The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (Creative HeArts) (10 page)

“Keegan.” I reach for him and he all but throws himself at me, his arms going around me at the same time mine wrap around him. And then he’s burying his face in my neck and holding me tight, tight, tight.

I hold him the same way. I hold him as tightly as I can, hold him with every broken thing I have inside me. It’s not enough, but it’s all I’ve got. It’s all I am.

He shudders once, his shoulders shaking, and for a second—just a second—I feel a wetness against my neck. I squeeze him even tighter, run my fingers through his cool, silky hair. Murmur nonsense words against his ear until the shaking stops.

It only takes a minute or so, but it feels like forever—especially when he makes these tiny, gasping noises that tell me just how hard he’s working not to cry. But then he’s pulling away, dashing a quick hand across his cheek and forcing a smile that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel.

“I’m s—”

“Don’t you dare!” I whisper fiercely. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry for that.”

He presses his lips together, looks away. But after a second he nods, and I feel my shoulders relax.

He climbs out of the car without saying anything else, then comes around to my side and holds the door open for me. Helps me climb out.

When I’m standing next to him, he pulls me in for another hug—a short one this time, though it doesn’t feel any less heartfelt. Or any less desperate. He kisses my cheek, and as his cheek brushes against mine I can still feel a trace of moisture there.

This time it’s my heart that melts instead of my panties.

I grab his hand and hold on tight as we walk across the street to the ballroom. When we get to where they’re selling tickets, I start to reach for my wallet, but Keegan stops me with a look. He pays for both of us, then escorts me into the main ballroom area to find a seat.

About half the place is filled up already, but we find a few empty seats in the second row to the left of the stage. He gets me settled, then asks, “What do you want to drink?”

Normally I’d ask for a glass of champagne—it’s pretty much my go-to drink—but we’re not in L.A. or New York and I’m not Cherry here. I’m just Dahlia, regular high school student who is still several years away from being legal.

It’s kind of liberating to be able to ask for a bottle of water and not worry about being judged for it.

Keegan’s back in a couple minutes, brandishing water and a king-size pack of M&M’s. I lift a brow at him, but he just grins. “Chocolate makes everything better.”

“It really does,” I agree.

As more people file in, we talk about regular stuff—school and our senior project and music—while we wait for the show to start. We have a good fifteen minutes to kill, but it feels like no time at all before a girl bounds up to the stage and announces that things are about to begin.

She goes over the rules—about how each poem will be judged and how we should scream and shout and boo and whistle and give as much feedback to the judges as we possibly can. Then she asks for people who are virgins, who have never been to a slam here in Austin before.

I slide down in my seat a little, but Keegan grabs my arm and waves it in the air. “This is how they pick the judges,” he tells me. “First-timers.”

“How many times have you been here?” I ask when it becomes obvious that he’s not a virgin like me.

He shrugs. “A few. I like poetry.”

I shake my head. Of course he does. He likes poetry and music and basketball and business and picnics at the art museum. Can the boy be any more of a conundrum?

Suddenly the girl on stage points to us and grins. “I see you over there, Keegan, bringing in some poor, unsuspecting virgin. Looks like we’ve found our last judge!”

People around us clap and cheer and I duck my head, worrying a little about the attention. But it’s dark in here and it’s not like anyone is looking for me—they’re here to hear some poetry, maybe drink a little, and have a good time. No one is going to recognize me.

A couple minutes later a guy comes strolling down the aisle with a set of scorecards for me. He, too, greets Keegan by name, and they do some kind of elaborate fist bump/handshake thing that has obviously been practiced quite extensively.

Keegan introduces me to Rush, who smiles at me and then gives a very suspect—but very approving—eyebrow raise to Keegan. “You’ve been here a few times, huh?” I ask as Rush walks away and the sacrifice is chosen—a poet who volunteers to perform as a way for the judges to kind of calibrate their scoring before the actual competition begins.

He shrugs, smiles a little shyly. “Maybe more than a few.”

