The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (Creative HeArts) (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Where is she?
Keegan wondered as he looked around for what had to be the millionth time. Lunch was half over and Dahlia had yet to show up at the flagpole. Admittedly, she hadn’t answered his last texts, but he’d figured her classes were just keeping her busy or something. No big deal, especially not since she’d agreed to lunch last night when he dropped her off at home.

But now he was beginning to think that she was deliberately ignoring him. Or worse, that something happened to her when she was driving to school. Otherwise, he would have heard from her, right? She wouldn’t have just left him standing out here waiting for her like some kind of idiot.

And yet here he was, and Dahlia was nowhere to be seen.

Pulling out his phone, he checked his messages for the tenth time in as many minutes. Still nothing. Dammit. What was going on? Should he be worried, or was he totally blowing this out of proportion? Had he done something to offend her? And if so, what? What could he possibly have done between early this morning and now, when he hadn’t even seen her?

“Hey, Keegan, you heading over?” Jacen stopped on his way down the front stops and nodded toward the park the seniors liked to hang out in during lunch.

“Yeah, I’m just waiting for Dahlia.”

“Oh, right!” Jacen grinned. “How’d the date go last night?”

“It went well.”

“Yay!” Jacen waved his hands around in obvious celebration.

“Seriously, jazz hands?”

“It’s a musical theater thing,” he answered in his favorite stuck-up voice. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“You mean a musical theater geek thing,” Keegan corrected.

“Tomato, to-mah-toe,” Jacen said with a laugh as he headed down the stairs. “See you over there.”

“Aren’t you waiting for Himesh?”

He rolled his eyes. “My man has decided he’d rather play with his AV equipment than me.”

Keegan’s brows hit his hairline. “And you’re putting up with that?”

“I know, right? He better bring flowers tonight is all I’m saying.”

“Obviously. And chocolate.”

“See, why can’t you be my boyfriend, Kee? I know you’d treat me right.”

“I would. But sadly, I don’t want to play with you, either.”

“That’s cuz you don’t know what you’re missing.” Jacen pointed his finger at him like it was a gun and then fired.

Keegan laughed as Jacen headed out, then checked his phone yet again. Still nothing.

It just didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t she here? And if she couldn’t make it, why hadn’t she at least texted to let him know? If he’d done something to upset her last night—like say, kissing her brains out on her front porch—then she wouldn’t have texted him before he’d even gotten his key in the ignition. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have texted him early this morning.

But she
had
texted him when she first woke up, even though she’d been running late. And now…now it was like she’d disappeared off the face of the freaking earth. He couldn’t figure it out. And if he couldn’t figure it out, then there was no way he could fix it.

He glanced at his phone yet again, told himself he’d give her five more minutes. And then he was going to forget about texting and actually call her. Because this whole thing was nuts and he needed to make sure she was okay before he drove himself absolutely insane.

He’d barely made it two minutes—and was already close to jumping out of his skin—when Prince Finn walked by on his way back into the building from who knows where. Keegan gritted his teeth as he waved him down, telling himself he wasn’t jealous of the guy—or the trip he planned to take Dahlia on to L.A. next weekend. It almost worked.

“Hey, man, have you seen or heard from Dahlia today?”

Finn gave him a weird look and he realized, suddenly, that despite what it felt like, he and Dahlia had only been hanging out a few days. It seemed like so much more because of all the things they’d done, because of everything they’d talked about, but in actuality it had been less than a week. Most of the people at school—Finn obviously included—hadn’t even had time to cop to the fact that they were friends, let alone that he had the right to be asking about her.

“No,” Finn finally said. “What’s it to you?”

“She was supposed to meet me here. I haven’t heard from her all day so I just wanted to know if she was okay.”

Another weird look. “She’s fine, man. Just taking the day off. She texted me an hour ago asking about English homework.”

“You mean she isn’t here?” He glanced down at his phone for what felt like the millionth time. Why hadn’t she let him know? It made no sense.

“That’s what taking the day off means,” Finn said, speaking with an exaggerated slowness that made Keegan feel like a tool. And also made him want to punch Finn a few times. In the face.

But all he said was, “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Finn eyed the phone in his hand. “But if you need to get in touch with her so badly, why don’t you text her?”

“Yeah, great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.

Finn held his hands up and backed away. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, dude.” Then he was gone before Keegan had a chance to formulate an appropriate response. One that didn’t begin with “screw” and “you.”

As he watched Finn walk away, Keegan told himself to grab lunch and then get to class. Senior seminar was starting in half an hour, and he and Himesh had a lot of work to do on the Web and marketing presence for the
Lizzie Borden Diaries
. Plus he had to rehearse
The Zoo Story
with Jacen, and he was supposed to be running an Amnesty International meeting after school. He didn’t have time to worry about whatever was up with Dahlia. Didn’t have time to freak out because she very obviously wasn’t texting him back even though she managed to text Finn, no problem. She was okay and would talk to him when she talked to him. That was what mattered.

And yet even as he tried to sell himself on that bullshit, he was pulling out his keys and jogging to his car. If Dahlia was freaking out over something he’d done—like say, not explicitly telling her that she was Dream Girl—he wanted to know about it. And if she wasn’t—and she was sick or upset or just hiding from the world—he wanted to know about that, too.

He wanted to help.

He was at Dahlia’s town house in a little under fifteen minutes. He slid into the first available spot he found, then bounded up the walkway and knocked on the front door. He knew she was home because he could see her car—not to mention the light was on in the living room.

She didn’t answer, so he pounded harder. When she still didn’t answer, he pulled out his phone and sent her the first non-emoji text he ever had.

Let me in.

When he heard no movement inside, he quickly followed it with another.

I’m not going away.

Still nothing.

