Falling for Forever

by Melissa Chambers

  He shifts his glance to me for just a brief moment. I soak up the reference to my America’s Newest Sensation experience. It’s about damn time I get some recognition for that.

  “I want you to take these next forty-five minutes to write lyrics to fit into one of these patterns. We’re not talking about one-upping ‘Stairway to Heaven’ here. We’re talking about placing words into patterns. I’m going to give you a writing prompt. Feel free to use it.” He shrugs. “But if you have something better in mind, feel free to use that, too.”

  A guy across the room says, “Can we use something we’ve already written?”

  Mr. Weston laughs. “I wouldn’t if I were you. I’ve got my eye on you now. As for the rest of you, I’m not sure how I’d know.”

  The guy shifts in his seat, hanging his head while his partner backhands him on the thigh.

  “Seriously, folks,” Weston says, “this class is your class. It’s your time. You can use it to learn and get better, or you can use it to screw off and be lazy. Choice is yours.”

  Miles glares at the slack off guy like he’s a turd in the middle of a swimming pool.

  “Do your worst, folks. I’ll start making my way around in about fifteen.” Mr. Weston gets a piece of chalk and writes the word ammo on the board. He sits at his computer with the stack of homework and covers his ears with headphones.

  Miles turns his body toward me, staring down at his notebook paper. He shifts on his beanbag, giving his tail end an irritable glance. I know he hates me having the high ground up here in his wooden chair, which I love.

  “Give the slacker guy a break,” I say. “He probably has some fantastic lyric he’s been dying to share with somebody and this is his chance.”

  “More like he wants to spend the hour flirting with Lana.”

  I look at his partner who’s hard at work, running her finger down a page of notes. “Doesn’t look like she’s having that.”

  Miles stares at the word on the board.

  “You got something better?” I ask.

  “Not necessarily,” he says.

  “What do you want to write about then? War? Gun control? Violence?”

  He squints at the wall. “What about ammo that people keep in their arsenal. Things you say or do that someone else excuses, but doesn’t forget, and it sits and stirs, multiplies as days or weeks or months pass.”

  My dad is the first thought that pops into my mind. He’s sitting on a stockpile of ammo. Before my mom left, the two of them argued. Not constantly, but enough. I remember that. But since she’s been back, she’s been as quiet as a mouse, agreeable. I imagine my mother arguing that my dad was inconsiderate for forgetting her birthday. He could counter with, “What about the three birthdays of Jenna’s and mine? Where were you for those?” Ammo. A shit ton of it.

  “Let’s do it.” I search the room for a spot with more privacy. “Want to move to those beanbags in the corner over there?”

  He looks at Mr. Weston and then back to me. He’s such a rule follower.

  I stand up. “Come on.”

  He follows me over there, looking again for Weston’s approval, but Weston doesn’t seem to give a crap.

  I crunch into the beanbag, settling in. “So, what ammo do you have in your arsenal?”

  He shakes his head. “None.”

  “Then what ammo is someone holding over you?”

  “None that I know of.”

  I cock my head to the side. “If we’re going to do this, you’re going to have to open up to me.”

  He furrows his brow, looking down at his pen. “I don’t know.”

  I make a point of glancing up at the clock. “Look, we’ve got fifteen minutes before Weston starts making his rounds. I know this is a quick and dirty exercise, but I’d like to impress, and I think you would, too.” I narrow my gaze at him, like I’m searching his brain.

  He scratches his brow. “Yeah. Okay. Well…what about you?”

  Ugh. I know I have to take what I dish, but I was really hoping to get him to go first. “I thought we were talking about you.”

  He shifts around on the beanbag. “Okay. Well, maybe I knew this girl once who was always saying she was fine, but then would like blow up at me when it all built up.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “An ex?”

  He shrugs with a nod. “Yeah.”

