Over It (The Kiss Off #2) (27 page)

My cheeks flamed with heat as the crowd cheered. Mostly cheered. There were some laughs and boos in there as well that gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach but I tried not to think about them.

“She cheated on you!” Astrid cried.

Ty and I both let out exasperated sighs. I rolled my eyes.

“And you
still
choose her?”

Seb nudged the security guard holding onto Astrid. “Could you…?” he motioned toward backstage and the guard blinked a couple of times, formerly lost in the drama unfolding before him. He hauled a kicking and screaming Astrid off the stage. The crowd laughed and cheered again. It was like they were watching a freaking pantomime.

The other security guard looked at the band questioningly about me. They shook their heads.

“So um,” I said, embarrassed. I rubbed the back of my shoulder where Astrid had scratched me. My head was starting to hurt. Standing there in the aftermath, on the stage, the music stopped, all band members and the whole Bay Fest crowd staring at me, the reality of the situation and what I’d just done overcame me and I filled with shame. Filled to bursting. How shame didn’t explode out the top of my head is anyone’s guess.

I had ruined his show. I had ruined everything. What the hell had I been thinking running out here like that? I’d just gotten so mad … I’d become just as crazy as Astrid.

“I’m sorry,” I said out of the side of my mouth, my body stiff with anxiety, my shoulders practically up by my ears.

“Okay,” Ty said, tight–lipped, trying not to look mad.

He was so mad. But I didn’t blame him.

“Okay?”

“Yep. Okay.”

“So … I’m gonna …” I pointed toward the side of the stage. Ty walked back toward his microphone.

“Probably a good idea.”

I slunk off the stage, waved to the crowd and took a bow as I hurried away. As soon as I was back in the dark, out of sight, I buried my face in my hands and swore; I used every curse word I could think of in whatever combination they came out in.

I was suddenly exhausted. I rubbed my cheek where Astrid had elbowed me and bent down to the bottom of the speaker to retrieve the messenger bag.

It was gone.

It was gone, it was
gone
! I lay flat on my stomach on the dusty, muddy shoe print-covered floor and reached my arm in under the speaker. I waved it between the wheels like a laser. Nothing. I winced as Ty cleared his throat into the microphone and announced they may as well play
The Kiss Off
. I covered my ear that was nearly pressed against the speaker just before the boys let rip with their guitars and Archie beat the hell out of the snare, and scrambled away from the speaker before my ear drums burst.

With exaggerated hand gestures, I tried to ask everyone I saw what happened to the messenger bag.  No one had seen anything.

Not. A. Thing.

That was it then. It was really, truly, no doubt whatsoever over for my big shot with the Debutante Dolls.

I didn’t stay and watch the rest of the show. After the security team had a stern word with me, gave me a super–expensive fine and an unexpected lecture on proper decorum and exhibiting more ladylike behavior in the future, I decided to make a hasty exit. I thought about staying, finishing our sort of talk, but I figured Ty probably didn’t want to see me first thing after he walked off, not after I stole his spotlight, threw off his confidence, embarrassed him and thoroughly shredded his ‘A’ game in front of all those thousands of people.

And the TV cameras. I didn’t know what that was about but just thinking about them made me queasy. Crashing a concert and having my own WWE smack down with added screaming and hair pulling in front of thousands of people was not the type of behavior my mother had been hoping I would exhibit while away. It had pretty much been what she was afraid of. It just made sense that it would be caught on camera for my parents to watch and record for prosperity, maybe bring it out any time I complained that they treated me like a child. My twenty–first birthday. They had a goldmine of mortifying footage to save up for that day. Hopefully we’d all be laughing about it by then.

I doubted it.

I trudged my way barefoot through the muddy grass of the makeshift paddock parking lot and picked up Lexie De Graff’s ruined flip–flops as I came across them. They were toast: it looked like one of them had been run over.

“Poppy!”

I stopped walking and waited for Mads, Nikki and Hamish to catch up.

“Hey, did you pick up the messenger bag?” I asked hopefully.

They all looked confused. “What messenger bag?” Nikki asked as she jumped over a mud puddle.

I sighed. Guess not.

“Why didn’t you guys do anything? She was standing right there with you.”