Yeah. I just bet. As the lights go down and a spotlight comes up on the sacrifice, I lean over and whisper, “Something tells me there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.”

It’s his turn to grin and wiggle his eyebrows at me. “Something tells me the same can be said about you.”

If only he knew…

Chapter Twelve

“They’re good,” Dahlia leaned over and whispered to him after the first two poets finished. “I mean, they’re really good.”

“They are.” Keegan nodded. “And these are just open mic. Wait until the semifinals and finals in the spring. It’s crazy. They bring brand-new stuff and just blow everybody away. It’s awesome.”

“Yeah? Maybe we can come back and see them then. I mean, if you don’t mind me tagging along?”

“Sure.” It took every ounce of self-control he had not to do a fist pump à la John Bender from
The Breakfast Club
. So Dahlia figured they’d still be hanging out in the spring—that counted as a good thing in his opinion. In three days, he’d gone from the guy she barely knew existed to a friend she made long-term plans with. That was definite progress, right?

“I’d love to bring you,” he said, just as the third poet was introduced.

“Hey,” Dahlia exclaimed suddenly, then quickly lowered her voice as the applause died out and the guy started toward the stage. She put her hand on his knee as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Doesn’t he go to NextGen?”

It took a minute for her question to actually make sense to him, considering the warmth of her breath against his ear was sending shivers up and down his spine. And making every synapse in his brain riot. For a second, he wanted nothing more than to get his hands on her. To pull her onto his lap and tangle his hands in her short hair. To tilt her head back and kiss her like he’d been wanting to since Saturday night. But they were in the middle of the Spider House Ballroom and the last thing he wanted was for their first kiss to be plagued by wolf whistles and catcalls.

So he pulled back just a little and ran her words through his head until they finally registered. When they did, he grinned. “Yeah. That’s Nick Todd. He’s a senior, too.”

“That’s what I thought. I think he’s in my economics class. If he’s who I think he is, he’s a nice guy.”

“Nick’s great. We’ve been friends since ninth grade, and he’s freaking hilarious.”

“He is! He was ripping on Wall Street in econ the other day and he was crazy funny. Like, I was so impressed. Total stand-up comedy material.”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. His poetry’s the same. He takes on super-serious subjects, but his observations about them are so funny—and true. Which is a little scary, but…” Then something occurred to him that made the last of the residual shivers from her whisper disappear between one second and the next. “He’s got a girlfriend.”

The words slipped out before he even knew he was thinking them, let alone that he was going to say them, and the second they were out he wished he could take them back.

Especially when she looked at him strangely. “I’m not interested in dating him. It was just cool to see someone from NextGen out in the world with us.”

“I know. I got distracted for a second, but what I wanted to say was that she’s really funny, too. And super hyper.” God, he hoped she never met Jesse and discovered he was lying out of his ass here. “The two of them are hysterical together—though I’m not sure how either of them gets a word in edgewise with the other.”

There. That at least was true.

Dahlia looked like she was going to say something, but then Nick started his poem. Much to Keegan’s disappointment, Dahlia leaned back to listen—and when she did, she lifted her hand from where it was resting on his leg.

The warmth of her palm lingered, but he missed it—so much that he moved his leg just enough that it brushed against hers. She was wrapped up in Nick’s poem, though, and didn’t even notice. The story of his life with this girl…

Nick was in rare form tonight. His poem was a rip on the current election, and while he took shots at both sides’ candidates, he spent a lot of time ripping the Republican front-runner. By the time he was done with the poem, Keegan’s sides actually hurt from laughing so hard. A quick glace at Dahlia told him she was feeling the same way.

She scored him a perfect ten, much to the approval of the audience.

Three more poets went before the fifteen-minute intermission. “Do you need more water?” he asked, gesturing to Dahlia’s empty bottle.

“No, I’m good.” She shot him a dazzling smile. “Thanks for bringing me here. This is so much fun.”

