The Way It Hurts

by Patty Blount

  It took twenty minutes or so to play through the album. Despite the terrible name, Common Kiss was actually good. I put a question mark next to that name in my book; I needed to find out what the hell it meant. I switched focus to the lead singer. His voice was unusual; he had an impressive extended range that almost forced you to listen, and he didn’t just hit the high notes—he put them into comas. But yet, he only did that for the high notes. I don’t know… It felt like he was holding back, like he was afraid to cut loose on the rest of his range. Common Kiss could be uncommon if their front man would take a few risks.

  Risks.

  Hmm. I kind of liked the idea of doing something risky with this song. The lyrics were edgy; they just needed a voice with the guts to punch them. I jotted down a note and turned to lead guitar next. Sure, every other guy can play a decent guitar these days, but finding a solid axeman whose technical ability and creative potential were both excellent was like finding the fucking Holy Grail. This guy wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t great, either. The riffs were cool, the sound was sturdy, but I kept hearing the same couple of chords repeated. The nicest thing I could say about him was he was…competent.

  “Eli, what’s your favorite track?”

  I glanced over at Sam. “Uh, I guess ‘Shout from the Roof’ and maybe ‘Lie Like You Mean It.’”

  “Yeah. ‘Lie Like You Mean It’ is good,” Nick agreed.

  Sam nodded. “Okay, what do you guys think of amping up the power?”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Lie Like You Mean It” wasn’t death or thrash; it was just a little rougher than radio rock, and that, I figured, was their goal. Common Kiss was straddling the line between mainstream and hard rock. If we amped up the power, that could add in the element of risk I was just thinking about. “Give it some head-banging potential? It’ll never get air time.”

  Sam grinned. “True, but it will get attention.”

  And by attention, Sam meant clicks for us. I nodded. Maybe this would be the one that went viral. “Okay. You work on the melody, and I’ll do something with the lyrics.” I did some fast calculations. We usually put up a blog post on the last Friday of the month. That gave us a couple of weeks for the cover song arrangement and the review. We’d post it to our website and to YouTube and hope the resulting Internet traffic would impress the county festival planners before they made their final decision.

  My cell phone buzzed with a Facebook notification. “Shit. It’s a friend request.”

  “Your white cat?” Nick grinned, but Sam just looked away.

  “What?” I demanded.

  Sam shook his head. “We’re busy right now. Can you not drop everything just for some chick?”

  It took every ounce of strength I had to shove the phone back in my pocket and be cool.

  6

  Kristen

  @CalaLilly22

  OMG just saw the best show evah off Broadway! #Cats #BearRiverHSNorth White Cat = Awesome!

  9 RETWEETS 4 FAVORITES

  @MikeyT

  Damn, the White Cat is fine! #Cats #CatCall #BearRiverHSNorth

  12 RETWEETS 8 FAVORITES

  @Abby99x

  U seen this @kristencartwright? RT Ride_Out: Wanna hear her scream! #CatCall

  49 RETWEETS 78 FAVORITES

  I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand. Smiling, I swiped at it, wondering how many reviews and congratulatory notes awaited me. I scrolled through the list, happy to see so many. Rachel, my best friend, sent me this: Hey, Kris! Check out Twitter! You’re trending. #CatCall

  Oooh. I grabbed my laptop, logged into Twitter, and did a quick search. Sure enough, the #CatCall hashtag had been really busy since last night. There were over a hundred tweets. Oh my God, how cool! With my heart thundering and my stomach flipping, I started reading them one at a time.

  @KitKatKar

  @kristencartwright Excellent technique, Victoria #CatCall

  @Luv2Dance

  Impressive solo dance @kristencartwright #Cats #BearRiverHSNorth #CatCall

  @BeAStar

  OMG just saw the best show evah off Broadway! #Cats #BearRiverHSNorth White Cat = Awesome!

  @everKool

  Damn, the White Cat is fine! #Cats #CatCall #BearRiverHSNorth

  Okay. This was good. I smiled wide and was about to get out of bed when I saw this one.

