Heart Shaped Rock

by Roppe, Laura

  Dad looks surprised, but he leans back into his chair. We sit in silence for a good fifteen minutes, subtly bobbing our heads to Mom’s music, her distinctive voice filling every nook and cranny of the room. I close my eyes and let the sound of her, the vivid memories of her, the very essence of her, wash over me.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say, breaking the silence, “when you and Mom were teenagers, did you ever break up?”

  Dad smiles. “Oh, sure. In the beginning, we broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together... Your mom never did anything half-way. When we were really young, at any given moment, she either loved me forever, or hated my guts and wanted me dead.”

  I smirk. That sounds like Mom. “When you were broken up, did you ever date other people?”

  He chuckles. “Oh, yeah. Your mom dated the biggest idiot. Marcus Campanelli. God, I hated that guy. He was such a dufus, but your mom thought he was ‘adorable.’ I don’t know what she saw in him.” He shakes his head.

  “And you? Did you date a dufus, too?”

  “Heck no, I dated Lucy Spurlock.”

  “She wasn’t a dufus?”

  “No way, she was gorgeous.”

  “Just ‘cause she was ‘gorgeous’ doesn’t mean she wasn’t a dufus.”

  “She wasn’t a dufus.”

  The image of Dad kissing another girl flashes across my mind. “Did you ever think Lucy was The One?”

  “Oh, heck no, never,” Dad says without hesitation. “I always knew your mom was The One. But, ah, Lucy Spurlock, she was... One.” He chuckles. “And there was Lisa Arsenet, too. She was... Another One.”

  “Ew, gross, Dad.”

  He laughs.

  I’m thoroughly repulsed. I gather my thoughts. “If you and Mom were off sucking other people’s faces now and again, how’d you two finally manage to get back together and make it stick?”

  “Because we were meant to be. And both of us knew it. Whatever path we had to take to get to forever—even if it meant sucking other people’s faces now and again—it was all worth it in the end.”

  I consider this for a moment.

  “The road to forever isn’t paved with easy,” Dad adds. He shrugs like it’s totally normal for him to sound like an ancient Chinese proverb.

  Who knew Dad could be so deep?

  Dad reaches over and squeezes my hand. “It’ll all work out, Shaynee-bug.”

  We sit quietly again, listening to Mom’s voice. “Some things in life are cast in stone,” she sings. “Some things in life are forged in fire. Not everything is meant to be, but you and me, baby, we sure are. We’re written, written, written, oh baby, we’re written, written, written, oh yeah, we’re written in the stars... ”

  Dad squeezes my hand again. “Honey, if this boy loves you—if he’s really ‘The One’ like you think he is—then he’ll forgive you. And if he doesn’t, then it’s just not meant to be.”

  “He’s The One.” I sigh.

  Dad brings my hand up to his lips and kisses it. “Then it’ll all work out.”

  If Mom were here right now, I’d undoubtedly be sitting here, in this very room, on this very spot on the couch, pouring my heart out to her, telling her every tiny detail about Dean and our saga. She had a unique talent for opening me up and making me talk like no one else. Even when I didn’t want to or mean to, I always wound up telling Mom everything.

  I look over at Dad. He’s looking at me so lovingly, so patiently, so sweetly, with such pleading eyes, such earnestness, my heart sort of skips a beat. Poor Dad. He doesn’t know how to unlock the puzzle of me the way Mom always did. I guess he just never got his copy of The Shaynee Manual. I sigh. I’ll just have to do it for him, I realize—I’ll just have to unlock myself.

  “You wanna know the whole, long, tortured story, Dad? ‘The Saga of Dean and Shaynee?’”

  His eyes light up. “Please.”

  For the next half hour, I tell Dad the entire (though slightly edited) narrative of my recent, sometimes electrifying, but mostly heartbreaking, adventures—including only a casual and clinical mention of the fact that “Dean kissed me goodnight in front of Wang Palace” and, later, that “Jared and I kissed on the beach wall.” Dad nods and listens to the whole story as if I’m explaining molecular biology to him, perhaps worried that if he asks a question or inserts any commentary whatsoever, I’ll stop talking. Certainly, with this conversation tonight, we are galloping into uncharted territory together.

