my life as a pop album (my life as an album Book 2)

by LJ Evans

  Derek kept bringing me dresses. Dress after dress. Half of which I refused to even try on. The other half were entirely inappropriate. I told him he needed assistance from a woman, and eventually one of the sales ladies took pity on him and helped out.

  I finally slipped into a fuchsia and teal patterned dress that covered my bra straps, showed off my waist, and flared out to mid-thigh, and I knew that this dress was it. It was bright and vibrant just like I felt like I was when I was with Derek.

  I left the dressing room and barely saw Derek’s wide-eyed smile before he had me in his arms and was kissing me.

  “This. Is. The. One,” he said as my heart plunged down to the pit of my stomach and back.

  “Go change. I’ll meet you at the register. I have to get a new shirt,” he smiled his big, cleft stretching grin. I reached out and touched it. And it made him smile more.

  “Go,” he pushed me towards the dressing room.

  When I met him at the register, he had a bright green and blue paisley shirt waiting there. I tried to pay, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Shoes,” he said. “And jewelry.”

  “No,” I said, but he was smiling and pulling me towards the escalator, and I knew there was no stopping him, like there was no stopping Cam when she was on a roll, so I let him lead me to the shoe department and from there to the jewelry department where I absolutely refused to let him buy me anything real.

  “I swear to God, if you try to buy me anything with a karat or sterling symbol, I’m really not going to let you come with me.”

  “Sassy. Miss Mia is being sassy,” he grinned.

  His grin was infectious.

  I love you, I thought. But I couldn’t say it out loud. Not when we were going to have to say good-bye. Not when it would just hurt us both.

  We picked out some floral necklace that I knew I’d never wear again, but that he insisted would fit right in at an Indian wedding.

  When he was satisfied that I was going to be appropriately attired, he led me back to the hotel where we ordered room service and took a shower together. All soap and skin and hands. But no words. Our words were quiet today, as if we both needed to keep them inside for a while longer.

  After, he helped me dress and then watched as I did my hair and put on my make-up. He watched as if it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen.

  “You’re weird.”

  “Me?” he smirked.

  “Only guy in the room.”

  “You’re beautiful. Everything you do is beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with me wanting to watch a beautiful woman get ready.”

  “Okay. How about creepy and stalker like?”

  “That would only be if I was doing it through a pair of binoculars.”

  I finished my mascara and turned to look at him. He was unbelievably good looking in his loud shirt, black pants, and dress shoes. I’d never seen him in dress shoes. He looked more business than rocker. It was disorienting and yet still sensual and all BB. It made my heart flip in a new way. And I wondered, if we were really together, if my heart would continue to flip like this year after year.

  He took my hand and kissed the palm. “Little Bird, you are the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I flushed with pleasure.

  “Are you sure we have to go?” he said with a knowing smile.

  “Yes! And, I don’t want to be late.”

  We made our way down to the lobby, fingers hooked together in a way that seemed to be coming our new normal, and then out to the taxi line. The taxi dropped us at the gardens where the wedding was taking place.

  We entered a glorious world of lights and color.

  Mr. and Mrs. Winston saw me and greeted me with pleasure, smiling when I congratulated them on the wedding. Once the ceremony started, I was floored to find Harry arriving on a white horse decorated in colors and flowers. The guests were invited to dance around him as drums beat. Then the bride and her family came out to greet the groom. His bride was beautiful. Dark, silky hair, with beautiful kohl decorated eyes, and henna over almost every visible space. Harry and his bride, Haleema, exchanged ornate floral garlands while smiling deeply at each other. There was no way you would think their marriage was arranged. There was love in those eyes.

  Then the priest, Harry, Haleema, and her parents sat beneath a tapestry while the bride's parents gave her away. Her mom sobbed quietly. Tears of happiness and loss. It made my heart swell up. Harry and Haleema joined hands before Harry applied a red powder to the center of her forehead and tied a black beaded necklace around her neck.

  And then the whole audience cheered as if they were at a sporting event. Loudly and happily.

  We moved from there to the reception. The food was an amazing mix of spicy and sweet and rich and savory. Both Derek and I found a whole plate of things to sample that we’d never had before.

  “You have to try this,” he said, and before I could object, he had placed the sweetest honey and nut scented pastry in my mouth.

  “Wow,” I said after swallowing. The pastry reminded me of not only the scent of him but of how he made me feel full of buttery, honey sweetness.

  “You can say that again,” he smiled. Then he leaned forward and brushed the powder sugar from my lips with his long fingers, caressing as he traced the shape of them. My stomach dropped happily.