“Funnily enough, Cuz, I personally didn’t know she was planning on running on stage and going all ape shit on your ass,” Hamish said. “I didn’t know
you
were going to do the same.”

“Hell, I didn’t help because I didn’t want to be seen on TV having any part of this,” Mads said.

“Why was there a freaking film crew here anyway?!”

“They were recording a live show. For a DVD,” Mads said. “They’ll probably reconsider using this one for it, though.”

I groaned.

“I saw it all happen, but I still don’t believe it,” Nikki said, shaking her head at me. “I can’t believe you just ran on stage like that.”

“I believe it,” Mads said with a proud smirk. “I always knew Poppy was bad ass. That was insane. Best thing I saw all festival.” She ruffled my damp, frizzy hair. “You’re a mess, Poppy, you know that?”

“I know that, Mads, thank you,” I said curtly.

“Astrid always seemed so nice,” Nikki said. “Didn’t she?”

“I could see the potential in her,” Hamish said, “to be a nut bar.”

We all looked at him.

“What?” he asked. “You couldn’t see it?”

“And you didn’t tell us?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Seemed obvious.”

I turned around and kept walking.

“Where are we going, Poppy?” Hamish asked suspiciously. “Why are we going to the parking lot? How did you get here?”

Then he saw it.

“
What did you do to my car
?”

I sat sullenly and silently all the way back to the hotel as Hamish went on and on about how he knew he couldn’t trust me with his pride and joy and not even when Malcolm had been stoned out of his mind and driven the Impala to Mexico had he so much as dented it. Whoever Malcolm was. I sat in the front seat and took it; everything Hamish had to say, I let him lay it on me. I deserved it all. What did it matter, anyway? Everything about this stupid, so–called best weekend ever had been thoroughly craptastic. The only okay thing to have happened was that it seemed Mads and Nikki weren’t actively hating on each other anymore. It wasn’t like they’d braid each other’s hair or anything, but there seemed to have been a ceasefire called on account of my more pressing problems.

Hamish burned through his accusations, insults and demands pretty quickly and it didn’t take me long to realize that his demands were going to carve out a chunk of my royalties just as fast.

This had officially been the worst weekend of my life.

I rubbed the mud off my bare feet as best I could on the red carpet–like matting at the front door of the hotel, and while the others went to the restaurant for a late dinner, I skipped it and headed upstairs.

As soon as I got into our room I threw my tote and Lexie De Graff’s dirty clothes on the floor, pulled on pajamas and crawled under the covers, officially ending the horrible day that was. It had started badly and ended even worse. Today – this whole weekend – could go screw itself.

My cell vibrated from the floor and I reached out from under the quilt and patted around to find it.

It was a text from Ty.

We should probably talk. Meet me for breakfast tomorrow at eight.

I heard the door open, several pairs of feet entered and it closed again.

“Poppy?” Nikki asked gently in the gloom. I heard the click of the light switch and saw the glow of the overhead lights at the edges of the blanket.

I didn’t stir.

“How you feeling?” She stroked my hair like my mom did when I was sick.

“Lost the song,” I said. I hadn’t actually mentioned that part earlier.

They didn’t speak for a second.

“What do you mean?” Mads asked.

“Someone stole the laptop before I could send it.”

Nikki gasped and both Mads and Hamish swore.

“It’s been that kind of day.”

I sat in the hotel restaurant the next morning, feeling like I’d been hit by a car. Not a truck or a bus, just a small sedan. Maybe even a hatchback.

As I waited mournfully for Ty to arrive before he left Tallulah Bay for the next big adventure of America’s favorite rock band, I sipped on the water the waitress had brought over and stared at the other glass that sat opposite.

I closed my eyes for a second and images of myself and Astrid’s hair–pulling, eye–gouging fight on stage last night seemed burned into my retinas. I opened my eyes again and adjusted the hood of the hoodie even further over my head. The look of disappointment in Ty’s eyes last night made my whole body tingle and roil with shame.

This whole trip… who had I become? Some attention–whore, screeching banshee? It wasn’t me. It wasn’t
usually
me, anyway. But I’d been thinking about it. All night I’d tossed and turned and thought about it some more. There was one common denominator every time I morphed into this maniacal she–devil.

“Hey,” Ty said as he lowered himself opposite me.

“Hey,” I said back.