  @Like2HaveFun

  Whoa, the tits on the White Cat are niiiiiice. #CatCall

  I glanced at the bra I’d tossed on the floor and wished—not for the first time—that it was a dainty A cup.

  Please God, make sure Dad never sees this stream.

  Like a terrible accident you can’t turn away from, I kept looking. Oh, the posts weren’t all about my chest. Some were just generically mean.

  @LaceWing

  I hate when high schools attempt Broadway shows. They’re never good. #CatCall #BearRiverHSNorth

  @JaneAir

  OMG, who played Victoria? Amazed she didn’t topple over! LOL! #CatCall

  Okay. That one was about my boobs.

  @SewWhat

  Wow, costumes look like leftovers from some teenager’s Halloween party. #CatCall #BearRiverHSNorth

  I closed my laptop with a sigh. Why did I read the reviews? I knew better. I had to be onstage in a few hours! And I had to figure out a new plan for my conservatory applications now that my summer program wasn’t going to happen. Now all I was going to be thinking about was how big my boobs looked. I needed a distraction.

  Like magic, a name danced through my mind.

  Elijah.

  I grabbed my computer, went to Facebook, and searched for Elijah Hamilton.

  What a great name for a guy in a band. I said it out loud a few times, loving the way it felt rolling off my tongue. I scrolled through a couple of profiles before I found him. He played bass guitar—which explained the calluses—and was the lead singer for a band called Ride Out.

  Oh my God.

  Quickly, I opened my browser and logged onto the Beat’s metal forum, scrolling through all those insulting posts directed toward me.

  It was the same band.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. I liked this guy. A lot. I wasn’t just flattered he wanted to sing with me, I was honored, and now I discover he’s the same jerk posting these insulting comments? Well, he could just drop dead. I won’t ruin my vocal chords for him trying to scream and growl the way he did in those sample files he always posted.

  Metal singing takes a lot of skill, BroadwayBaby17. Stick to Bieber! Leave the hard stuff to us.

  That was the last post on the Beat from some jerk called FretGuy99. Whoever he was, he was an even bigger ass than Elijah Hamilton. He had no respect for music outside his own genre, like I did. Pop, rock, country, opera—I respected it all and understood it took different skill sets to deliver different performances. I had no doubt I could handle the dark heavy metal that FretGuy99 seemed to worship so much—if I were into it. I wasn’t into it.

  But I was into Elijah Hamilton.

  I scrolled through the stuff on his wall I was allowed to see (until we were officially friends according to Facebook) and found an image of Elijah curled over a notebook, pen between his teeth and guitar on his lap. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he had this look of intensity, but it wasn’t frustration.

  It was happiness.

  Wow. The only time I was happy, truly happy, with my work was when I was onstage. The problem was that was the end of the process—the delivery. Everything that led to that moment—the rehearsing and practicing, the studying, all that theory and technique—well, it was starting to bore me now.

  I had at least four more years of that grueling work ahead of me at whatever conservatory finally accepted me.

  I stared at that image for a long while and then
clicked the link to send Elijah of the Intense Eyes a friend request.

  Okay, so what if he was the jerk in Ride Out who posted mean replies to me? He was also hot. And he didn’t know I was BroadwayBaby17. So maybe, if I sang in his band, he could teach me that kind of happiness.

  • • •

  The days passed. The show was over. I just wanted to pull the blankets over my head and stay in my bed.

  I hated this part of theater. Tearing down sets, putting away the costumes. Was it good? Was I good? People in the corridors at school shouted compliments and even applauded, but that would fade away too. Life would move on. Things would go back to normal.

  Normal.