  “Mia!” Harry’s happy voice interrupted us. I stood and hugged my friend. He was no longer the tiny Indian boy that I’d grown up with or the gangly teen I’d visited several times after they’d moved but instead was tall and handsome in his beaded jacket.

  “Harry,” I held him tight, “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thank you!” he said as his bride came up and stuck her hand in his. “Mia, this is Haleema. Haleema, Mia.”

  “Mia!” She reached over and hugged me tight. “It is good to meet you after so long. Harry speaks of you often.”

  Derek squeezed my hand as if to say I told you so, and I tried hard not to eye-roll him.

  “I speak of Harry often too. He’s always been a good friend.”

  “We are honored that you could join us,” Haleema said with a sweet smile.

  “Thank you for inviting me. Us,” I said, returning her smile.

  “Who is this, Mia?” Harry said eye-balling Derek.

  “This is Derek. Derek, my friend Harry.” I realized I hadn’t said he was my boyfriend, and hoped Derek hadn’t noticed.

  Derek and Harry shook hands. Serious. The smile gone as they assessed each other in that way that men tend to do when they are both being protective and possessive.

  “She’s pretty special. You need to treat her right,” Harry said, not letting go of Derek’s hand.

  “You’re right. And I will.”

  “Oh Harry, stop being so ridiculous,” Haleema said with a laugh that said she wasn’t jealous in the least.

  “Sorry we can’t stay longer. Call me soon, so we can catch up, okay? Have fun,” Harry said and then took off into the crowd where he was greeted with happy smiles everywhere he went.

  Music started up, and all of a sudden everyone was cheering and dancing. “Come on,” Derek said, grabbing my hand and leading me into the thick of things where we laughed at our failed attempts to learn the Indian dances even as those around us encouraged us to continue to try.

  Eventually, the traditional music was replaced with standard wedding fare. Derek wrapped me into his arms as the music turned slow.

  “I like weddings,” he said with a smile.

  “You’re probably the only twenty-something male who does.”

  “Wait. You don’t know how old I am?” he laughed.

  I blushed. “It hasn’t exactly come up in conversation.”

  “I thought you were the Google mastermind.”

  “You’re on Google?”

  “My own Wikipedia page and everything. You’ll find it says I’m twenty-five.”

  My feet stopped. “That’s crazy.”

  He pu
lled my hand back up to his heart. “Ouch.”

  “Not because you’re twenty-five, moron, but because you have your own Wikipedia page and yet you’re here with me.”

  “Little Bird, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  He kissed me, and people around us whistled and hooted.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  And even though it was only a hotel room, I knew that for tonight, while he was there with me, it would be home. And that thought shook me to the core again because what would happen when I was home in Tennessee and missing my other home?

  “Let me use the ladies room before we head back.” I said so I could collect myself.

  In the dim lighting of the bathroom, I looked at the girl in the mirror who was supposed to be me in a bright dress that I never would have picked out without him. With my straight hair and make-up and a smile that Good Girl Mia wouldn’t recognize. Whatever happened, it was good to see this New Mia emerge from her cocoon.

  As I exited the bathroom, my phone buzzed. I glanced at Derek waiting across the lobby for me with a smile and then looked down at the phone.

  Hayden.

  I sank to the nearest chair.

  Why in all that was holy was Hayden texting me now?

  “Little Bird?” Derek was immediately at my side.

  I waved him off. “I’m okay. Just surprised.”

  “Who is it?”

  I showed him the phone. Hayden’s name scrolled across the top and the words that read, “Hey Mia, thinking of you.”

  Derek glowered at the words. I started to type back, and he looked floored. “You’re going to respond to the asshole?”

  “I can’t just ignore it.”

  “The hell you can’t.”

  He looked pissed. And he was right. I stared at the phone. It wasn’t like I really wanted to text Hayden. It was just a bad habit built over four years of dropping everything the minute he crooked a finger.

  Derek saw my waffling and a range of emotions crossed his face that I wasn’t sure I could read. He grabbed the phone from me.

  “If you answer at all, tell him to leave you the fuck alone.”

  He stuffed my phone in his pocket, caught my hand in his, and led me out to the taxi line. We were both silent. I felt guilty for the first time that day because I knew that I’d hurt Derek. Like I hadn’t wanted to. Like I was afraid of being hurt again myself.

  And the truth was, that when I looked at my emotions for Hayden, there weren’t any there. They’d been left somewhere along the road as we drove from Oklahoma to California. The emotion I did feel was anger at myself for not seeing Hayden and the whole thing for what it was sooner. It had all been so wrong.