No hug or quick peck hello. Neither of us even smiled. We just stared at each other blankly, exhaustedly, for a moment before he broke eye contact and picked up the menu.

I picked up mine as well. I’d been sitting there for twenty minutes and hadn’t even bothered to look at it. Instead, I’d watched the mass of activity out in the lobby through the glass reflection. Bellboys pushed carts loaded with luggage belonging to reporters, stars and their entourages who hadn’t already left last night.

I was surprised Dexter had booked the boys to stay another night. Thought they’d have another show in Texas or Seattle or Hawaii they had to make their way to.

“The pancakes are good here,” Ty said, not even looking up. “I had them yesterday.”

When the waitress came, I ordered the eggs benedict.

We sat in silence for a minute or two. Words swirled inside of me. They started as a whisper, then got louder and louder until they shouted in my head, desperate to be heard.

“I-”

“Not everything-” we both spoke at the same time. Both stopped at the same time.

“You go,” I said quietly.

He didn’t refuse. “It’s not all about you, Poppy,” he said after a moment of composing the words in his own head.

A shot of adrenaline stabbed me in the gut. I stared down at my hands clenched tightly in my lap. Guilt washed over me, around me, through me. “I know,” I said softly. “I know it’s not.”

“Last night at the show was… that was supposed to be about the band. About Seb, Archie and Tom. About
me
. It wasn’t about you.”

A tear spilled from my eye and dribbled down my cheek. I wiped it away with the back of my sleeve in embarrassment.

“Of course it was,” I said. “I still can’t believe I did that, I just turned into this crazy person. Astrid, she…” I stopped. I could blame it all on Astrid if I wanted to, but I knew she wasn’t actually the problem.

Things were fine – they were great even – when Ty and I were apart. But when we came together I turned into this other person. I was so ashamed of ruining his show, of stealing the spotlight instead of celebrating his success.

“Astrid didn’t help,” Ty said, one corner of his lips arced upward ever so slightly. “You were right about her. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. And it didn’t. "I'm so ashamed." My voice choked off in a gasp as I tried to stop the tears. They would spill properly any time now, I knew they would. "This isn't me, Ty, please believe me. This crazy, desperate, dramatic girl I've been this whole weekend, it's not who I am. I don't even know who she is, she's not me."

"I know she's not," he said, reaching forward. I gave him my hand and he squeezed it with both of his. "And I'm not the crazy jealous guy either."

"I know you're not," I said.

Ty stared at the table. A muscle in his jaw clenched. "I wish I was happy for you, about the demo you were doing. I really wanted to be happy for you, but I just… couldn't,” he said. “I was mad, like you were only allowed to write songs for the Academy, like you owed us all your best songs or something. But I mean, why should you? It’s completely fucked up."

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to confirm it for him. It was ridiculous. After a while, I said, “I’m sorry about your laptop. I’ll buy you a new one.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was new. And insured. There was nothing on there worth worrying about except maybe my Words with Friends username. Now everyone’s going to know what a bad speller I am.”

I smiled a little. “You really are.”

He smiled back. "Nothing on there except your demo, of course. You're so talented, P. And you deserved your shot."

"Yeah, well," I said with a sigh. "We both know how that turned out."

He let go of my hands and leaned back in his seat. I did too. "I wish it had worked out for you. I really do. There was so much potential there, right?" he said with a smile.

I smiled weakly back. Yeah, there had been.

"There'll be other opportunities," he said.

I nodded. I had to believe that with all my might.

"Hell, you could write some tracks for the next Academy of Lies record."

I could tell he was trying to make me smile, to laugh. But it made me feel worse. That wasn't going to happen, and I thought maybe we both knew it.

"We're like two asteroids, aren't we," I said after a while.

He furrowed his brow at me. “How do you mean?”

"Like, we were just traveling along through space, I was writing songs, you were playing songs, we were both minding our own business when
bam
. We collided. And this whole new world happened."

"Yeah," Ty said, thoughtfully. His eyes lit up as he considered it and a small smile started to form. “Whenever we get together all hell breaks loose."

“It does,” I said, nodding.

His smile faded and he rubbed his eyes, tiredly. "Yeah."

"What you said last night, on stage," I said. "About loving me."

