Love Songs & Other Lies Read online

  After a curious scan of the cafeteria at lunch Cameron is nowhere to be found. I haven’t heard him say one word throughout the day aside from mandatory introductions, didn’t see him talk to a single person. Except when I pass him in the hallway on the way to Chem and he’s standing next to Jenna Mills. She’s holding a clipboard at the crossway of the junior and senior hallways, collecting signatures for … something. I don’t know what, because no one has actually stopped to talk to her. Except him. The guy who hasn’t talked to anyone without teacher instruction. I wonder what makes her special, even though at first glance it’s pretty obvious.

  Jenna has short, spiky black hair with big chunks of blue that you can only see from a certain angle under the fluorescent lights. She’s always wearing something black. Today it’s a ruffled skirt with red leggings, and her eyelids are caked with red glitter. She reminds me of a deranged Tinkerbell. Seeing him leaning against the orange lockers in his white button-down shirt and light blue linen shorts, it’s hard not to notice the contrast between the two. As I pass, he pulls a Melon Ballers’ poster off the bulletin board behind Jenna, shoving it into his backpack. Will I see him at a show? With a quick nod, he walks away, still looking as sad as before. Maybe someone stole his donuts too.

  CAMERON

  It’s painful. Like someone-taking-a-key-to-the-side-of-my-beautiful-new-car painful. Every class is another new start, a fresh introduction, a new sea of staring eyes. By the time I reach English after lunch, my nerves are shot and, hand to the holy mother, I say an actual prayer that my classmates will be mute. Or that my teacher will take pity on me and saddle us with a five-hundred-word in-class essay or something. Anything to distract them from the most interesting thing about the first day of school, which seems to be me. It’s definitely me.

  I have three hours left and all I really want to do is go back to the apartment. My apartment. Two months ago—the week after I turned eighteen—I spent an entire weekend visiting houses and condos in Riverton. When I finally walked into an apartment down the street from the beach and felt like I wanted to sit on the ratty old chair and just stay there, I knew I had found a winner. The rooms are all furnished seventies-garage-sale style. It feels comfortable.

  Every room is painted a different shade of blue. The living room looks like the midday ocean—alarmingly bright and strangely calming at the same time. It feels like being surrounded by walls of water; like living in a fish tank. The strips that run above and below the white kitchen cabinets are a dark, almost black blue, and the two bedrooms are a pale powdery shade that belongs in a little boy’s room. I told myself I’d paint those, but I still haven’t. Something about the blue-ness of it all just seemed right when I saw it. It didn’t feel anything like my home, or the house where I had lived with my aunt and uncle. The apartment feels completely … other. It reminds me of the ocean—of that part of home, without bringing with it all of the more real parts that I had to get away from.

  The landlord had looked me over like maybe I was going to turn the place into a meth lab or a grow house, but I guess three open apartments in the building and a wad of cash must have made his mind up.

  “Keep out of your neighbors’ hair, son,” he said. And then he was gone, cash in hand, pushing the shiny keys into my palm. They practically screamed at me.

  We’re your ticket out, Cameron!

  Let us lead you to the pity-free promised land of Anonymity!

  Now here I am, in fourth-hour English, living the dream. After the obligatory introduction (where I’m once again paraded in front of a classroom of students that I’ve already met) Ms. Willard, a tall, skeletal woman, begins to pace around the room. Her long black hair is so shiny it looks wet, and she’s holding a beat-up cardboard box, pulling out little black notepads and laying one on each desk. They’re small, like something you’d imagine a child detective carrying around, jotting down notes on the most recent grocery store caper.

  “These,” she says, in a raspy smoker’s voice, “are your journals.”

  The class lets out a cumulative moan of disgust, to which Ms. Willard replies with a giant smile. “I’ve been an educator for twenty years.” She rolls her eyes as she continues pacing. “You can’t faze me with your sullen teenage ways.” She wags her finger in the air. “For the next week you’ll work on a character study. Pick someone you can observe on a regular basis. A friend or family member, someone who works at a local store. A coach or family friend. You get the idea…” She’s pacing across the room in a figure eight formation, lightly tapping her palms together. “You’ll record everything you can. Their mannerisms and habits, their beliefs, their physical characteristics. Aspirations and internal conflicts … No detail is too small, no fact too trivial. Obviously this will be easiest with someone you have frequent access to. Someone you know or would like to get to know.”