  Miles has a past with an ex. Not that I thought he’d never dated, but the confirmation sort of makes me interested. Who was she? What was she like? “Well, give me an example.” I put my pen to my paper, like I’m ready to take notes.

  He pushes his glasses up. “Well, like when we would go out to eat, I’d ask her where she wanted to go, and she’d always say she didn’t care.”

  “Don’t you hate that?” I ask. “When someone asks me where I want to go, I name a place.”

  His eyes widen. “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead,” I say.

  “So I would say, ‘What about SATCO?’ and instead of saying yes or no, she’d say, ‘I don’t care.’”

  I hold up a hand. “I officially give you permission to break up with this girl.”

  His lips barely quirk up in a smile. “We’re not together anymore.”

  I figured, but still, it’s sort of an odd relief. “Sorry. Continue.”

  “So then she’d pick at her food and say she wasn’t hungry, but then she’d want something an hour later, and I’d ask her why she didn’t eat before, and she’d lay into me about how I knew she didn’t like Tex-Mex so why did I try to make her go there.”

  “Did you know she didn’t like Tex-Mex?”

  He tosses up his hands. “No. Apparently she’d said something about not liking tacos once, but they were fish tacos.”

  “Which are so not Tex-Mex.”

  “Exactly.”

  I smile at him, and he starts to smile back, but then looks down at his notebook and taps his pen.

  “Okay, so that’s what…” I try to think of the words for that kind of behavior where people say something different from what they are thinking, but I’m coming up empty.

  “It’s called passive-aggressive,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say.

  He shrugs. “That’s what my mom calls her sister. Passive-aggressive.”

  I consider the two opposite meanings of the words, and they make sense now together.

  “So maybe we look at it from her point of view,” I say. “She’s irritated because she’s letting all this stuff build up inside her, and then she blows up, but it’s not really because of Tex-Mex food. Maybe it’s because she’s expecting you to be this perfect guy who understands exactly who she is and what she wants and needs.”

  He raises his eyebrows and shrugs. “Pretty much.”

  “So maybe we work that into our lyrics by exemplifying something that festers and builds like an infected wound until the pain starts throbbing, and you can’t take it anymore.”

  He looks a little surprised. “Yeah.”

  “Maybe something like…bullets multiply like unused accusations, ready aim fire…” I search for the next words.

  We both sit in silence for too long.

  Miles narrows his gaze at his notebook. “I like accusations, but it’s hard to rhyme. Too many syllables.”

  “Okay, let’s keep brainstorming,” I say. “What else? Tell me another way she held ammo against you.”

  He looks at me from under that dark mop of hair. “Don’t you think it’s your turn to spill?” he asks.

  My chest ignites at the idea of telling Miles personal stuff about me, but I just made him do it.

  I inhale a deep breath and tap my pen against my notebook. “Well, I guess I can see where my dad holds ammo against my mom. But I really don’t think he’ll ever use it.”

  He furrows his brow. “What kind of ammo?”

  I shrug. “She was just…kind of crappy to him a while back, and so now, she can’t really complain about much because she knows he’ll be like, ‘Remember when you were cra
ppy to me?’”

  He lowers his chin. “Kind of crappy?”

  I let out an agitated breath. “She was really crappy, okay?”

  He looks concerned. “Did she…like…” He trails off, and turns away.

  “No, she didn’t cheat on him. Well, I don’t know if she did or not. I don’t want to think about it…” I grunt out of frustration.

  He puts his hand on my knee. “Hey, it’s okay. We can just make some stuff up for the assignment. Weston said it was only a gauge, anyway.”

  I meet his gaze, kind of overwhelmed that he’d be willing to do less than his most stellar work so I don’t have to open up to him. I don’t talk about this…like ever. Chloe knows, but that is it. And she and I don’t discuss it. I just told her once because it came up somehow and I was spending the night with her, and it was dark, and we were talking, and it just happened. But when she brought it up again, I shut her down in no uncertain terms, and she’s never brought it up since. But it’s pretty precious that he’s being so cool about it, especially after I pushed him, so I think I might do this.