Ty's eyes fluttered closed with the weight of what was unsaid. The unsaid things were clambering all over us, determined to be heard.

"Yeah."

"It wasn't true."

“No, it is,” he said. “It is.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it.”

He didn’t answer for a while. "We’ve gotta stop doing this to ourselves. To each other."

"I know."

"I love you, Poppy."

"I love you, too.”

We sat in silence, staring at each other, a heavy cloud of depression hanging over the table.

The waitress brought our breakfasts and laid them in front of us with a smile. We both weakly smiled our thanks to her. She went to speak, but when she glanced between us, her cheerfulness drooped, like the weight of our conversation was too heavy for her and she left without a word.

I looked at Ty's pancakes and my eggs benedict, the hollandaise sauce glistening atop perfectly poached eggs. Neither of us made a move to eat. It looked great, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. Not now.

I'd just broken up with Ty.

Ty had broken up with me.

The break was real, and it was permanent.

"What do you think if we don't tell anyone for a while?" Ty asked.

"Why?"

"I can see it already, can’t you? Think about it, we break up right after Bay Fest where you were supposedly cheating on me with Gordo? It's going to make you both look 100% guilty."

My chair scraped on the shiny floorboards as I pushed it back. I rounded the table, leaned over Ty and wrapped him in a hug. He hugged me right back.

"You're such a good person, Ty," I said softly.

He hugged me a little tighter. "You are too."

An hour later, I hugged Seb and Jeri, Archie and Tommy as they climbed into the black SUV. There was no sign of Lana. She was gone. Like I soon would be.

Ty hugged me tight once more and I closed my eyes as he gave me a final kiss goodbye.

I bit my lip and tried to take deep breaths through my nose. I couldn’t start sobbing. Not out here.

Be strong, Poppy, be strong.
I didn’t want to lose Ty but it was the right thing for both of us. It hurt in my stomach, in my heart, in my very soul, but we did it anyway. As I watched the car pull away into the stream of hotel traffic heading for the airport, I wondered if that was it. Wondered if that moment was the last time I would ever see him. I wondered if this was what it felt like to have a broken heart.

The whole drive home, I sat in the front seat, sunglasses on against the glare, slumped against the door, headphones rammed in my ears in my best impression of an angsty, depressed, antisocial teen. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t an impression. This sort of behavior only belonged on a road trip with your parents, not your friends.

They understood though, and didn’t make me talk, or tell me to cheer up, or make me join in the conversation at all if I didn’t want to. Somewhere under my music, I heard Mads’s cell beep a lot, and I caught glances of her in the rear view mirror, trying to hide these great big smiles of excitement. She was totally getting back together with Dev when we got home.

Ty and I had broken up before. Who knows, we could turn into the next Mads and Dev if we weren’t careful; being on again and off again until we got old and wrinkly. It’s not like we were breaking up because we didn’t love each other. That wasn’t it at all. But there was no mistaking it: it was different to last time. It didn’t feel like there was any coming back from this.

And I had to believe, though I would never have the Debutante Dolls demo opportunity again, something else would come up. It just probably wouldn’t land in my lap quite as easily as that one had.

Though the experience had been a debacle from the beginning and a professional embarrassment, if I was going to grasp at straws (and I was), I guess I could say I’d learned from it.

I could be commissioned and write a demo within two days. I could work under pressure and with my head filled with other stupid drama. I shouldn’t try to change the way I work. It may feel weird giving another artist music that’s deeply personal to me, but when it’s personal, when it’s earnest, honest and real, that’s when it comes out the best. And that’s what they’re hiring me for: my best.

Oh, and I also learned to back that shit up so crazy stalkers and workplace kleptomaniacs don’t destroy all your hard work.

Hamish pulled in to the same gas station we’d visited at the start of our adventure. Oh, how things had changed.

Nikki and Mads got out of the car together – deliberately – to stretch their legs and grab some snacks. They talked and laughed as they walked toward the brightly lit store. Hamish sang to himself at the pump. He placed his hand against my window so that I’d place mine against it on the other side of the glass.

He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes at me. I gave him a weak smile and an ‘A’ for effort.

I pushed open the door and heaved my weary body to my feet. I stretched and sighed and looked around. There was a bench out the front of the store and I pointed it out to Hamish as I shuffled my way toward it.