  Then, she winks at us. And I’m pretty sure at least one person gasps. If there isn’t a law against teachers winking at students, there definitely should be. It’s creepy. Like guy-in-a-trench-coat-handing-out-candy-on-the-playground creepy.

  “Gentlemen, perhaps this is a good time to learn more about one of the young ladies you’re interested in.”

  Is she actually encouraging stalking? A few girls are looking around themselves nervously. I’m still laughing over the wink. What kind of school is this?

  At the chalkboard, Ms. Willard writes the definition in a scrawled script:

  A WRITTEN DESCRIPTION OF A PERSON’S QUALITIES.

  This is my kind of thing. After close to a year of being watched like a mental patient, I’m ready to be the observer. For once, my life won’t be an open book, thumbed through by every teacher and student, earmarked to one climactic page where my whole life changed. They won’t know that my parents are dead, or that I’m a year behind. They’ll only know what I tell them. They won’t have the chance to see me as a less-perfect version of the old me. I flip open the pad. While Ms. Willard continues to rattle off the books and assignments we can look forward to, I scribble everything I know about Ginny.

  Physical Description: Skinny with “tree trunk” legs. Colorful hair?

  Habits & Mannerisms: Sarcastic. Spunky. Confident.

  Skills: Scaring her grandmother. Being upbeat even in a nursing home. Music.

  Conflicts:?

  VIRGINIA

  I’m sitting in the corner of Logan’s room after school, like I do every day. We don’t have much homework the first day of school, but I brought all my books anyway. I need an available distraction if things get awkward. Logan comes down the stairs to his bedroom with an armful of snacks, setting the bowls and cans in front of me. My psychology textbook is open on my lap and I flip through the pages, watching words fly by—Pavlov, Rorschach, cognition, Freud—I’m not actually reading them. Logan drops to the floor. He’s wedged right up next to me—born without any sense of personal space—and his long arms wrap around his knees. I’m not sure if I should leave my leg where it’s at, or move it. We never used to have this weirdness, but now I question everything I do around him.

  Logan bumps me with his shoulder. “Wanna make out?”

  “Not funny.” I throw a pretzel at him. He’s laughing, but I’m still not sure if he’s joking.

  Three weeks ago we would have already been making out. Two weeks ago I told him we couldn’t do it anymore. Things were getting weird. In the back of my mind I had always wondered about Logan and me. If he ever thought about me that way (I still don’t know), if we could be more (I don’t think so), if I wanted that (I had thought I might). No matter which way I rolled it all around in my brain, I think I always knew that Logan and I could never work long-term. We’d kill each other. But this spring when I broke up with Toby Mendon—boyfriend of ten months, first (of many things), and King of the Assholes—I vowed I was done with high school boyfriends. I’d wait for college guys. Guys who didn’t think making out in the backseat of their mom’s minivan was sexy, or that I was supposed to be a seve
nteen-year-old virgin and an aspiring porn star.

  A few months ago, when Logan jokingly asked, “Wanna make out?” for the nine hundredth time, I figured why not? For a while it was great. It was casual and fun and comfortable. Until it wasn’t. There were no lines, no rules to follow. Sometimes he’d grab my hand in public, or try to kiss me when people were around. And other times he ignored me, and that bothered me too. Even though being Logan’s girlfriend was not what I wanted. I think about things too much to do the whole friends-with-benefits thing. I knew it had to end. To preserve my sanity and our friendship.

  Push me, pull me, take me or leave me … the way I am, can’t be like them … the words buzz in my head, and I begin to hum a soft melody as I grab my notebook. Music takes over my mind the same way a fever takes over a body: in a hot, unexpected rush. One minute it’s quiet and the next there are words and notes and magic swirling around in me.

