While You're Away (7 page)

S
omehow, after our set, we ended up at a private party with the senior A-Team. When Arjun asked if we wanted to roll with them, Dave accepted enthusiastically. Jane was invited, and I was glad for that.

She was my touchstone, the lucid center of an insane situation. I was also relieved when the party took us to a park on the far end of town instead of Tricia’s house. That would have been too much.

But after Jake broke out the beer and Dave decided to play solo from the edge of the picnic table, I started to wish I was somewhere else. Anywhere else, especially when Tricia shimmied up to me with a Coors Light and a smile.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the club!”

My throat constricted. It felt like a trap. Like, any minute, she was going to rip the friendly look off her own face and call me out. Trying to fight the dizzy sense of terror, I plastered on a smile of my own and struggled to sound sincere. “I know, I’m so glad we’re here now. Way quieter.”

Slinging an arm around my shoulder, Tricia nodded. “You know, I was telling Dave, you guys are really good. If I turned on the radio tomorrow and you were on the top-twenty countdown, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

If Tricia knew the truth, she wouldn’t be playing besties with me. A low weight settled in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what felt worse: realizing that I was the trashiest person in the world, or the fact that Tricia didn’t. When she leaned her head close to mine, I stiffened. What if she smelled Will’s cologne on me? What if she suddenly came to her senses and saw the filthy evidence all over me—

“I have time for polite,” Tricia said, airily unaware. “I’m only
nice
when I mean it. Which reminds me. I had a thought . . .”

“What’s that?” I said. I sucked down half my beer, looking around plaintively.

Laying her head on my shoulder, Tricia held up a finger. She stopped to listen to Dave, who was charming a crowd by covering Ryan Adams’s arrangement of “Wonderwall.” I had to admit, it was beautiful. It was no wonder everybody gathered close to him. I didn’t find it any less bothersome than before. When Tricia broke free of his spell, she sighed.

“We have a deejay for prom, but he kind of sucks,” she said. Fixing me in her bright, determined gaze, she said, “So you guys should play instead.”

I didn’t know what to say. Prom was crazy soon, and a really big deal. We had played the Eden, and plenty of parties, but senior prom was a couple of hours with a huge and captive audience. And because the most popular students in school were the prom committee, it was like a seal of approval. Go forth, it told the masses. Buy Dave and Sarah’s digital EP.

Tricia took my silence for hesitation. Steamrolling right ahead, she said, “I know it’s next week, but you’ve played stuff on short notice before, right? My party, for one.”

“Right, we have,” I agreed uneasily.

“We have a grand to throw around. And it would make everybody really, really happy if you’d play.”

A thousand dollars? I hadn’t even expected payment. I wanted to faint. I couldn’t think of a single reason to say no. At least, not a single reason that didn’t have to do with poaching her boyfriend and taking advantage of her good nature at the same time. That was a pretty big reason, but not one that I was willing to admit out loud.

Lowering her voice, Tricia said, “We can get you into the after-parties, too.”

“To play?” I asked.

Before Tricia could answer, Dave called out. He was flush with swagger, rolling his shoulders and nodding at me like I was just some peon waiting for his beck and call. “Hey, Sare, come play ‘Scrambled Eggs’ for us.”

Nedda giggled, a sound that bored right into my brain. What was he thinking? He knew that song wasn’t finished. And he knew those weren’t permanent lyrics. With all the fawning attention around him, it really felt like he was trying to embarrass me intentionally.

Tricia sat up, giving me an encouraging push. “Think about it, okay?”

“We’ll do it,” I said. To Dave, I called out, “Let me go get my guitar from the car.”

Waving off any company, I stalked toward the road where we’d parked the cars. The river whispered, and the trees seemed to close around me. It felt private here in the dark, secluded enough that I could risk something. With a few quick strokes on my phone’s screen, I sent a message into the dark.

Then I stood beneath a white ash tree and waited—for Tricia’s boyfriend to come help me forget about mine.

~

When Dave arrived at my door on prom night, he wasn’t wearing a tux. That was fine, because I wasn’t wearing a gown, either.

We were dressed for a show, but my clothes had a secret twist. The waterfall skirt mimicked the shape of my costume at Tricia’s party. Ellie recreated the chignon from that night, too. Will had to be there with Tricia, but he had to see me, too. I wanted him to watch. To miss me, and want me.