  I look down at my legs and rub my hands together in my lap, my notepad tipping over to the floor. “My mom left when I was six, and she didn’t come back until my tenth birthday. So you can probably see where she doesn’t have the right to complain too much or…” I trail off, the strangeness of saying these words aloud doing weird things to my voice.

  “Or he could pull out his ammo,” he finishes.

  I nod, messing with my pen.

  He holds a hand out close to mine, an offer of comfort so tender and simple. And I want to take his hand, but I don’t want to seem weak, because I’m not. We’re just talking about a song here. Ammo. I need to keep us focused. I give a little shake of my head and fluff my hair out to the sides, and he retracts his hand.

  “So,” I say, sitting up straight. “I’m thinking…festering wounds…puss oozing out…maybe some blood spilling onto carpet. A love song, really.”

  I smile at him, and he smiles back at me, this time with a kindness in his eyes that he hasn’t shown me yet. “An emo love song,” he says.

  I roll my eyes. “Oh god, yes. It will be perfect. Will you perform it?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t do emo.”

  I punch a fist pump. “Yes! We can agree on one thing!”

  Half an hour later, Weston makes his way toward us. “You guys need any help?” he asks.

  We consider each other and shake our heads in unison. “We’re good,” Miles says.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Weston says with an uplifted chin, and moves on.

  Before I realize the time has passed, the bell rings. Miles and I look at each other. “Crap, it’s already time?” he asks.

  “Drop off whatever you have right here before you leave,” Weston says.

  “But it’s not ready,” Nicolette says from across the room.

  “I don’t care if you have one line. I just want a gauge here so I can see where to take the next few lessons. You’re not being graded or judged for these.”

  I lean in close to Miles’s ear. “I call bullshit on that.”

  He gives me a knowing nod.

  I drop our page in the pile, and I make eye contact with Weston. “Great songs are not written in a classroom.”

  He nods agreement. “True, but a good writing team only needs one another to make a song great, no matter what their environment is.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Touché.”

  We head out of the classroom, the song we just wrote weighing heavily on my chest. We walk together…sort of, but not really, mainly just in the same direction.

  He stops at his locker. I wave. “See ya.”

  He gives a little tilt of his head. “Yeah.”

  I inhale a deep breath as I walk to my locker. That was intense…especially for a class at school. I put my books up and then head into the guitar conservatory where I wait for Shane.

  He walks in and flashes that smile of his, running his hand through a thick head of dirty blond hair. Again, typically I’d be swooning a little, but nothing is doing in that arena, at least not yet. It’s not like I need to jump into dating right now anyway. I just started at this school. I need to weigh all my options and get some history on these people before I decide if I want any of their tongues in my mouth.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  I jump down off the table I’m sitting on. “Sure.” We head toward the front of the school.

  “How was Music? You have that fourth period, right?” he asks.

  I furrow my brow. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “I know that’s when Miles has it.”

  I nudge him in the side. “What, do you keep tabs on him or something?”

  He shrugs. “Have to around here. This school’s competitive as hell, in case you haven’t noticed.” He cuts his eyes at me. “Has he told you what he’s doing for the talent show yet?”

  “I haven’t asked.”

  He points at me. “You’ve got an in. You should ask him.”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  He shakes his head. “We’re not tight.”

  I chuckle. “Do you have bad blood?”

  “No, we’re cool, we just hang with different friends.”

  “You could choose to hang together.” He waves me off and heads into the cafeteria. I stop. “Where are you going?”

  He turns around. “Lunch.”

  I jerk a thumb behind my back. “There’s a grilled cheese truck out here.”

  He turns back toward the cafeteria. “Let’s just eat here.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Do they have amazing grilled cheeses?”

  He huffs a laugh. “No, they suck. But they’re free.”

  “Grilled cheeses are free here?” I ask.