  Logan looks at me like maybe I just changed my mind about the make-out session. “Song?”

  I nod. I haven’t written a new song in months. Not one I could share, anyway. My thoughts have been wrapped up in the weirdness of our situation, the lyrics much too literal to put in front of the band—friends or not. Logan retrieves his guitar, sitting back down on a stool in front of me while I scribble. I pass him the first verse, and he starts plucking strings and putting it to music as I continue to let my feelings bleed out onto the paper, line after line. We write and hum and play, and hours later we have the beginnings of a song. I’ll let Logan finish it, but when I get home—in the privacy of my room—I’ll put the words to my own music. Just for me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  NOW

  CAMERON

  When Vee finally pries Logan’s arms off, she paces to the back of the sleeping area, throwing her bag on the bunk across from mine. The bunk farthest from the one I was sitting on when she arrived. I know why she did it. I can’t imagine she’ll be thrilled when she realizes that bunk wasn’t mine. She’ll be sleeping less than three feet away from me. For three months. This is either amazing news or the worst idea ever. I can’t decide, because my brain isn’t really processing anything beyond the fact that she’s actually here. And she looks like a different version of the girl I used to know. Her hair is still long, but wilder than it used to be, and a lot more blond than brown. But it’s not just the way she looks, it’s the way she feels. Like she’s off limits.

  Logan is standing next to his bunk, across from Anders’s. “You going to bunk all the way back there, Vee?”

  “I’ll see you guys all the time. A little space might be good.” Vee never looks at me as she speaks, but she sounds exactly like I remember. Like the recording on loop in my head. As I slowly approach the back of the bus, I wonder if she’ll completely flip when she realizes who her new bunk neighbor is. I duck my head and drop onto my bed, waiting for the shit storm to begin. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I’m strangely eager to get this over with. The sooner she yells and tells me how much she hates me, the sooner we can move on. To what, I’m not sure. I don’t even know if she hates me, like I suspect she does, or if she doesn’t think anything of me at all. Is there a chance we could actually be friends? Tucking my hands behind my head, I brace for her reaction. Maybe she’ll make one of the guys switch with her. Or insist that I move.

  Instead, she unzips her bag and begins to pull out small stacks of books and journals, setting them in the tiny ledge that lines her bunk wall. When she’s finished she gives me a forced smile, pulls the blue curtain closed, and walks away without a word.

  * * *

  When Logan tracked me down six months ago at UCLA and invited me to join Your Future X, I knew I’d hear about Vee once in a while. Maybe I’d have to sing lyrics she wrote. I told myself I could do it—convinced myself it was just a stupid high school romance. That it felt so intense because it was first love, and it was new and exciting. It was nothing special; I was over her. I never expected I’d actually have to see her again. Let alone be on the same bus for twelve weeks. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m surprised by how unsettling it’s been seeing her again. How confusing. I spent months thinking about how I could get her back, and another year dating girl after girl to convince myself she wasn’t that special. Why isn’t she in Chicago? I could ask her, but no matter what we’re doing or where we go, Vee has managed to avoid me, while still being right there.

  I’ve endured two nights sleeping four feet away from her. Trying not to think about what it used to be like to kiss her. To touch her warm skin, sleep in the same bed. What she looked like lying on the beach at midnight in soaking wet clothes. Shit. This is going to be the longest twelve weeks of my life. Of course, twelve weeks is the dream. We don’t just have to beat eleven other bands to get to the finale, we have to pray the show doesn’t get cancelled between now and then. I overheard our tour bus driver on the phone with his wife, saying what a stupid idea this was. He figured he’d be home in a few weeks. God, I hope he’s wrong. Even just making it through a few rounds would take us to a whole new level. We’d be able to play bigger clubs, maybe go on our own tour. Not in a bus like this—hell, probably not in a bus at all—but even a van tour would be cool.