“Next year, when you guys are seniors, I’m going to take so many pictures,” Ellie said.

“I brought a wrist thingy,” Dave said, offering me a plastic clamshell full of stargazer lily. “If you want to take pictures this year.”

Shaking my head, I murmured to Dave, “Dad doesn’t realize it’s prom night—let’s keep it quiet.”

Secretly, I had admitted to myself that I had no choice but to make a break with Dave. As good as I sometimes felt when I was with him, there were times when I felt equally bad. Everything felt sweet and safe and secure with him, until it didn’t. He still walked into the crowd to soak up the attention. And he still wasn’t taking my songwriting seriously.

None of that erased our history together. I wondered if I wanted too much. But then I got angry with myself. Was it really too much to expect my boyfriend to respect me?

Maybe it was insane to look to a playboy to make me feel like the only girl in the world, but I had to face it. That’s what it was like when I was with Will.

In my heart, I felt selfish because I wanted to keep Dave, too. I wanted him to be there in case I was wrong about Will—if it turned out that Dave was the right one after all. We had the band and our history and had shared so many firsts together. Maybe the broken things could be fixed . . .

Though Jane remained neutral, I kept coming back to the first conversation we’d had. Especially because it had become the running theme of my texts with Will. Pick somebody. Decide. They made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t. I had more to lose with Dave than just a first love.

“Nervous?” Dave asked as we headed for the venue.

I guess I had been quiet, but I shook my head. “It’s just prom.”

With a nod, he reached for my hand. “Next year, we’ll go together. If they don’t want us to play again.”

He said it so simply, so confidently. Like it had never occurred to him that one day we might not be together. The realization nearly broke my heart.

Rooting around in his glove box, I pulled out Dave’s bottle of vocal spray. It tasted like juniper and glue, and it felt like a thin wash of slime. But doing the throat-coat routine meant he wouldn’t try to talk to me until we got on stage. I hated that I wanted that, but I needed the quiet to put myself together.

The hotel ballroom was much more than I expected. I guess I had my brain trained for movie prom. I’d seen enough of them: school gym, paper streamers, butcher paper, and tempera paint backdrops announcing the theme. This was a glittering wonderland, café lights like stars draped everywhere, swaths of organza draping the walls. Hundreds of tiny glittered balls dangled from the ceiling. They cast flashes of rainbows everywhere. Since we were there early to set up, we weren’t even seeing it at peak perfection.

Unpacking my amp and a new pack of strings, I took to the stage to set up. Even with my head down, I saw glimpses of what could have been in the shadows. Will in a fitted tux, and me in something vintage and ethereal from ModCloth. My red lipstick and his blue eyes, the only splashes of color as we danced.

That’s exactly what I saw when Will walked in with Tricia, just as I segued into our third song. Fashionably late, they moved through the sea of seniors like the royalty they were.

Tricia floated in a champagne lace mini, layered with matching silk that fell in a creamy train behind her. In a garish sea of bright cummerbunds, Will stood out in his black-on-black tux. It cut perfectly across his shoulders and his hips, setting off his equally black hair and brows. When he looked across the floor, his eyes pierced, bluer than ever. He would have been at home on a red carpet or on the cover of
GQ
.

When I missed my cue in the chorus, Dave frowned. He looked concerned, not angry, but there was no way to explain why I was suddenly distracted.

Seeing Will smile at Tricia was torture; somehow it was worse to realize that he planned to dance with all the girls. His friends, virtual strangers—I knew for a fact he didn’t know at least two of the girls he swept across the floor. They walked away from their encounter with Will Spencer like new foals, long-legged and clumsy.

Song after song, dance after dance. None of those smiles were for me. None of those touches. This was all my fault, a whole night spent watching Will adore everyone in the room but me. I let the guitar strings dig into my fingers. If they cut through my skin, down to the bone, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t possibly hurt more.

It was prom night; he was beautiful and he was out of my reach. It wasn’t my hand he held up; I wasn’t the one with a fairy-tale gown swirling around me as I turned in his arms. My numb lips wouldn’t be kissed. They just grazed the cold curve of the microphone as I played on.

