Friended

by Kilby Blades

  Another game of putting things aside

  As if we'll come back to them sometime

  A brace of hope. A pride of innocence.

  And you would say something has gone wrong.

  -Toad the Wet Sprocket, Something’s Always Wrong

  Roxy

  Come on, Vega, I chided myself as I tapped my pen nervously against the kitchen table. Crunch berries had turned the milk in my barely-touched bowl of Cap'n Crunch a pale ballet slipper pink. It was time now—way, way past time—to face the music with Jagger. ButI had no plan and I could barely think. Writing a list seemed like as good an idea as any. With Jagger suspended, I could work on it all day and in class.

  I'm sorry.

  It was a necessary start. And I was sorry—for the hypocrisy, the overreaction, the silent treatment, and for walking away. He'd deserved punishment and maybe even a little humiliation, but he'd not deserved five days of this.

  You still have a lot of explaining to do.

  I couldn't gloss over this part. His "secrets" still needed to be discussed. I just wasn't sure how and when to bring them up. Especially given number three, the hardest one to say, the one I didn't want to think about at all:

  I have a lot of explaining to do, too. Like, a lot.

  …so much that I didn't know where to start. Part of me wanted to let it all ride, to let both of our shit unfold over time. But that approach might complicate number four:

  I know it's only been two weeks and we're all kinds of fucked up, but I desperately want you back.

  Based on his letters, getting back together was exactly what Jagger wanted. Would he still want it if he knew the truth? Because I was fairly certain he'd placed the Roxy he wanted on a pedestal, while the real Roxy was rooted to earth.

  The phone rang—I ignored it—I was too deep in thought, and I knew that my dad would pick up. Half a minute later he stomped into the kitchen, looking annoyed as he handed me the phone.

  "It's your mom.”

  I was already shaking my head by the time I mouthed a "no", but he gave me a look that threatened what would happen if I didn't take it. She, too, had been calling through the weekend but I’d added her to the list of people who I was ignoring. She didn't even wait for me to speak before she started talking at me.

  “Rox-xy!” she whined in an adolescent voice. "Baby, where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you."

  I groaned internally, not in the mood for this after the kind of week I'd had. My mother was the last person I wanted to speak to.

  “You could've just called Dad if you were worried whether I was alright."

  I didn't hide the irritation in my voice.

  "Of course you were alright," she nearly huffed, with an emphasis on “you”. "If you weren't, Lucas would've called."

  I rolled my eyes, intent on hustling her off of the phone.

  "Well, listen. It's been real and all, but I need to get to school. I've already missed two days so I don't want to be late."

  I knew if she wasn't calling to make sure I was okay, she was having some kind of crisis. I also knew she wouldn’t ask what had happened to me that had kept me out of school for two days.

  "Something terrible has happened!" she exclaimed tearfully before her voice lowered. “I broke off my engagement with Adam.“

  I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath, anticipating the melodramatic display that was sure to come. She'd flipped her shit over lesser breakups, but this wasn’t just some guy she’d been dating awhile—this was a publicly-announced engagement. Inasmuch as it had been her meal ticket to the rich and famous buffet, I was 99% sure it hadn’t been she who broke it off.

  Once upon a time, I would have simply remained silent, would have let her verbal diarrhea run its course. I would have offered her words of comfort and commiserated with her every self-deception, her every piece of flawed logic that rendered what had happened not-her-fault. I would have glossed over the commonalities among her relationship failures, agreeing that, indeed, she deserved better, knowing all along that she would repeat the same kind of behavior—again.

  So what are you gonna do, Roxy? Take a stand for once? Or, let her make you pick up the pieces?

  "I'm sorry to hear that, Mom. You seemed happy while it lasted."

  Ignoring my brush-off completely, she commenced the verbal diarrhea anyway.

  "Yeah, well Adam's a lying sack of shit, just like all the others," she said, her voice now cold. "From here on out, Roxy, I am finished with men."

  I am finished with men.