  “Lunch is free here.” He nods at the caf.

  I shrug. “Okay.” I follow him to the line, which is really short.

  He smirks. “Did Cleveland take you to the food trucks yesterday?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Figures,” he says under his breath.

  I take a yogurt parfait with a little liquid floating on top of the cut strawberries. “Why does that figure?”

  He puts a bowl of spaghetti on his tray. “How are you going to school here? I thought you were from Chattanooga,” he asks, ignoring my question.

  I start to ask him how he knew that, then I remembered he was a fan of the show. “We’re moving here.”

  “Cool. Where to?”

  “The Adagio,” I say.

  He nods at the lady who inspects our trays and then we head to a table. “That’s badass.” He shrugs the paper off his straw. “Your parents must be really cool. They’re bluegrass musicians, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, a little weirded out by how much he knows about me. But then, my life was on display for all of America earlier this year.

  “I YouTubed a couple of their videos last night. They’re freaking talented.”

  “Thanks,” I say, not sure why I’m taking the credit. “What about you? Where do you live?”

  “East Nashville, off Gallatin Road.”

  “Oh, like near Five Points?” I imagine for a minute how cool it’d be to walk to Rosepepper and Five Points Pizza from home.

  He huffs a laugh. “Not far from there, but not exactly the side you’re thinking.”

  I shrug. “What am I thinking?”

  He rolls his eyes. “When most people think East Nashville, they think expensive old houses and trendy restaurants. They forget the other side of Gallatin where my people live because it’s all we can afford.”

  We shut up and eat for a while. I feel like I can do that with him…not talk. I’m really liking the friendship vibe I get from him.

  He drops his fork and grimaces. “That was seriously gross.”

  I scrape the bottom of my parfait. “Looked disgusting.”

  He checks the wall clock. “We’ve got a while
. You want to walk outside a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  A beautiful October day hits me in the face as we step out the door onto the front lawn and into the sun. “Feels good out here,” I say.

  “Jenna!”

  I turn my head to find Nicolette, Greta, and the other girl they were with that night at The Glass Vortex with Miles and two other guys. My heart does a little two-step. It is so seriously weird this geeky guy is doing this to me, and this hot guy I just had lunch with is feeling like a brother.

  They sit on a quilt, the debris from their lunch strewn about. Nicolette waves us over. Shane hesitates, but I tug his shirt, and he follows.

  “Have you met Nat and Dev yet?” Nicolette asks.

  “Nope,” I say, holding out my hand. I like to shake hands with people when I meet them. My dad says you can tell a lot in a person’s handshake—especially their level of confidence.

  “Dev,” the one who looks like he might be Indian says, offering his hand to me. He gives a fairly firm shake, but Nat’s wary. I wonder which ones of these people know about me taking Miles’s number. By the look on Nat’s face, I’m guessing he does.

  “Jenna and Miles are songwriting partners,” Nicolette offers to the group.

  “Miles is the best composer at the school,” Dev says. “You hit the jackpot.”

  I shrug. “Or he did.”

  Shane likes this, giving a smile. Miles looks between Shane and me, gauging.

  “She probably learned a few things on America’s Newest Sensation,” Nicolette says.

  Greta looks me up and down, but not in a mean way. “She had Ginger Justice for a vocal coach one week. Was she amazingly awesome?”

  I glance at Miles, uneasy at the whole Sensation talk in front of him. He doodles on a sketchpad, his expression unchanging. I shrug. “She was cool.”

  The Keke Palmer lookalike, Jasmine I think her name was, strokes gold polish onto her long nails, which looks really cool against her dark skin. She holds up her hand to inspect her work. “Forget Ginger Justice. She sang on stage with Malik Paxton.”

  “So do you like…know Adam Bowling?” Dev asks, his nose scrunched up a little, like he doesn’t believe me. Did he see the show?

  I laugh. “Yeah. We lived together on the same hotel floor for like seven weeks.”