I don’t know how I managed to sing. I don’t even know how I managed to stand there without crying. Inwardly, I reminded myself that he wasn’t my boyfriend. He didn’t belong to me.

But it didn’t matter. As the night wore on, I felt like I was playing the soundtrack to my own nightmare. I was so glad for our break in the middle that I abandoned my favorite guitar on the stage and literally ran for the girls’ bathroom. To avoid company, I locked myself in a stall and leaned against the wall. My breath came in short, hard pants.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t let myself. I had to be back on stage in ten minutes. So instead, I pressed my head against the door and stared hard at the ceiling. I didn’t know who I was anymore. A bad person. A bad girlfriend. Just a girl realizing she had no idea what she really had or what she really wanted.

But that wasn’t true. Seeing Will glide across the dance floor with everyone but me clarified the one question that had been hanging over me since the boathouse. I wanted the same thing Will did, or at least what he claimed he wanted.
Everything
. All of him—all to myself.

The question was, when would I make that happen?

S
ome people might call what happened next fate. Or proof of a higher power. In all likelihood, it was probably just proof that we lived in a small town.

When prom ended, I begged off the after-parties and left Dave to his usual swarm of adoring fans. When I got home, I turned off my phone, closed up my windows, and disappeared into a long, hard sleep.

Morning came, and I didn’t feel better. But because I knew everyone was still passed out at various hotel rooms and parties, I decided to make a run to Florek’s.

The old music store was my safe place. I loved the musty scent of it. The mixture of oils and resins, old paper and new reeds. No matter how messed up my head, an hour or two browsing new sheet music and old instruments made me feel better. Free, instant therapy.

Winter was over, and spring nearly was, too. That meant that the roads were especially pothole-y. They always waited until the rainy season stopped to start fixing them. That meant three or four months of dodging chunked-up asphalt on every single errand.

Turning down Epler Avenue, I bumped over one pothole. This was the older side of town, where the old Main Street met up with the new one. Cute joined-up storefronts competed with strip malls for attention. For some reason, the roads were the worst here.

I jounced in my seat, no big deal. Except, in the bounce, I missed the very next gaping crevasse in the pavement. It was a grave of a pothole, big enough to bury the jerk who was responsible for patching them in. I hit it so hard, I heard concrete bang against metal.

And then I had a flat, instantly. Pulling off to the side, I put on my hazard lights and climbed out to see the damage. I already knew it was bad. Just the sound and the jolt told me that the tire was seriously messed up.

When I saw the damage, I groaned. The rim was bent. Not a small, unfortunate dent that a garage might be able to bang out with a mallet. It looked like a cartoon tire, practically flat on one side. The whole thing was shot. Karma had a hardcore sense of humor. In the very beginning, I’d lied to Dave about Jane getting a flat. Now the flat had caught up with me.

I made a mental note to never lie about something that could actually happen again. It was metaphysically safer that way. Not to mention physically.

Traffic shot around me as I trudged to my trunk to grab the donut. Wind yanked at my hair and clothes. The cars passed so closely, I swear, I felt the doors nearly brush me. Nervous, I fumbled opening the trunk.

Finally, I got the keys into the lock and flung open the trunk door. The unpleasant scent of old motor oil and rubber greeted me as I peeled back the rug. Cursing under my breath, I unscrewed the jack and freed my spare. When I turned to put them on the ground, I yelped.

Standing there in front of me, his hair tossed by the wind and his pale blue eyes serious, was Will.

“Where did you come from?” I said, stunned.

It wasn’t even noon, the day after prom. He should have been dozing in a suite somewhere.

He nodded vaguely, toward nothing in particular. His black Miata sat parked at an angle in front of the strip mall. “Coffee run. Then I saw you.”

I don’t know how he made it sound so forlorn. There was an emptiness in his voice that was hard to hear.

It implied so many things, things I’d just started to realize. It was thrilling to kiss him. To have a secret, shared with just him, had been exhilarating. But last night wounded me. There might have been a time when it was enough to just want him. When it could have been a harmless crush, and I could have enjoyed that without wanting more. It was too late for that now.

When we were together, I was finally free. Finally myself, exactly the way I wanted to be. That meant that a little bit wasn’t enough anymore. Knowing I couldn’t have him, not all of him, left me raw and broken.

