way back to Rodrick who was mastering the drum set in the background. The more I watched him play, the more I realized I’d never actually seen him on drums. I’d pictured it tons of times whenever we jammed out in his van after detention, but in real life, he was so much more dynamic and charged. The way his arms stretched over his head to crash the sticks over the cymbal. The way his head bobbed around, trickling a line of sweat from his messy hair down to his temple. The hypnotized and enslaved look on his face, eyes closed and lips parted. From way back in the corner, I could even see the outline of eyeliner around his dark eyes. Then, his hands swooped back up and twirled the sticks between his fingers just the way I’d pictured a hundred times before. He looked so hot. It wasn’t fair.
I felt the redness cross my cheeks, and I pressed my cold fingers to the inflamed skin.
It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself, He hates your guts.
If anything, I was glad to see Rodrick that way. He was in his element. He truly was a punk rocker. I couldn’t be more proud and terrified at the same time.
As the rowdy, loud song neared an end, it was at that moment that Rodrick opened his eyes right at me. My heart stopped. I knew I fucked up. Our eyes locked for what felt like a lifetime. He had to see me. I knew he did. The way his lips pulled together and the intensity darkening his eyes scared me half to death.
Get out of here! The voice in my head yelled and set fifty different alarm bells off inside my brain. Get the fuck out of here now!
Finally, I found my nerves and backed up, bumping right into Angie.
“Hey,” she said, stopping me in my tracks, “You alright? You look kinda pale.”
“I gotta go—”
“What?”
“I gotta go!”
The shrill squeal of microphone feedback pierced the air and caused everyone to cry out, covering their ears. Quickly, someone rushed up and picked up the mic stand that had fallen over, setting it back upright. Now, every eye was on the band who had gone silent. The only sound in the night came only from the buzz of the amp and the heavy breaths of the one in the mic.
But it wasn’t Ferret-Face. It was Rodrick. He gripped the mic with sweaty hands and scanned the crowd with a dazed and desperate look.
“S-uh, sorry,” he mumbled.
The crowd watched him, half-curious and half-buzzed. My heart beat so hard I thought it might rip out of my chest. Rodrick blinked back and cleared his throat before sending a look back to the rest of the band.
“Um,” he started, coming back to the mic, “the band’s gonna take ten. Be back for some more, uh, rocking soon. But, um, I wanted to do something else first. Ben?”
Rodrick looked back at Ferret-face who carried up his guitar and handed it over to Rodrick—the same guitar from Homecoming Night, the same guitar that we…
“Thanks. So, I’m not good at this. I’m kinda shitty, actually.” He tossed the black leather strap over his shoulder and slung the electric guitar in front of him.
What the hell is he doing?
“But, uh, someone taught me a while ago, and I kept learning so I could do this. This is for a girl that I know—knew. And I thought maybe it was too much. But, uh, fuck it, you know? Why not say what you want to say? Before it’s too late…”
Rodrick’s eyes latched onto mine. And, suddenly, we were alone. No one else around but the two of us in the chilly night air, standing underneath cloudy stars and holding our breaths. No one else.
“Yeah, so,” he mumbled, taking a deep breath, “Here it is.”
His fingers found a chord on the fretboard and his other hand strummed, sending a gentle wave of music through the crappy speakers. He was doing it. He was playing guitar. He actually learned. And he was nervous, no doubt, his fingers slightly trembling and his nose twitching. But his hands kept going. And, before long, he opened his mouth and he sang.
“Something in the way she moves…”
My lips fell open and my gaze softened. He was singing it. The song I sang to him…
“Attracts me like no other lover…”
His eyes were squeezed shut tight as he sang out. No one spoke. No one stirred. It was as if the entire world had paused for a minute to listen in.
“Something in the way she woos me…I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how…”
And there he was thirty feet away from me. And yet, I felt his touch. His fingers wrapped gently around mine. His hand tugging on my waist, guiding me to a whole different place. His warm kiss tickling my neck. It was as if no time had passed at all. The entranced fluttering in my heart was taken over by a warm feeling of ecstasy. Oh my god, what he did to me.
When I opened my eyes, I found his already on me, taking in my helplessness. He sang low with an air of gritty feeling coming from deep within his chest.
“Something in the way she knows…And all I have to do is think of her…”
I wanted it again. All of it. The laughter. The smiles. The knowing, shy glances. The smell of Axe and Red Hots taking over me. The electricity running through my veins every time he leans in just a bit too close. I wanted all of it.
“Something in the things she shows me…”
But, most of all, I wanted him. I wanted the goofy, grumpy parts. I wanted the sarcastic remarks and the undressing eyes. And I wanted the brave yet reckless determination. I wanted the boy who took a punch for me and asked my dad how to tie a tie and lit up my cigarettes and offered to leave everything behind just for me.
“I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how…”
I wanted all of it. I wanted him.
Silence. Maybe stunned silence. You could hear a pin drop amidst the crowd of high schoolers as Rodrick’s song came to an end. He looked up, his face illuminated by the bright floodlights.
Then, the entire Redford house erupted in applause. There were hoots and hollers, cheers and cries, and shouts from every corner. Girls threw their arms up in the air while the guys tossed up their beers and their fists, shouting out “Löded Diper!!”
Rodrick looked equally stunned at the commotion, blank-faced and unbelieving of it all. He grinned that toothy smile and chuckled, squinting at his audience through the bright lights. He looked so happy. Finally happy.
I wanted to stay and watch him enjoy every bit of it. I wanted to watch him share the same ecstatic look I had in front of my own fans. It was better than any feeling on earth. Well…almost every feeling. But my feet were moving. I cut across the crowd, shielded by the cheering teens and their excited jumping. Without a second look back, I fled from Jeremy’s backyard and stopped short in the front lawn. All the high schoolers who’d been here before had been drawn inside by Rodrick’s music. I was alone.
I pressed a hand to the quickened breaths rocking inside of my lungs, swirling my thoughts and clouding my head. The cold air seemed to freeze my lungs from the inside out. Tears dampened the corners of my eyes. I felt myself caving in like a crumpled ball of paper. There was nothing I could do. How could there be? He was gone. I’d lost him. I let him burst into my bedroom and tell me that he wanted me, and then I let him go. Like it was nothing. Like he was nothing.
Fuck, I whimpered, Please no. Fuck.
I choked on the air, covering my mouth to hold back the sobs sure to follow. How could I be so cruel? How could I be so selfish? How—
“Philly?”
He was here. He stood several feet behind me, black sneakers rooted in the snowy lawn. He stood tall, his arms limp at his sides. His face was nothing like the thrilling grin he wore only moments ago. Now, it was twisted in pain and bitter confusion.
“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t a question. It was disappointment in his voice.
I sucked in a sharp breath and stood up straight. I knew he saw the tears. I knew he saw the flushed heat still prickling my skin. He saw it all.
I shook my head and said, “I don’t know.”
Silence.
Rodrick pursed his lips and took a step towards me, his sneakers crunching in the thin layer of snow. “Did you come for the party?”
I shook my head. I bit hard on the inside of my lip. It was never a question. Never a second thought.
Rodrick went quiet again. He gazed at me, moon-eyed. So many words were trapped behind my lips that ached to be released into the open. But this wasn’t the place. Wasn’t the moment.
And as if Rodrick had read my mind, he asked, “You wanna go somewhere?”
I nodded back. It was never a question. Never a second thought.
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