“I’m glad you’re having a good time.” He ignored the way his heart skipped a beat when she smiled like that, all bright and happy. “Do you want to walk around for a few minutes, meet some people? Or would you rather hang out here?”

“Oh, umm.” Her face fell a little. “I think I’m just going to hang here. But if you want to go talk to your friends, go for it.”

“I am talking to my friend,” he said, shifting in his chair so that he was facing her.

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. And I still want to hang out with you. I see them all the time.”

“You see
me
all the time.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve only had a couple of days to talk to you—there’s so much I still want to learn about you.”

Suddenly, she looked uncomfortable. “I’m not actually all that complicated. What you see is pretty much what you get.”

Somehow he really doubted that. Beyond the fact that most seventeen-year-olds didn’t file for emancipation from their fathers unless there was something seriously bad going on, she just had a way about her that screamed that she was deeper than the average high school senior. It was right there in her eyes, an intelligence, determination, and kindness that had attracted him from the first time he heard her answer a question in class.

He didn’t tell her all that, though. Not now, when she was suddenly comfortable enough with him to hug on to his arm and drop her head onto his shoulder. Instead, he just scooted a little closer to her softness and placed his hand on her knee, as she had done to him earlier. When she didn’t pull away—or even startle—he figured it was okay. Especially since she was still snuggled up against him.

“What’s your favorite color?” she asked after a second.

“My favorite color?” he asked, surprised.

“You said there was a lot you still wanted to know about me. Twenty questions seemed like a good place to start.”

“Twenty questions, huh? Isn’t that usually a drinking game?”

She smacked him gently with her free hand. “A drinking game? You shock me, Mr. Matthews. And here I thought you were such a good, upstanding citizen.”

“I’m not sure where you got that idea,” he said with a snort.

“Oh, please. Student body president. Captain of the debate team. Founder of SAFE Rides at NextGen. The current president of Amnesty International at our school and the force behind the food drive that’s going on right now. If I looked up ‘good, upstanding citizen’ in the dictionary, your picture would be there.”

“Doubtful, considering that’s three separate words that wouldn’t be listed together.”

She smacked him again. “Kind of a smart-ass, aren’t you?”

“See? Not a good, upstanding citizen after all.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.” She lifted her head just enough to mock-glare at him. “Now, your favorite color. Please.”

He laughed. “Pink, I guess.”

She went to smack him a third time, but he grabbed her hand, held it to his chest. And she let him.

“Pink is not your favorite color.”

He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her knuckles. “You don’t know that. It
could
be.”

“It could be chartreuse, but I don’t think it’s that, either. Why are you being so secretive?”

“I thought girls liked a man of mystery.”

“Trust me, men of mystery are
highly
overrated. Good, upstanding guys are where it’s at these days.”

“According to you?”

“According to every girl with a brain,” she said firmly. “I’ve had my share of the others and they
so
aren’t worth the trouble.”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No, you’re not!” she told him with a laugh that didn’t quite sound true.

“Actually, I am.” He shifted a little, so his body was turned toward her and she was all but lying against his chest. Then he let go of her hand so he could tilt her face up to his. He wanted her to be able to see his eyes when he said this, to know that he wasn’t handing her any bullshit. “I’m sorry that some guy—or guys—hurt you because he was an asshole. You don’t deserve that, and I wish it hadn’t happened to you.”

She didn’t respond for long seconds, just looked at him, eyes wide. “Are you for real?” she finally whispered.

Before he could answer, the lights went down and the emcee jumped back up on the stage to introduce the next poet. As Jackie took her place on stage, he leaned over to Dahlia and whispered, “Cherry.”

“
What?!
”

“You asked my favorite color. It’s cherry red.”

She didn’t answer, but her body slowly, gradually, relaxed back against his just as Jackie began a poem about her old friend, deception.

Chapter Thirteen

Seriously? Is the universe just screwing with me at this point? I’d nearly had a heart attack when Keegan said my name, and now the woman on stage is talking about all the ways that her lies screwed up her life. It’s like my own personal version of hell.

