Page 10 of Feral Touch
“You don’t need one. Just do it on your phone. It doesn’t need to be some high budget artsy film piece. Just record yourself talking to Ren. I’m sure what you say won’t actually matter once he sees you.”
I thought about it quietly for a moment. I did want to see Ren again, if only to ask him why he left. I was worried, though. From the very brief time I’d seen him on stage and in person, I could tell he was different from the Ren I knew. How much had fame changed him?
I looked up from the flyer and met my friends’ eyes.
“I’ll do it.”
“Uh, hi. I’m Ivy. I guess you know that, if you’re watching. I mean, if Ren’s watching. I don’t actually know if you’ll even see this. Um. I’m not really a fan of Feral Silence. Sorry. I thought I’d make this video because…because I want to see Ren again.”
I felt so stupid babbling into my camera. I buried my hands in my face and groaned. Another bad take. I’d have to start over. Again.
“Hi. I’m Ivy. Ren, if you’re watching this, I want you to know…I’ve missed you. I don’t know why you left, but you seem happy now. That makes me happy for you. But I was really sad when you left. And no one knew why. Why, Ren? Why did you leave?”
No. I shook my head. I didn’t want to waste my first message prying into his past.
I re-watched the ten previous videos I’d taken. They were all awful. I’d held my phone out at arm’s length and focused on my face. I looked terrible that close up, every imperfection magnified, not to mention the angle gave me a double chin.
“I can’t do this.” I stalked out of my bedroom and into the kitchen where Jen and Natalie were preparing dinner: Alfredo pasta with veggies. We all pitched in for groceries to split the cost; food was cheaper in bulk. “I look awful on video and all my messages are stupid.”
“You need help?” Natalie asked.
I lowered my head, embarrassed. All I had to do was speak into a camera. It should have been easy. “Yeah. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Natalie turned the burner down on the pot of boiling water and Jen set aside the vegetable cutting board. Together, they marched me back into my bedroom.
“First things first, clean your room.”
I blinked. “Clean?”
Jen nodded at the unmade bed, piles of laundry on the floor and empty cans of diet soda on my nightstand. “You don’t want Ren to think you’re a slob, do you?”
“No one’s going to see my bedroom.”
Natalie just tapped her foot in mock impatience, so I got started sweeping cans into a garbage bag and shoving my laundry into the closet, closing the door to hide it. As for my bed, I just threw a comforter over the mess of sheets, not bothering to actually make it.
“Is that better?”
“Good enough.”
Natalie grabbed my phone and balanced it carefully on its side on my tall dresser, pointing the lens toward my computer desk. She tiptoed up and around to look at the screen. “Perfect. This’ll give you a nice upper body shot. It’s better than just pointing the thing at your face.”
“I like the shirt you have on,” Jen said. “Red is a good color on you.” She rummaged through my makeup kit and pulled out blush and mascara. “Sit.” She pointed at the chair. "We’ll make you look gorgeous for Ren, don’t you worry.”
“I don’t care about being gorgeous,” I grumbled as Jen attacked my face with brushes and wands. “It’s not like that.” I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. I hadn’t told the girls I thought there might have been something more between me and Ren. If only he hadn’t disappeared on me. “We were just friends.”
Jen and Natalie shared an amused look. They no doubt thought I was protesting too much.
“Write down what you want to say,” Jen told me once my face was glowing. “No winging it.”
“That’s the hardest part. I don’t know what to say.”
“The contest is only open for a few days. You’ve got to do it now. So get thinking.”
Jen swiveled me around in my computer chair and opened my laptop, clicking to bring up a blank text file. She stood back, waiting.
My hands hovered over the keyboard for several long moments before I dropped them into my lap. “It’s no use. Everything I come up with sounds stupid.”
“Just think about what you want to tell Ren. What would you say to him if he was here right now?”