  God, I hated that word. It was a lot like not that special. Who the hell wanted to be normal when you could be extraordinary and legendary? That’s what I wanted. Etta always said a life worth living is a life lived. When people met Henrietta Cartwright, they became immediate friends. She was this force, this magnetic field everyone else just revolved around—you couldn’t help it. I learned how to work an audience from my grandmother. She hated her name, but she worked it into a legend. She’d pound guys on their backs and tell them, “Call me Hank.” And when she met refined young ladies, she’d sit up straight and say, “I’m Henri. I’m very pleased to meet you.” Except she pronounced it Ahn-ree. And if she really, really liked you, she’d let you call her Etta. I loved calling her that, even though it pissed off Mom. She thought it was disrespectful, but Dad just shrugged.

  Sighing loudly, I dropped into my seat in my first-period class. Rachel raised her eyebrows.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I shut my eyes and slouched low in my seat. “Everything.”

  Rachel laughed. “Kristen, the show is over. I know how depressed you get, but seriously, it’s time to get over that. Everyone thought you killed it. Poor Leah can’t escape it.”

  I opened my eyes at this ray of sunlight peeking through darkness. “Leah’s upset?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Rachel leaned in, blue eyes sparkling with unshared gossip. “I heard her in the first-floor bathroom telling Lorna that it was all her idea that you provide the voice for her role.”

  My back snapped up straight. Her idea? That troll!

  And then I slunk back down in my seat. I didn’t care as much as I thought.

  Rachel’s eyebrows knitted together. “Wow, you’re really upset. What’s up?”

  I blew out a long, loud sigh. “I haven’t heard from that guy from the show yet. He still hasn’t accepted my friend request.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t seen it.” Rachel shrugged.

  I thought about that for a moment. Could be. But he’d seemed so into me. Like he couldn’t wait to hang out. Maybe I waited too long. Maybe he moved on. I took a deep, steadying breath and found my center. Okay. It wasn’t like Dad was going to let me go out with Elijah anyway, so maybe it was just as well he hadn’t accepted my friendship.

  Less temptation.

  The bell rang, and I opened my notebook, but the teacher’s lecture on George Orwell quickly faded into white noise. I couldn’t get Elijah Hamilton out of my head, and it really pissed me off that I wasn’t in his. I thought I’d made an impression. By the time class ended, I was past pissed off and into furious. If I ever saw Elijah Hamilton again, I’d tell him to just drop dead and go to hell.

  It was lunch when I next caught up to Rachel. “Hey!” I smiled wide.

  She blinked at me. “You’re happy now. What happened?”

  I batted my lashes. “Nothing. I just decided to snap out of it.”

  “Yeah, right. Come on, Kris. Spill.”

  I sat down and unwrapped my sandwich. “I decided that Elijah Hamilton isn’t worth a second of my time, that’s what.”

  “The boy from the show? The one with the intense eyes?” Rachel stared at me.

  “Yeah. What? What’s wrong?”

  Slowly she shook her head. “Uh, nothing. You just never mentioned his name is Elijah Hamilton.”

  “You know him?”

  Again, she shook her head. “No. But I’ve heard of him. He’s bad news, okay? You should stay away from him.” She crumbled up her napkin, grabbed her tray, and left me there, wondering what the hell was so terrible about a guy who clearly liked me.

  I watched her dark head blend in with the dozens of others roaming the school and sighed. Rachel was my best friend, but she actually liked normal. I didn’t get it. Why be normal when being extraordinary was so much more fun? Etta was never part of the crowd. The crowd followed her. She once picked me up from school wearing a royal blue turban with a diamond pin in the center. Everyone laughed. But a week later, Beth Sullivan’s mom wore a pink one, so you know what that taught me? Everyone wanted to be noticed. Everyone wanted to be admired.

  I glanced down at the scarlet leather boots on my feet. I wore those because Etta gave them to me, but I loved how nobody else owned anything like them. They were like my trademark now. Maybe I should do more, something to make me completely unique? I ran a hand along my own hair. It was blond, and it looked just like all the other blond girls at school. I should cut it. A nice pixie style—or maybe that totally awesome chic bob that Etta wears. Dad tells me all the time how much I look like her, so maybe I should play that up more? Wear bold red lips and the dramatic eyeliner Etta wears. Or I could do something even more daring than Etta, like—I gasped and smiled as a sudden inspiration struck me: hair color. I could pick up a box after school. Something bold and unexpected like a blue or a purple.