  How many times had she said the same words? I'd once held out hope she'd make them true. If I was honest, my mother "finishing" with men had been my greatest wish when I was young. If she did that, I'd thought, she would finally choose me. But, fuck it—times had changed. In the eight months since moving to the town that I’d thought would bore me to tears, I’d bonded with my dad, made my first best friend, and fallen in love with a boy. My whole life in Rye had been a much-needed dose of normal, and I wasn't going back to crazy town with her.

  “…but now that I'm back in L.A., we're gonna put things back the way they belong. Remember that street we could never—”

  She prattled on, but I tuned out for an enraged minute.

  What the fuck does she mean, "we"?

  "I talked to the school, and they'll take you back any time. And guess what? I'm giving you my Accord so you'll have something to drive. I have a little money saved from what I made on tour—not as much as I’m entitled to, of course—but at least Adam’s influence was good for something. Did you know…"

  I seethed with anger. It was all too much. By the time she finished her absurd fairy tale, I had fallen deadly silent.

  "Roxy?" she asked after a moment. "Baby, are you still there?"

  When I spoke, it took effort not to scream. My teeth were clenched, my voice was a low growl, and the fist not holding the phone was clenched at my side.

  "I'm not coming back.”

  "What?" The sincerity of her surprise incensed me. After eight months, it still did not occur to my facile mother that I was better off without her.

  "I said..." My voice rose to dangerous levels. “Even if I hated Rye as much as you did, I would sooner run away than come back to L.A. to live with you!”

  By then, I'd pushed back from the kitchen table and my voice had echoed loudly.

  "Why are you being like this?" she sniffled, immediately the victim. "I called to tell you that I want you to come home."

  I didn't care that I was on my feet yelling at my phone that sat, face-up on the kitchen table, or that my father had just barreled back in.

  "I am home, Mom! And if you knew anything you'd know I have everything I need right here. I have friends my own age, and my boyfriend is not a lying sack of shit. Sure he's got flaws, but he's an amazing person and I might lose him because of you!"

  By the time my dad ripped the phone from my hand and took it off of speaker, angry tears raced down my face. Tucking me under a protective arm, he took over with my mother.

  "I would send her to Judy before I'd let her go back to L.A., but in case you missed it, she likes it here. This conversation is over, Star. If you're stupid enough to sue for custody, I won't hesitate to provide the court with evidence of a few things I'm sure they would be eager to know. And I know you know exactly what I'm talking about."

  I was too busy soaking my tears on his shirt to strain my ears and catch the other half of the conversation.

  "Well, it was a mistake for me to let her go, too,” my dad continued a few seconds later. “But, I got my shit together before it was too late for me to be her dad. If you want a relationship with her, I'd advise you to do the same.”

  Once again, I didn’t hear her retort, though it sounded indignant from what little I could hear of her tone. But my dad gave as good as he got.

  “You have no more control over whether or who she leaves behind than anyone had over you. Don’t forget—she’s al
most eighteen."

  He clicked the phone off and set it—more like threw it—back on the table and collected me into his arms. We each caught our breath for a long minute until I sniffled a bit and pulled back.

  "Aunt Judy?" I swiped at my eyes as I asked.

  He gave me a mischievous smile at the mention of his ultra-conservative sister.

  "You know how she feels about Judy."

  Kissing the top of my head, he took a step back and gave me a serious look.

  "You are the best thing in my life, kid and I would never take back having you. But I'm sorry I gave you Star.”

  I sniffled involuntarily and squeezed my eyes shut.

  "What if I turn out like her?" I whisper-sobbed.

  His hand squeezed my shoulder, which he shook firmly but gently.

  “Roxx, the only thing you inherited from Star was her beauty."

  I opened my eyes and new tears spilled forth. This time he wiped them away.

  "I'd like to say you got all your great qualities from me. But the truth is you've always been your own person."

  He wiped another tear, and I nodded weakly, half-knowing that it was true.

