Page 124 of Just My Type of wrong guy

Back then, I was just a hurt and unhappy girl trapped in her own skin. Now… I may still be those things, but I’m not just them anymore. I reread all the verses, tweaking what now feels obsolete, reworking what no longer makes sense, but without taking the soul out of the song.

“Are you writing the text for the billboard saying my kiss was amazing, or gossiping about the delicious night we had?” A.J. asks with just one eye open and his messy hair falling into his face, and it’s inevitable — I lie down on top of him, kissing him.

“It’s you who’s going to make the billboard, I’mwriting.”

“Seriously?” he asks, excited underneath me, and I nod. “That’s incredible. Something new, some tweaks?”

The question leaves me uncertain.

“A little of both. I started this song in a dark time, now the morning sun is shining so brightly that I don’t know exactly how to finish it. I still want to stay true to the Alexandra who wrote those words, but I also want the song to have a bridge or a more hopeful ending.”

“Can I see it?” he asks, and I quickly sit up, making space for him to sit too. I hand him my phone, and thirty seconds later, A.J. shakes his head.

“Read it to me, or sing it if you already know what you want to do with it.”

The lights are all on outside

But still, I stumble in the dark

I’m the loneliest girl in the city

Surrounded by voices, lost in the world

I carry life on my shoulders

As if it’s the price of existing

No map, no direction, no dance in my song

But with a tired chest and hope in my hands

But that’s not what it seems

I don’t think I’ll forget

And I wish I were more…

More than I am

But all my stories end in heartbreak…

“And that’s it. I started writing this song for my dad, but I realized it’s for me. It’s a letter.”

A.J. nods and stands up, looking for some paper around the room, and I smile. Because I’m the notebook girl, but I don’t reprimand him. A little while later, he comes back to bed holding a Beauty and the Beast notepad.

“It’s a love song, right?”

“I’ve never seen it that way, maybe self-love?”

“She’s the loneliest girl in the city, not by choice, and that hurts her, so I think the biggest longing is for company.”

“But not now, she still has all these wounds. We can offer a perspective, but not make it definitive. What do you think?”

A.J.’s eyes are scanning my face so brightly, so happily, that I can’t help but smile back. He leans in to give me a quick peck, and as he pulls away, he holds my chin.

“Makes total sense,” he says, stepping back with a wink.

We try everything: loose phrases, rhyming words, disconnected ideas. Nothing seems to work. As if the song is there, just watching, waiting... still not ready to be written.

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