Hearing his voice made me realize he must have been miserable, too. When we shared a look, it was like we recognized each other. That’s the only way I could explain it. Something innate was built into us, lonely and waiting to connect. Beneath all the hunger and longing was something else—something real.

Reaching for my tire iron, I tried to sound neutral. Casual, though I felt anything but. The middle of the street seemed like a bad place to talk with Will. Something would inevitably happen—something that we couldn’t risk anyone else seeing. Though my heart felt like it was trembling, I managed to smooth out my voice. “Some luck, huh?”

Suddenly, Will caught my face in his hands and set fire to me. Lips smearing against mine, he buried his hands in my hair. The waves twined around his wrists. I shivered at the rough skate of his fingers against my scalp.

There was no sweetness in this kiss. Tender and feral at the same time, Will claimed me. As if he was afraid I might escape, he gathered me closer, kissed me again.

He kissed me in the middle of the street, where anyone could see. And people saw; car horns blared around us. They tore by, drafting dangerously close. But now I didn’t care. My flailing hands failed. The tire iron hit the ground, the metal ringing out like a church bell.

Head swimming, I lost my connection to the ground. It felt like floating—absolute weightlessness. Gravity no longer applied. The world around us became a dreamy, hazy place. Like the background in a painting, or a radio playing just to fill up the quiet. Nothing else mattered. I only needed Will to anchor me. His hands on me, his lips on mine, his taste on my tongue. Folded in his arms, I had come home.

Finally breaking away, Will stared into my eyes. His shoulders actually shook with short, panting breaths. For all I knew, mine did, too. I’d never felt so intoxicated in my life. So bleary and blissful and
right.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Sarah.” As if he had finally just broken, Will trailed his fingers down my face and murmured, “I couldn’t wait anymore.”

~

After we changed my tire, Will followed me home. At the time, he said it was just to make sure I got there. I think it was a lie we both needed to hear.

Inching along the back roads to my house, I couldn’t stop glancing in the rearview mirror.

When he pulled in behind me, I stilled. For a fleeting moment, my instincts said
run.
But not from him. Just so he would chase me. So he could catch me.

Climbing out of my car, I didn’t want just a kiss. I wanted more. I wanted to merge with him, to be inside his skin and to have him inside mine. Those late night fantasies we all had and blushed about and never dared to say out loud—with Will, they were possible. Agonizingly possible.

Up on the porch, I pulled out my keys. And in a breath, Will stood too close behind me. His hands grazed the curve of my hips. A low, appreciative sound rumbled from him as he touched my hair. His breath sounded so thin, and mine felt it.

I couldn’t get enough air. Blood rushed in my ears, sweeping away the familiar music of my empty house. My
empty
house. Closing the door behind Will, I realized I didn’t know what happened next. The foyer felt strangely disapproving, like the walls were infused with parental concern.

“I want to show you something,” I said. Then I blushed, because there were so many ways to take that. Slipping my hand into Will’s, I led him not to my bedroom, but to the music room at the far end of the house.

When the three of us girls were little, it was a nursery, stuffed with toys and books. French doors separated it from the rest of the house, and the other three walls were nothing but windows. The walls, painted bright yellow, rose high around the windows. Even in the grayest part of winter, it was a warm, inviting place.

Taking the longest path to my destination, I looked back at Will. He filled the hallways in my house in an exhilarating, terrifying way. Lights and shadows I took for granted painted him in unfamiliar angles. His spicy scent lingered in the air. He didn’t touch anything but me, but he left his fingerprints everywhere.

Bringing Will into my music room was a test. I had to see how he would react to something that was as necessary to me as breathing. Lips dry and palms hot, I let go as I crossed the threshold. Spreading my arms wide, I realized how small the room had become. When I was little, the windows and ceilings soared. The space seemed endless.

Now it was packed with music and too many guitars. Recording equipment, a half-assed sound board. The really good tech stuff sat in Dave’s garage studio. These were my bits and pieces, the ones I used when I experimented.

When Will stepped inside, it was like he was stepping into a part of me. Relief flickered through me when he didn’t just grab an instrument and start goofing on it. That’s what people often did, when they didn’t understand how personal a guitar could be.

Instead, Will was respectful. He held his hand over the smallest guitar—my very first. And he smiled. “You got this when you were . . . six years old.”