  "I don't know what to do, Dad…to fix things with Jagger. I told him to stay away until I made a move, except now I have no clue how to make things right."

  "He'd take anything, Roxx—you have to see that. And he didn't stay away."

  Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out an envelope written upon with Jagger's unmistakable script.

  "He dropped it off in the middle of the night."

  I raised my eyebrow in question, but my dad just shrugged.

  "I was up."

  I ripped it open as delicately as my thinning sanity could handle, reading it slowly, at the beginning from fear, but soon to caress and savor his unbelievable words. By the end, my eyes were blurry with tears, but I got the most important parts. His letter made me feel like the luckiest, most cherished, most unoriginal person on earth. I looked up, in earnest, for help.

  "He writes me love letters, Dad. And sleeps on our porch. Did you know he knows how to write songs? I want to apologize, but I can't think of anything that isn't completely lame.” I wiped at my eyes again, still looking up at my father. "What's the most romantic thing you've ever done, Dad?"

  "Uh-uh, kid. Don't take lessons from me." He smiled wryly. "Nothing I did ever worked."

  "Please," I begged. "I'm desperate. I've never been in love. I need all the help I can get."

  My dad’s eyes widened, and I realized I’d used the “L”-word. It sounded perfect rolling off of my tongue.

  “The best advice Pop-Pop ever gave me was to forget about chocolates and roses. It has to be personal. You win a woman over by doing things that matter to her.”

  I thought about stolen iPods and Foo Fighter tickets and love song lyrics written on guitar-monogrammed paper. I remembered Skittles and Coke and toasted bagels with cream cheese and coffee with too much cream and sugar. I thought of passing notes in Civics and trading texts during class and writing innuendo-filled messages on Instagram. I thought of love letters and flowers picked straight from his mother's garden. That was where I had to start: with thinking of something that would feel sweet to jagger, just like every romantic gesture Jagger had ever done had been just for me.

  Twenty-Nine

  Total Eclipse of the Heart

  And I need you now tonight.

  And I need you more than ever.

  And if you only hold me tight,

  we'll be holding on forever.

  And we'll only be making it right,

  ‘cause we'll never be wrong together.

  -Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart

  ELSIE MONROE

  “Jack.”

  My eyes shifted from the sitting room entryway to my husband's reading chair. At the moment, he was doing just that, his nose in the afternoon paper. Either he hadn't heard me or he was pretending not to; the newspaper made it hard to know which. Slow, sad notes from Jagger's piano in the parlour below may have drowned out my voice.

  “Jack.” I hissed louder, leaning around the mica lamp and over the table that separated our chairs.

  He looked up this time, bending the corner of his paper low enough for him to see my face. He looked sexy like that, brow furrowed in concentration as his reading glasses sat on his nose. Pushing that thought aside, I shifted my eyes back to the piano room and motioned toward it with my head.

  Jagger, I mouthed, looking pointedly at my husband. Listen to what he's playing.

  Jack pulled his glasses off and folded up his paper. I watched recognition cross his face as he identified the song: Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones.

  "Do something," I said out loud this time.

  He looked at me sadly and spoke with compassion. "This is what seventeen-year-old boys do, my love. They suffer from broken hearts."

  But I shook my head. "I've been watching him all week. He’s getting worse. I found him face-up on his bed this morning listening to Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone on a loop. It's time to intervene."

  He patted my hand in a gesture I was sure he meant to be soothing.

  "Coddling him is only easier on us, love. He needs to learn to make it on his own."

  Then my stubborn husband went back to reading his paper. I sat back in my chair in a huff, still worried about my son, wanting more to throw my book at Jack than to read it. I knew he was doing what he thought was right, but Jagger's vibe felt wrong. Heartbreak was part of growing up, but the music shouldn't hurt like this.

  At some point, he transitioned into Nothing Compares 2 U.

  Oh, God—it's getting worse.