  But it feels good.

  “And so,” I finally say, wrapping up my tale of teenage love and woe and tragedy and heartbreak, “after tonight, the whole thing just feels totally and completely hopeless. Dean’s off doing God-knows-what with The Girl with the Man-Gobbling Thighs, and I’ve, once again, managed to play right into C-Bomb’s unshakable world view that I’m wearing a vial of Jared’s blood around my neck. He’s probably telling Dean exactly that, right this very minute.”

  “Hmmm,” Dad says. “It’s a predicament.”

  I sigh loudly, letting my lips flutter with exaggerated vibration. “Yes, it really is.”

  “So, what are you gonna do, my darling daughter?”

  “Really, Dad? The whole reason I told you all this stuff was so I could ask you, ‘Dad, what should I do?’” I throw my hands up in the air. “Come on, Dad. Duh.”

  “Oh.”

  “‘Oh?’ That’s all you got?”

  “Well, gosh, gimme a second. Lemme think.” He’s silent for a moment, giving it the old college try. “Hmm. Yeah. I have no idea what you should do,” he finally says.

  “You’re worthless to me.”

  “Sorry.”

  We sit in silence for a moment.

  “Well,” Dad says slowly, “what would Mom tell you to do?”

  I think about it for one-eighth of a second, because that’s all the time I need to know exactly what she’d say. “She’d tell me to do two things—follow my heart and sing.”

  “Well, then, I guess you’ve got your answer.”

  I bite my lip, deep in thought. “Yeah... I guess I do.” I lean over and kiss Dad on the cheek. “Thanks, Pops.”

  In my bedroom, I sit cross-legged on top of my bed in my monkey pajamas, three items laid out on the bed in front of me: Mom’s DVD, my heart-shaped rock, and my poor, neglected guitar. I pick up the DVD and the rock in each of my hands, willing divine inspiration to zap me like a lightning bolt.

  Nothing comes.

  Frustrated, I put them down and pick up my guitar, but my strumming sounds like naked strumming—and not the beginnings of an epic, girl-wins-boy-back kind of song. Soon, my eyelids become heavy, too heavy to keep open, too heavy to keep strumming, too heavy to feel sorry for myself. And I crawl into bed for the night.

  Chapter 31

  “Mom,” I gasp, my eyes popping open. Sunlight streams through my window. Birds chirp outside. My heart-rock lies next to my head on the pillow.

  Mom.

  She kissed my eyelids. She smoothed my hair. “Sing,” she purred. It seemed so real.

  I sit up.

  Mom sent me a song.

  I leap out of bed and grab my guitar. The song she sent me is still rolling around in my head and sending chills down my spine. If I play it now, quickly, if I bring it to life right away, I’ll trap it before it disappears into the ethers again. I strum a G chord and hum the melody bouncing around inside my head.

  Even if Dean is being swallowed alive by Motorcycle Hoochie’s man-eating thighs right this very second, even if he’s kissing her or doing something even more vomit-inducing with her right now—please, God, no—well, that’s just the way our story goes. Because this is our story, however imperfect and ugly and whacked-out parts of it may be. However we get there, this is the story of how Dean and I arrive at forever.

  Because the road to forever’s not paved with easy, baby.

  I can’t blame Dean if he’s trying to move on. I haven’t told him how I feel. Even if he winds up rejecting me, spitting in my face, c
alling me names, I’ve got to tell him exactly what’s in my heart. Right away. And, now, suddenly, thanks to Mom, I’m positive I need to tell him through music. It’s the only language I can reliably speak without imploding, or rambling, or screwing up. And after watching Dean onstage last night, I know it’s his most earnest form of communication, too.

  I strum my guitar again, and suddenly, the song I was singing at the top of my lungs all night in my dreams pours of me in the real world, too. It’s as if I’ve sung this song a million times before. It tumbles and rolls and slams out of me, rising straight out of my heart and into my fingers and right out of my mouth, all in one fluid whoosh! I don’t need to think; I just need to play. My body has rewired itself to bypass my stupid, complicated, self-sabotaging, over-thinking brain all together.

