Page 23 of Fade into You
She’s swaying almost imperceptibly, mouthing the words, barely a sound escaping her lips until I listen hard and hear a low, soft voice singing along. She’s closing her eyes for a second and she looks so… adorable. I find myself swaying too, under some kind of spell that I don’t usually fall for. Soft music isn’t my forte, I like angry, forceful music usually. I can see the allure of the crooners, but recently I’ve needed something a bit more edgy.
Then I listen and I understand why I like this song:
“To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came”
I see Bird smile as she sings the lines, and I can feel myself smiling too, even with the sticky, wet clothes and the obscene public display of affection, and the strange smell coming off the fountain water that soaked everything. The lyrics are edgy, they call out the crap of high school I face now, even though it couldn’t have been written in the last decade. It’s a beautiful, charming examination of the worst of what we’re going through. It’s anger tempered into beauty. It’s incredible.
The song ends and I hit the pause button.
“Bird, who is this?”
“Janis Ian,” she says, looking nervous. I wonder if I should mock it to keep my badass image, but I can’t shit on good music just because she and I are currently frenemies.
I settle on, “She’s pretty good.”
Bird smiles a little more and it lights her up. “Oh, I’m glad you like it. I know it’s a bit older, but my dad and I used to listen to it a lot when I was younger. I’ve always loved the way she writes.”
“Her lyrics are kinda rad,” I say, pulling my hand through my damp hair, suddenly a touch self-conscious as she stares at me, searching my face to see if I’m playing on sarcasm or being genuine. I try to look genuine.
“Lyrics are poetry, after all,” she says, drawing an invisible line connecting us. “You know, she actually wrote this song when she was our age?”
“That’s cool,” I say, because it is. And I think about Bird’s poem again for a second.
“W-well,” she says. The slight stutter, which is actually pretty adorable, pushes her on to the next sentence: “If you wanna borrow it, you can. But I’d like it back before we break them up, ’cause we’ll probably never see each other after that.”
She’s right, but it’s kinda sad. Maybe in another incarnation Bird and I could have gotten along or something. “I’ll rip a copy on Dad’s CD burner and have it back to you next time we meet up.”
She nods and pulls it out gently, placing it in the jewel case like it’s a Fabergé egg. It must mean something more than fun times with her dad. She hands it to me and I put it in the center console, the safest place in the car.
“I’m about done with tonight,” she says. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Yeah, but Dade and…”
She leans over me, arm brushing my chest, pulling a gasp of excitement from me as she reaches to slam on the horn. I’m more shocked by the touch than the sudden sound.
The blaring noise brings Dade and Kayla running toward us, and I’ll be damned if they don’t look happy too. Right before they hop in, I turn to Bird and say, “Mission failed, your turn.”
Later, warm and dry in my room, dead tired and beat by my own design, I pull out the jewel case Bird left behind, plug my headphones into my boom box, and secretly listen to Janis Ian, my new favorite seventies songstress.
BIRD
Monday officially marks the secondweek of school. Which means no more pretending that it’s technically still summer for another few days. No more leniency with the volume of homework assignments, no more dipping of toes into the shallows of the semester, and no more excuses for why everything’s feeling sooffsince I’ve been back home.
I need to start getting on board with this “new normal”—new normal, that’s something Daniel said a lot after he and Olivia moved in with us. Olivia could complain about anything and everything, big and small, and Daniel’s response was always that she needed toget on board with the new normal.
My new normal is suddenly feeling like I don’t have a place anywhere. I’ve never felt particularly grounded or wanted or accepted. But at least I had Kayla. A place, just one, where I felt secure.
My new normal is I barely see Kayla.
We were supposed to be taking an art class together. But she dropped it to take a film elective with Dade. I tried to convinceher not to, but she said it was too late. She didn’t think I would care anyway. Ididn’tcare that much about the art class; I just wanted to be in a class with her. Like she was supposed to be in journalism with me. But Kaylaisan artist. She’s been wanting to go to art school since eighth grade, so she really shouldn’t be dropping her art class for any reason, especially not for a guy. When I made that point, minus thefor a guypart, she said film is art too. We played the “Yes, but” game back and forth for an hour on the phone before she pretended to get another call.
My new normal is outcast lunch with Jessa.
On Wednesday, Kayla actually shows up for lunch unattached to Dade. She saunters over, all mopey and dragging her feet, to where Jessa and I are sitting, backs against the brick wall, pretending we don’t notice the security guard eyeing us like we’re plotting something terrible. I mean, we are, but not the kind of terrible he’s worried about.
“Hey!” I call out to Kayla, with a little extra enthusiasm—enough to show the guard that we’re just average students here, hating our school and our lives in anaverageway that won’t put anyone in mortal danger.