The rest of the poetry slam isn’t nearly as much fun. How can it be when I’m suddenly wondering about all the lies I’ve told lately—or at least, the one big lie that I keep cultivating.

It wasn’t a big deal when I wasn’t hanging with anyone, when I wasn’t making friends or having to look them in the eye and continually lie to them by omission. But now that Keegan and I are getting to be close, it feels wrong not to tell him the truth.

What am I supposed to do, though? Say, by the way, not only am I emancipated, but I’m also a huge pop star? And I’m in the middle of trying to reinvent myself? Trying to decide what I want and how I want to go about getting it?

There’s no way I can tell him that. Especially not when I’m at a school where nearly everyone is dying to be famous. Just look at Finn and what he’s going through. So many people want to be his friend just because he’s Mia McCain’s son. I’ve spent what feels like my whole life going through that—people wanting to meet me, wanting to hang with me, wanting something from me all the time. Is it so wrong that I just want a little peace for a while?

And it’s not that I think Keegan would blab to the world if he knew. Not with that whole good, upstanding guy thing he’s got going on. But I don’t want him to look me at me differently, either. And I definitely don’t want him to treat me differently. Even if he says he won’t. Even if he says it doesn’t matter…he won’t be able to help himself. It happens all the time.

I just wish I knew what to do, wish I had a crystal ball that told me how I’m supposed to handle this. Especially when I don’t want to lose Keegan’s friendship. The more time I spend around him, the more I want to spend.

I like him. I really like him, and I don’t want to lose that just because he finds out who I am. But I don’t want to keep lying to him, either, so… Ugh. Why did I think I wanted to join the real world again? Maybe there’s something to be said for living the insular life of a pop star…at least then I didn’t have to worry about actual human relationships.

At least then I
knew
I was going to be screwed over.

The last poet finishes performing, and I turn to Keegan and whisper, “What do you think I should score him?”

“I don’t know. Nine point seven? Nine point eight?”

I decide on the nine point eight because I feel bad that I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t even listen to his poem. Keegan doesn’t say anything, but he’s got a strange look on his face as we wait for the scores to be tallied and the night’s winners to be announced.

When Nick wins, we cheer along with the rest of the crowd, but something feels weird between us suddenly. Off.

I tell myself that I’m imagining things, that it’s just because I’m feeling odd, but I don’t know if that’s true. And when we start to walk to the car—after congratulating Nick and the two runners-up—I figure out pretty quickly that I’m not imagining things.

Keegan is polite and solicitous—I’m beginning to think it would take some kind of Armageddon-like crisis to make him behave otherwise—but he’s definitely standoffish. Not that I expect him to hold my hand or anything. I get that we’re just friends, obviously, since we spent lunch scheming on how he can win Dream Girl’s heart. But still, it had felt kind of nice in there to rest against him. To have him hold my hand in his. It’s been a long time since anyone has touched me in any but the most casual of ways, and until tonight, I hadn’t even realized that I missed it.

I just wish I knew what he was thinking, wish I knew what I’d done wrong.

“I’m sorry if you didn’t have a good time,” he finally says as he holds the car door open for me.

I look at him, startled. “What do you mean? I had a great time. The poetry was amazing.”

He searches my face for a second, his green eyes more dull than I’ve ever seen them. I stare back at him, trying to communicate just how sincere I am. “Yeah?” he finally asks.

“Yes, of course! Why would you think otherwise?”

“I don’t know. You just seemed a little far away during the second half. I thought maybe you were bored.”

“No! I wasn’t bored. I was just…” What do I say here? How much do I reveal? I have to admit after spending most of my life around guys who rarely—if ever—paid attention to how I was feeling, it’s kind of nice to spend time with someone who notices everything about me.

“Just…” he prompts when I stay frozen for too long.