  I finished my lunch, but Rachel’s words kept bouncing around my brain. I snuck my phone out of my bag, made sure no teachers with grabby hands were in confiscating distance, and logged onto Twitter. I searched for the #CatCall hashtag and found the same list of crap I’d already read. But there were more of them now.

  A lot more.

  Don’t read the comments, I told myself. But I did because I was weak and lived for the adoration of my public—such as it was. And then I found something horrifying.

  Elijah Hamilton was the one who started that stupid #CatCall tag.

  The entire thread just got worse. They wanted me to meow, to scream, to howl. I thought he liked me. I really thought he…

  It didn’t matter what I thought. Elijah Hamilton was just another jerk. God, I hated when Dylan was right.

  “Miss Cartwright, are you ill?” The assistant principal suddenly loomed over me.

  “No, Mrs. Powell.”

  “I’ll pretend I don’t see what’s clutched in your hand and allow you to get to your class.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks.” I stuffed the phone in my bag and left the cafeteria, battling tears.

  • • •

  “How could he do that, Etta?” I sobbed.

  “Hush, darling, hush.” She stroked my hair. “Are you absolutely certain he—what is it again?”

  “Twitter. And yes. I am. He posted a picture of me.” I lifted my head from her shoulder and curled my legs under me. Etta handed me the box of tissues from the table beside the sofa, where a framed photo of Etta and Dad sat. I blew my nose loudly and sniffled a few times. “I thought he liked me, Etta. Really liked me.”

  “He does, darling. I saw the boy’s face, and I’m an excellent judge of character, remember?”

  Despite the knife twisting deep in my soul, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Etta could always make me laugh no matter how crappy I felt. That was why I came straight here, instead of running up to my room and hiding under the covers. “Maybe he’s just a good actor.”

  Etta raised both eyebrows over her teacup at that. “Nobody’s that good, darling.” She studied me for a long moment. She wasn’t fully dressed today—no red lips or outlandish eye makeup, but she still looked amazing to me. “Come with me. I have just the thing to cheer you up.”

  I followed her into t
he kitchen—a tiny room at the back of the apartment my parents built for her. The apartment was just large enough for Etta’s acting souvenirs and her. She had a tiny sofa and a flat-screen TV on the wall. Every spot of wall space boasted autographed pictures of Etta and her leading men, Playbills, or reviews of her performances—the good ones, that is. Knowing Etta as well as he did, Dad provided only a basic kitchen. Etta didn’t cook. Not even a little. Her refrigerator held leftovers from the meals Mom cooked or the meals Etta ordered in. I watched while she opened the door to the tiny fridge, rooted around inside for a moment, and surfaced bearing a foil-wrapped package.

  “Sit, sit.” She waved me over to the small bistro table in the corner. I sat on a high stool while she opened the cabinet in the hall, took out one of her fancy plates, the kind rimmed in gold, and brought it to the counter near the fridge. A moment later, she put it down in front of me.

  I gasped.

  Six chocolate-covered strawberries circled the plate, on top of a lace doily. Fresh tears choked me. Etta wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “Oh, hush now. No boy is ever worth your tears, darling. I should know. I married four.”

  “You never cried over a boy, Etta?”

  She pulled out a chair and sat opposite me, studied the plate, and chose a strawberry. She bit into it, closing her eyes with a moan. “Not since I was thirteen years old and Harold Fine decided that Rose DeLuro had nicer…assets…than I did.” She looked pointedly at her chest—noticeably flatter than mine.

  I took after Mom’s side of the family in that department.

  “What about the Four? Didn’t you love them?”

  She slowly chewed her berry, licked her fingers, and shrugged. “I certainly thought I did at the time.”

  “And now?”

  She smiled brightly. “And now I know I am far too self-absorbed to love any man more than I love myself.”