  I jump into the shower, get dressed, and grab a bowl of cereal, all the while humming my new song and playing along on air-guitar. I race right back into my room and play the song on my actual guitar, again and again and again. After my twentieth time through the song, I’m ready. I know there’s nothing left for me to do but sing it to Dean—and hope and pray he’s able to understand every note and word as the absolute truth.

  I pick up my phone and dial Sheila’s. The phone rings three times. Sheila’s familiar voice comes on the line. “Sheila’s,” she answers. I can hear the Sunday-morning bustle of the coffeehouse in the background.

  “Sheila,” I say, barely able to contain my nervous excitement. “It’s Shaynee.”

  “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

  “Sheila, I need to tell Dean something really important, right away. Can you text me whenever he happens to be there? I’ll race right down, the minute he’s there.”

  Her voice turns to a whisper. “He’s here right now, sweetie.” I can tell she’s cupping the phone receiver with her hand. “Come right now. I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave. Hurry.”

  My heart is racing. “I’m coming now.”

  I throw my guitar into its carrying case and sprint out the front door of my house. “I’m going to Sheila’s, Dad,” I yell on the way out the door. “He’s there.”

  “Good luck,” Dad calls after me.

  Just before turning the key in my ignition, I send Tiffany a quick text: “Going to Sheila’s now. HE’S THERE!”

  No doubt, I’m going to need Tiffany to peel me off the floor if Dean tells me Motorcycle Hoochie is the girl of his dreams, or laughs in my face, or says I’m too-little-too-late, or does anything other than kiss me and tell me he’s mine.

  I pull into the parking lot at Sheila’s, my knuckles turning white on my steering wheel. This is it. Dean is inside this building right now. I’m finally going to tell him how I feel. I leap out of my car and race toward the entrance, only to realize I’ve left my guitar in my backseat. I run back, rolling my eyes at myself. I’m a wreck. Finally, I burst through Sheila’s front door, holding my guitar case in my shaking hand.

  And there he is. As beautiful and breathtaking and heart-stopping as ever.

  Dean is carrying a large cardboard box across the center of the table area, heading to the back room. When I emerge through the front door like a charging rhino, he glances up casually at the noise, and then does a classic double-take that would actually be kind of comical if the situation weren’t so tragic.

  Still holding the box, Dean’s body jerks sharply in my direction—evidence of his instinct to run to me?—but then he shrinks back, wounded, his chest heaving. Oh God, he’s so frickin’ beautiful, my heart literally, physically hurts at the sight of him. I want to fling myself at him.

  It takes every ounce of restraint in my body, but I walk slowly around the perimeter of the room, passing him at a distance, my eyes trained on him, my legs shaking, and I step up onto the wooden stage.

  Dean tracks my every movement like a hungry lion stalking a gazelle.

  There’s a stool onstage, and I sit down. Then slowly, never taking my eyes off him, I retrieve my guitar from its case.

  Dean sets down his box on the floor next to his feet. When he straightens back up, the muscles in his jaw are pulsing.

  Tiffany suddenly streaks through the front door, breathless and jangling. She looks up at me onstage and then at Dean, her eyes wide and questioning. Then she opens her mouth to speak—

  “Sshhh,” Sheila says loudly, waving her arm to hush her. I haven’t even noticed Sheila standing behind the counter until this very second. Actually, before now, I haven’t noticed anyone in the room, other than Dean. I flash Sheila an appreciative glance and she sends me a loving one. Or is that a scolding one? With Sheila, love and reprimand often overlap.

  My guitar is at the ready. I gaze back down at Dean. His face is awash in countless emotions as he absorbs the sight of me. Relief. Confusion. Pain. Yearning. Doubt. Humiliation. Apology. Understanding.

  Love.

  Yes, love. That boy loves me. I can see it. Feel it. Smell it. It’s flashing in his smoldering eyes. It’s dancing on his lips. He wants me. I haven’t played a single note yet, and I already know the answer to my question. I could leap into his arms right now and he would take me into them without a moment’s hesitation. I know it in my bones. I quickly consider doing just that—saying to hell with my song and tackling him to the ground—but no. I’ve avoided telling this poor boy how I feel about him for long enough. After all my miscommunications and silences and betrayals and meltdowns, after all the crazy-sauce I’ve smothered him in, he deserves to hear a public declaration of my most honest thoughts and feelings about him. I take a deep breath. Here goes.