He had just raised his hand to knock again when he heard it. The slow, steady strum of a guitar cutting through the quiet afternoon air.

He listened for a moment, trying to place the melody, but he didn’t recognize it. Whatever song it was, though, it was obviously coming from Dahlia’s backyard.

More curious than annoyed now, he followed the sound. The gate into her backyard was padlocked—a smart move for a girl living alone, he figured—so he solved the problem by half climbing, half vaulting over the fence.

He’d just landed on the other side when Dahlia started to sing. That’s when he froze, his whole body turning to ice as his mouth dropped open in shock. And more than a little alarm.

Her voice was mesmerizing. Husky, haunting,
heartbreaking
, it filled up the air between them and had every hair on his body standing on end. Because it was one of the most beautiful voices he’d ever heard—
and
because it was familiar.
Very
,
very
familiar.

He knew that voice, heard it on the radio at least five times a day. And while this slow, dark ballad was a departure from the songs the radio usually played, that didn’t change the fact that it was
her
.

Part of him wanted to rush around the corner to see if he was right. And if he was, to confront her. But another part of him—the part that had fallen so hard for regular girl Dahlia Greene—wanted to hear what she had to say. She’d been stuck before the poetry slam, but now her words—and the emotions behind them—throbbed in the air like a broken, battered heart.

You said you wanted a Dream Girl

Wanted somebody to cling to

Wanted somebody to hold you

Your safe place to hide in this cold hard world

I think you might be dreaming

I think I might be leaving

Cuz I’m all out of fight

And I don’t know what’s right…anymore

I wanted to be your Dream Girl

Wanted to be your safe place

Wanted to be your soft space

Your port in the storm, your shelter from the rain

I think I must have been dreaming

I think you should be leaving

Cuz I’m all out of fight

And I don’t know what’s right…anymore

The lyrics were as devastating as her voice. He felt himself responding to them, understanding them—and fearing what they meant—even as he was hurt by the fact that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him who she was.

At the same time, he got it. After all, he’d spent the last few weeks watching Finn and Willa go through hell because of Mia McCain—and neither of them was actually famous in their own right. He could only imagine what it would have done to NextGen—and the press—to find out that Cherry was doing a reverse Hannah Montana and hiding in a fine arts high school in Austin.

Cherry
, at NextGen. He shook his head, as if that could somehow make it sink in more quickly. He had been crushing on
Cherry
for weeks now. Had taken her on a date. Had pushed her up against her front door and kissed her until they were both breathless and needy.

It boggled the mind, even as it finally helped him make sense of her conversation with Finn in class yesterday.

Curious now, he followed the sound of the guitar—of her voice—around the corner of the house. She was sitting on a patio swing, her legs crossed in front of her and a guitar on her lap. Her head was bowed, her eyes closed, and the look on her face said she was completely absorbed in the music.

She was beautiful, so beautiful, and for a moment he wondered how he hadn’t seen the resemblance between Dahlia and Cherry from the very beginning. The super-delicate build, the sky-high cheekbones, the dimple that had been driving him crazy since he first noticed it. Sure, the hair was different—way different—but how could that and a pair of colored contacts have done such a good job of disguising her? Now that he knew who she was, it seemed so obvious—and completely absurd that she’d ever been able to hide.

Then again, people saw what they wanted to see. What they
expected
to see. And the last thing anyone had expected was to find international pop sensation Cherry walking the halls of NextGen Academy dressed in flannel shirts and boots. Add in the haircut and the natural-looking makeup and she was about as far removed from her pop-star persona as she could get.

She was at the bridge now, singing about where she was going and where she was running from. He listened carefully, couldn’t help smiling a little at her mention of finding herself in a pair of electric green eyes. At least until she went back to the chorus and switched up the words a little. This time when she sang it, it wasn’t about finding herself. It was about losing everything.

It took every ounce of self-control he had to stay where he was, listening to every word, every note, pour out of her. And when she was done—when both her voice and the music faded into silence—he felt his stomach clench at what he knew was coming.

Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to turn and walk away. To pretend he hadn’t discovered her secret, that he hadn’t heard this song. But he had heard it, and pretending anything else—even for a little while—wasn’t going to stop what was coming from happening.

So instead of ducking back out the way he came, he stepped forward. Cleared his throat. Waited patiently for her gaze to find his.

A shock went through him when their eyes met, because for the first time he wasn’t looking into the dark chocolate of Dahlia’s eyes, but the deep, rich violet of Cherry’s.

She gasped, her eyes widening and jaw going slack as she caught sight of him. He could see it in her face, in her eyes—the question of whether he’d heard her. Of whether he knew.

She looked so alarmed—so panicked—that for a second he thought about letting her go on believing her secret was safe. After all, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt or worry her. But there were too many feelings churning around inside him right now—astonishment, embarrassment, fear, even anger—for him to be able to pull it off.

“It’s not what it looks like,” she said after several long seconds passed.

“Don’t,” he answered. “I get why you hid. I get why you didn’t tell me before. But don’t lie to me now. Don’t stand there and lie to me when the truth is all over you. You have to know me well enough by now to know I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Okay.” He nodded, then walked closer still. “Is this why you didn’t meet me today? Because you got inspiration for a song?” He wasn’t an artist, but he’d been going to school with artists for years and he could understand that. He knew he was probably grasping at straws, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge what was in her eyes yet, wasn’t ready to face what his churning gut already told him.

“I didn’t meet you because—” She broke off, shook her head.

But he wasn’t about to let her get away that easily. Not after all the fun they’d had last night. And not after the kiss they’d shared. “If you’re going to dump me, at least give me the courtesy of telling me why.”

Her eyes flew back to his. “It’s not dumping you if we were never together.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”