“I don’t think a lot about the whole emancipation thing. It is what it is, you know? But sometimes when it comes up, it makes me think about my life and how I got where I am.” Okay, not precisely the truth, but not
not
the truth, either. It’s a fine line, and I’m walking it as best I can here—at least until I figure out just how much I want to tell Keegan, or anyone, about who I really am.

The one thing I do know, though, is that I don’t want Keegan to think that he’s to blame for any of what I’m feeling. “If I was preoccupied in there, it’s because of that. Not because I’m not having a good time with you, because I totally am.” I smile brightly in an effort to prove that I mean what I say.

For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Just kind of looks at me, studies me. But then he’s smiling, too, and gesturing for me to get in the car. This time I do as he bids.

Once he’s settled in the driver’s seat, he says, “So, do you need to get home to finish your econ homework? Or can we grab something to eat first?”

I know what I should say—which is, obviously, econ homework. And English homework. But what I should say and what I’m going to say are two very different things. After all, how many dates with Keegan am I going to get? Soon enough he’ll have gotten Dream Girl’s attention and once he does, I’m pretty sure she’s the one he’s going to be inviting to poetry slams and late-night dinners.

“Actually, I’d love to get some food. I’m starving.”

“Cool. Anything particular you’re in the mood for?” He pulls out of the parking spot.

I think about it, but the truth is I couldn’t care less what we eat as long as I get to sit across the table from Keegan while we do it. “Not really. You choose.”

“All right.” He grins at me. “I will.”

We make a few turns, cruise through downtown Austin. We pass some places I recognize, but I’ve been so busy with school and hiding out since I moved here that I haven’t learned the city the way I should, so I can’t even begin to guess where we might be going. At least not until he pulls into a parking lot and I spot a very distinctive red circle with a blue bar running across it.

“We’re going to Waterloo Records?” I ask, surprised.

“Actually, we’re going next door to 24 Diner. But we can stop into Waterloo for a little, if you want.”

I do want, actually. I came through here on a press tour a couple years ago, before my first album really took off. I liked the place, and had wanted to spend some time just looking around it, but we’d been on a tight schedule and my dad and my manager had rushed me in and out.

I’m not sure why I haven’t been back since I moved to Austin. I told myself it was because I was afraid of being recognized, but maybe that isn’t the truth. Maybe the real reason I haven’t been back is because I’ve been so busy hiding that I’ve forgotten why I did any of this—because I want a chance to figure out who I am.

Beyond Cherry, beyond my dad’s ambition for me and my manager’s vision of what my career should look like.

Beyond the perfect little pop star I tried so hard to be.

Beyond the girl who was trapped in a life she wasn’t sure she wanted, a life she wasn’t sure would ever fit her as well as everyone else wanted it to.

I broke out. I did all the difficult stuff, did what had to be done to get myself my freedom. And then I came here and put myself in another kind of box. Another kind of prison. One where I’m too scared of being who I was that I totally forgot about being who I am.

God. I’m an idiot. Even worse, I’m a coward.

The realization shames me as much as it pisses me off. I’m telling Keegan to be brave, telling him to just go for it with Dream Girl, when the whole time I’m too scared to do anything. Scared to be anyone other than this shell of a girl. This shell of the person I want to be.

Screw that.

I already stretched my boundaries once this week by making friends with Keegan. Tonight it’s time to do it again.

“I do want to go!” I tell him as I bound out of the car and head for Waterloo.

“Hey, wait for me,” he says as he jumps out of the driver’s side and hurries to catch up.

“Time and music wait for no man.” I grab his hand and drag him toward the entrance.

He comes without a protest. “Isn’t that tide? Time and
tide
wait for no man? It’s from Chaucer.”

“Of course you actually know who said it.” I roll my eyes at him. “I was taking artistic license. You know, since I’m a songwriter and everything.”

“And I was just keeping you honest. Being a boring business guy and all.” He grins at me.

I don’t grin back, not when his words hit so close to what I was thinking about earlier. “Sometimes you can be honest without telling the truth, you know.”

His smile fades, but he just nods. “Sometimes you can.”