  “Well, I was broken, now I’m unbreakable

  And I was gone, boy, now I’m unmovable

  Yeah, I was dead, dead, dead

  Now, indestructible

  I mined the quarry blue for a gem, a jewel so true

  My heart is set in stone, because it’s set on you

  My heart is set in stone, it’s set on me and you

  My heart is set in stone, it’s set on you

  I mined the quarry blue and what I found was you

  True blue Cobalt Blue

  We are unbreakable, we are unmovable

  We’re indestructible just like a pinnacle

  And now I know, know, know what I’ve gotta do

  I mined the quarry blue

  For a gem, a jewel so true

  Now I’m saying I love you, you, you

  What makes me so sure we’re right

  My faith in you I hold on tight

  No more losing sight of you

  My Motorcycle Boy so true

  My heart is set in stone, because it’s set on you

  My heart is set in stone, it’s set on me and you

  My heart is set in stone, it’s set on you

  I mined the quarry blue

  I found The One, and, boy, it’s you

  I love you, yes I do

  My true blue Cobalt Blue.

  I love you, yes I do.”

  The last strum of my guitar rings out into the silence.

  The customers in the coffeehouse applaud, but I can’t see any of them. All I see is Dean. He’s looking at me like I’m oxygen and he’s drowning.

  I put my guitar down and stand up on trembling legs.

  I move to take a cautious step toward him—the smallest, teensiest, tiniest step toward him—and he springs at me like a leopard. I lurch toward him in reply, and we collide in the middle. “Shaynee,” he breathes, taking my face into his hands. I open my mouth to say something, anything at all to make him understand—something important, earnest, memorable, illuminating, and, preferably, sane—but, instead, I moan and lunge at his mouth. I press my lips against his, and he responds by kissing me, devouring me, and then, much to my surprise, scooping me up into his arms. He lifts me right up off the floor, causing me to gasp, and I fling my arms around his neck, smashing my body into his.

  I want to stay in this moment forever with him, but almost immediately, he puts me down and pulls away fr
om me, leaving me gaping like an open-mouth bass on a line. I open my eyes, not understanding his withdrawal, but when I see him glancing around the room, his cheeks blazing, it suddenly hits me that we’re standing in the middle of the coffeehouse—in the middle of his mom’s coffeehouse, for Pete’s sake—in front of God and everyone. I slowly, reluctantly, painfully, disengage from him, my skin on fire.

  With a loud whoop, Dean grabs my hand and literally yanks me out the front door, and, before I can even rub two thoughts together in my head, we’re running, running, running, straight up Mission Boulevard to the nearest corner, our hands tightly clasped. “Come on!” he yells, tugging on me and laughing, and I follow.

  My legs are pumping. My cheeks are flushed. And I’m laughing with Dean like I don’t have a care in the world. And that’s appropriate, actually, because I truly don’t have a care in the world at this moment. All I know is I’m following Dean. Wherever he’s headed.

  We sprint across Mission Boulevard at the light, dodging slow pedestrians at the crosswalk, both of us screaming with laughter and huffing and puffing all the while. We streak down the opposite sidewalk and straight onto the bustling boardwalk. We’re running, dashing, darting toward the beach, weaving through a maze of joggers and bikers on beach cruisers and surfers ambling along the boardwalk with their boards under their arms. We’re like horses racing home to the barn—if those racing horses happened to be playing a giant game of Frogger.

  Now, the sand squishes beneath our feet, making it harder to run. I kick off my flip-flops, letting them fly willy-nilly through the air, not caring if I retrieve them on the way back—if ever we come back. I could run all day long, as long as Dean is holding my hand. The weight of the world is off me. I’m his and he’s mine.

  We splash into the water up to our shins. “Shaynee!” he yells over the sound of the ocean, and it’s like he’s shouting a prayer of gratitude right up to heaven. He kisses the bridge of my nose and peppers each and every one of my freckles with a string of soft kisses that leaves me panting.