“Good guess,” I said, sinking to sit on the little love seat in the middle of it all. “Five.”

“That’s incredible.”

Reaching for my favorite piece, I made room for him to sit with me. If he wanted to. Edging my nail against the strings, they pealed softly. It sounded almost like laughter. High pitched, far away. Gossip shared in the back room at a party. Fingering a simple chord, I strummed it.

“My grandpa played,” I explained. “He let me sit in his lap. I felt the music vibrating on the back of the guitar. And his arms felt so strong around me . . .”

Will sat. Draping his arms over his knees, he watched me intently. “He must have had pretty long arms.”

Laughter bubbled right out of me. “He was six six, you’re good at this.”

“I do what I can.”

“Have you ever thought about running away to join the carnival? I hear you can make good money guessing people’s age and weight.”

Comfortable anywhere, Will settled into the corner of my couch. “Are you trying not to kiss me right now?”

Playing a sweeter chord, I looked up from the strings. Sunlight streamed through the windows behind him. It lit his hair and cast shadows beneath his brows. He was the devil and the angel on my shoulder. Studying the play of emotion across his teasing mouth, I played another chord.

Finally, I answered, “I’m trying not to talk to you.”

A painful smile touched the corners of his mouth. It didn’t take a genius to realize he was hurting. More accurately, that I was hurting him. An echo of that pain flickered through me. That connection again. Sometimes it felt like we were a single piece, split in two.

He handled it with more grace than I would have. Clearing his throat and looking away, he said, “We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything. Be anything. This could all be a dream we once had.”

The same moment he said that, I struck a bittersweet chord. Slowly, I set my guitar aside. It was time to stop hiding. Though it was terrifying to say things most people only thought, it was necessary. It felt important.

“It’s so strange,” I told him. “You were almost imaginary to me before that party. I think, before, if I’d moved toward you, you would have moved away. That it would have been impossible for you to see me.”

He nodded. We both knew it was true. As he slid closer, he struggled to keep his hands in his lap. I was glad to see that, because I was struggling, too. There were things I needed to say. Things I had to clarify, things that weren’t even clear to me yet. But my body didn’t care. My skin tightened when our knees touched.

Licking the part of my lips, I steadied myself before I went on. “I don’t know why our magnets flipped. I don’t know why I see you and I want to do unspeakable things . . .”

“You could speak those things,” he teased gently.

“I sort of am,” I pointed out.

“You’re right. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“But I’m not going to lie to you.” I gestured at the music room, at all the things in it. “This is what I love. This is who I am. And Dave is a big part of that.”

“So figure it out,” Will said. His restraint faded, and he stroked a hand up my knee. Leaning into my space, he let his gaze wander. It trailed over me. Over my lips. It lingered there, and he slipped imperceptibly closer. “Stop making everything so hard, Sarah.”

My voice fell faint. “What about Tricia?”

“I’ll handle that,” he said, buzzing ever closer.

Maybe he was right. Maybe things were simpler than I was allowing them to be.

Tired of denying myself, I pushed up, trying to capture the teasing kiss he promised. Instead, he darted away. His blue eyes sparked. Dark, flashing, they dared me. I tried again; once more, he pulled away.

Electricity crackled through me. It snapped and burned, running rays of heat to the tips of my fingers and the soles of my feet. He couldn’t just kiss me on the street and then expect me to wait for his permission. Without waiting or begging or hoping, I took what I wanted. Catching the back of his neck, I pulled him to my lips.

Then it was fire. First light after winter’s dark. Our tongues played in a slick, silken tangle. We skipped past shy exploration. We didn’t need to pretend to be civilized together.

Tugging Will’s hair, I arched beneath him. His sculpted chest, his flat belly—I laughed drunkenly in his mouth, because hip to hip, I felt how much he wanted me. Before I could return the favor, he pulled away. Completely. Everything inside me protested. He took all the heat with him, leaving me to shiver because he moved too quickly for me to catch him back.

Overheated, Will put deliberate space between us. He stood there panting, face streaked with red, mouth bruised and still slick.

“Let me know what happens,” he said.

I couldn’t tell if it was an order or a plea. And I didn’t have the chance to ask. He left, and left me there to figure it out on my own.