I put it aside. I put it all aside, determined to have the rest of the night with him because—let’s be for real—things will fall apart soon enough. They always do.

“That’s enough deep philosophy for one night,” I tell him as I pull open the door to the music store. “Unless it’s coming from an album.”

Walking into Waterloo is like walking into the past, when record sales were so much more personal than a click and a download. The windows are lined with album posters, old-fashioned globe lights hang from the ceiling, and you can’t go more than a couple feet without bumping into a wire carousel filled with CDs or T-shirts or bumper stickers. Old-time shoulder-height wood shelves make long row after long row throughout the store and house every distinction of music a person could think to ask for.

The walls are covered with record covers old and new—everything from Aerosmith to Bastille, from Nirvana to Coldplay. There’s a whole section devoted to listening. Another section devoted to vinyl. And yet another section lined with pictures of everyone who’s played in-store since they opened.

My picture should be on that wall, and for a moment, just a moment, I think about wandering over there to check it out. Just to see how much things have changed for me—these days there’s no way I could do an appearance at a store this size. There’d be a riot within five minutes, people packing the place far beyond fire code limits while crowds of fans freaked out on the sidewalk as they tried to shove their way in to get their album/shirt/merchandise/body part signed.

Just the idea of it is insanity, especially since I’ve been away from it for two months. When you’re in the eye of the hurricane, everything seems normal. Like it’s the way things should be. It’s only when you step outside of the storm for a while, when you’re on the outskirts looking in, that you see how crazy it all is. If you survive being battered by the hundred-mile-an-hour winds, that is…

I start to head that way, but then I notice the three middle school girls standing there looking at the photos, phones in hand as they take Snapchats against the background. I very deliberately turn away from the wall of pictures. I know I look different, but still. The last thing I need is to show up in the background of some Snapchat or Vine that gets saved and put on Tumblr. If that happens, it wouldn’t take long for the whole house of cards I’ve built here in Austin to come tumbling down, and I’m just not ready for that. Ducking the paparazzi is hard enough. The last thing I need is to be trying to duck fans, too.

With that thought in mind, I make my way over to the listening section instead. I poke around a little and am totally thrilled when I realize that each station is set up with a selection of different albums.

And it’s not by type, either. Each pair of headphones is attached to a total mishmash of music—an old R&B album mixed with a modern pop album, a disco album, and a country album. Or a new rap album at the same station as a quiet singer/songwriter album and an epic rock album. And of course, each one has room to house a CD of the listener’s choice—part of the store’s amazing coolness is that you can listen to any album you want before you buy it. Any album at all, even if it’s not in the listening cue. Even if it’s not one of the popular ones.

I pick a pair of headphones dedicated to recent or coming in-store appearances. I start with Hayes Carll, whom I’ve been a fan of for years. Originally billed as a country musician, he’s recently gone more blues/folk, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to his new stuff. I pull up “Sake of the Song” first, and chills go down my spine at the first notes.

Keegan’s in the booth next to mine, listening to something that’s put a smile on his face. I smile back, grooving in as mellow a way as I can as I listen to Hayes. I love, love, love his sound. It’s not my sound—not as Cherry the pop artist or Dahlia the singer/songwriter—but it gets deep inside me anyway. Dark, smooth, mesmerizing.

The next song comes on, this one “32 Flavors” from Ani DiFranco, and the song is crazy. Infectious. Brilliant. I’ve never heard it before, so I listen through once before gesturing for Keegan to come closer.

He does, right away, and I pull the headphones off my ears and hold them up to him. “Listen,” I tell him as I hit replay on the song.

I expect him to put the headphones on, but he just holds one side up to his ear even as he beckons me closer. I do as he asks, then lift my hand to his. My goal is to help hold the headphones, but what actually happens is my hand rests over his, my palm to the back of his hand. Our fingers slide against each other’s, once, twice, before tangling together and squeezing tight.

We listen to the whole song that way. Heads close together, eyes locked. Breaths mingling.