  Vee has gone out of her way to greet every new band member—excuse me, every new guy—who has loaded onto this bus in the last two days. Everyone is nice to her. Of course they are. Everyone always loves Vee—that’s the norm. Whether she realizes it or not—which she doesn’t—something about Vee makes people comfortable. She’s like the human version of an anti-anxiety pill or something. We’re three days into the tour, making our way to Houston, and the only person she hasn’t gone out of her way to talk to is me. I’ve always pictured us hashing out our past in private, but Vee seems opposed to us having even ten seconds alone.

  At a pit stop in Fort Worth, I finally decide that I may never get her alone. I just have to go for it. One way or another, we need to push past this, so I can focus on what I came here for. I’m sitting two seats down from her, squeezed between Logan and a red tiled wall. We’re in a tiny truck stop diner grabbing dinner at ten o’clock. It turns out that music tours have very little regard for normal meal times. We’re all getting used to stocking up on food at rest stops and gas stations, cooking half-assed “meals” in the bus’s tiny kitchenette, and grabbing real food when the buses stop once a day. Thankfully bus drivers have to eat too.

  Across from me, Anders is wedged between Reese and our bus mate Pax, the lead singer of Caustic Underground. A folded gas station map is laid out in front of them and Pax is using a thick red Sharpie to trace the path of the tour. Through the South, then up to Nashville, looping through New York before traversing the Midwest, and finally landing back on the West Coast. Twelve cities in twelve weeks.

  “So Vee, what tour stop are you most excited about?” Light and easy small talk. Nothing sticky there.

  Silence.

  I feel Logan shift next to me as he nudges her.

  “Oh. Probably Nashville.” Three words. “Pass me the salt, please.” Her voice is small. I’m pretty sure she was talking to Logan, but I’m not letting her off the hook that easily. I scoop up the glass globe before anyone has a chance to touch it, and hold it out to her. She makes zero effort to get it, waiting until Logan plucks it from my hand, passing it over to her. “Thanks,” she says casually, to no one in particular.

  “You have to make it through Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta to get to Nashville,” Pax says casually, dragging his finger along the red route on the map. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Reese says, flicking Pax in the head with his finger. “We’ll give you a shout-out from Nashville while your ass is back on your couch.”

  Vee laughs, and it irritates me that she seems amused by Reese, of all people.

  “So what are our cheesy tourist stops in Nashville?” I lean forward so I can see Vee around Logan.

  She’s shuffling eggs around with her fork. “I didn’t really have anything in
mind.”

  Anders’s head pops up. “Bullshit. Like you don’t have an itemized list of where you want to go in each city.”

  I laugh. Vee had The Plan mapped out since the day I met her. Where she would go to college (Michigan State), what she would do (become a publicist).

  Vee scrunches her nose up as she shakes her head at Anders, like he’s an idiot. “I’m spontaneous now,” she says. And she’s looking at Anders but I think she’s talking to me. “You probably didn’t know that about me, did you?”

  Logan stabs one of the sausages on Vee’s plate. “I heard the top bands get to go backstage at the Ryman.”

  Vee’s eyes light up. “No way. I’ve always wanted…”

  Logan throws his hand up and Anders high-fives him over the table. “Predictable,” Logan says, giving Vee an exaggerated grin as she pokes him in the shoulder.

  Reese reaches across the table and grabs a piece of bacon from Vee’s plate. “Hey,” she says, slapping his hand. She pouts when the greasy meat lands on the speckled green tabletop. “Now neither of us gets it.”

  Reese plucks the brown strip off the table, tips his head back, and lowers the drippy meat into his mouth.

  “You disgust me.”

  “I heard a rumor you two dated.” Reese’s eyes dart to me, before settling on Vee again. “Maybe you’d like my bacon better than his.” He melodramatically chews his bacon.

  “Oh my”—Vee picks an orange wedge off her plate like she’s going to throw it at his head—“gross.”

  “She liked my bacon just fine,” I say. She turns shocked eyes my way. Finally! And as the orange flies in my direction, she’s smiling. It only lasts a second, before she’s squinting her eyes at me again. It’s so quick I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it, but it’s something.