  My lips worried at my fingernails as Jagger's emotion poured painfully through his song. When it came to an end, I willed him to pull himself up off of his bench, to take a step towards whatever came next. But after a long pause, new notes rang out definitively. My determination to engage my husband multiplied when I recognized the song.

  "Damnit, Jack, listen!" I whisper-shouted.

  This time he folded his paper and threw me the same sympathetic-but-complacent look. I rolled my eyes and pointed exasperatedly at my ear. His face clouded over the moment he figured out the song.

  "Is that Total Eclipse of the Heart?"

  I nodded sadly, sure that his comprehension finally mirrored my own.

  "Jesus Christ.” He looked toward the door that led down to the parlor.

  I saw in his eyes the moment he decided to take action.

  "To the office, dear. It's time for an intervention!"

  I rolled my eyes, but stood up.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  Jagger

  Bouncing in time with the music and working my fingers furiously over the plastic buttons, my video game guitar took the brunt of my aggression as I sang at the top of my lungs.

  "And it feels, and it feeell-lls like, heaven's so far away! And it feels, and it feeell-lls like, world is so cold, now that you've gone away! Gone away…gone away. Yeah. Yeah—"

  "—Son—"

  "—Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oooo-ooooh! Oooo—"

  "—Son!"

  Whipping around in utter surprise, I saw that I hadn't heard wrong. My parents rarely came into my room without my knowledge but indeed I was not alone. My dad stood by my bed, remote control in hand, turning the music down.

  Oh. I guess it was pretty loud.

  After fiddling with the buttons 'til he gave up and turned the whole thing off, he strode back a step to wrap his arm around my mother.

  "Sweetheart, we came to talk to you about Roxy," she began. "You seem to be taking it hard."

  I'd seen in their eyes that this moment was coming. They were a united front.

  "We love you, son. And we'd like to help you get her back. We'd like to offer our resources."

  I plodded over to my bed and flopped down on my back 'til I was looking up at the ceiling. I’d been doing that a lot.

  "Your resources?"
>
  They were talking about money, but I couldn't see how that would help me win Roxy back. If anything, something too showy might hurt my case.

  "You've been at home sulking for the greater part of two days," my Dad said a bit sternly. "It's time to get back on the horse. You're not the first man to be in the doghouse, son—now it's time to get her back."

  I groaned. Because I’d tried! I wanted to shout it even more loudly than I'd been singing. Couldn't they see I'd tried?

  "You need a grand gesture, dear. Grander than the others. We'll pay for you to move the piano."

  I sat up then and looked between them like they were crazy.

  "Move the piano where?"

  "Under Roxy's bedroom window, of course," My Dad chimed in. "You'll write a song for her, then play it beneath her window. Play it ’til she comes out.”

  When I looked at my mother, she was smiling conspiratorially.

  "Go all Lloyd Dobbler on her ass."

  My parents looked so determined, so well-intentioned and driven to help, that I smiled a sad little smile. They sat on my bed, one on each side of me, cinching their arms around my back.

  “I don’t know,” I mused. It did sound kind of perfect, but was it all a bit too 1989?

  “She asked for space,” I said miserably, trying not to cry. "Last night, she asked me to leave her alone. And I get it—I mean, I have kind of been stalking her, so…"

  My Mom pulled my head onto her shoulder, and we sat in silence for awhile. I felt so much less bereft in the protective fold of my parents' arms. I was exhausted all of a sudden and I hoped that maybe tonight I wouldn't have any trouble falling asleep. When my Dad started telling me a story, it reminded me of when I was very little, and I let myself get lost.

  "Did I ever tell you that before I met Mom, Nana wanted me to marry someone else? Her name was Lily—she was my best friend of fifteen years. We grew up together, and our families were friends. To Nana—and everyone else, for that matter—it was a given that we would end up together."

  "When I met Mom at UCLA, I never told her about Lily. At the time, I told myself all kinds of lies as to why. Lily was beautiful, and we were close, and we shared private jokes, but things between us weren't romantic. The truth was, I didn’t think Mom would understand.”