  And yet, I also couldn’t help but want ever so slightly to shove it in Hayden’s face that he couldn’t have me anymore. Was that wanting revenge? Or was it closure?

  In the taxi the silence continued, and I couldn’t stand it. I pushed Derek’s shoulder. “Hey,” I said.

  He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was thoughtful.

  “You’re being a moron.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I grabbed his wrist. The one tattooed with forgiveness and sanity, and I rubbed my finger over it. I took a deep breath, and took a plunge that I was afraid to take, but was the only way that I knew how to reassure him. “You said I was your girlfriend. That makes you my boyfriend, right?”

  This caused his face to light up with that smile that continued to stop my heart. “I like it when you say it like that,” he responded.

  I put my finger on his cleft. He growled and bit my finger. My stomach melted. I rested my head on his shoulder to stop myself from devouring him in the taxi.

  The quiet settled over us once more.

  “You still want to know what he wants.” Derek said it as a statement not a question.

  I shrugged.

  “Why would you want to give him any more time or energy or space?” he asked.

  I struggled to find the right words. Words that would reassure him that I didn’t want Hayden. That the only man that could shake my world now was him, and that, truthfully, he shook my world more than Hayden had ever been able to because Hayden hadn’t known the real Mia. He’d barely acknowledged her existence. But, it also felt like my past needed a door not only shut but obliviated before I could stop giving it energy.

  “I think I just want him to know that he can’t have me anymore.”

  He took this in.

  “Sometimes, before you can shut the door, you have to tell the person to fuck off,” I told him. His eyes widened at my swear word because I didn’t use them often. They became more powerful that way. When you used them sparsely, they actually had meaning.

  I didn’t know if Derek would understand what I was saying because Derek had never told his Dad to take a flying leap, instead he’d tried to seal the door even as the blood and puss still oozed through. Derek looked like he was reading my mind because instead of being angry at the thought of me texting Hayden, he handed over the phone.

  “Tell him your boyfriend has forbidden you from texting any ex’s,” he said with a grim smile.

  “He really wasn’t an ex.”

  “But you slept with him.”

  I nodded, and this made his smile disappear again.

  “To be honest, that doesn’t seem like you,” he said.

  And he was right. It didn’t seem like even the old me. It didn’t seem like any version of me. But to be fair to my old self, I hadn’t known that he was going to dump me when we got back to campus.

  “When I went to UTK, I was trying to escape my brother and… well, just all of it.”

  “I get that.”

  “And I found Hayden. He was golden and dynamic and smart. And he sucked me in. He had this idea of starting a co-ed business fraternity and we made it happen. I did the footwork behind the scenes and he was our face to the world. We worked well together. We spent so much time together that I thought maybe it was more.”

  “But?”

  “But he found Marcie. Who was much more like him. They were a power couple. Both from wealthy, powerful families. I was just the invisible girl from nowhere who, like always, helped from the shadows.”

  “Little Bird, you are not invisible. You’re fuckin’ anything but. You are so beautiful that it stops my heart.”

  I stared at him. He’d said those words before. Or similar, and I was collecting them in my heart and soul. They were slowly taking the place of that torn up note that I’d carried around with me for so long.

  “Derek.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I…” I chickened out. I was good at chickening out with him. But, I couldn’t say it. I wanted to say it. I wanted him to know I loved him. I wanted him to know that he had shown me that what I’d felt for Hayden was just infatuation and not love. A little girl chasing after what she thought was a dream. But it wasn’t fair to say those words. Not when we’d be leaving each other to go back to our realities so soon.

  “You’re such a moron,” I said instead.

  He kissed me and I forgot all about Hayden and my past and the people who had made me feel invisible. Instead, I felt alive and seen and like I mattered.

  * * *

  The next day, Derek left early for the venue with the band and I went out to the mall nearby to try to pick up some eye-liner in hopes that I could imitate Haleema’s lovely kohl from the wedding. I also needed a new pair of jeans because the pair I’d bought in Oklahoma were pretty messed up after their dip in Dylan’s pool.

  And then, because the guilt always hit me when I was alone, I spent the afternoon texting Cam and my mama and even Wynn. I checked in on my Instagram feed and the pictures I’d been posting along my journey with Derek. Not many of them had Derek in them. There were quite a few of Jane the Kitten that made me ache. There were pictures of the caves, and Dylan’s pool, and Seth’s art. There were a couple of the band. The last was of the lobb
y of our current hotel where I’d posted something sarcastic about how many people it must take to keep the marble sparkling.

  I tried not to let myself scroll back farther than this trip. I didn’t want to run into the picture of Jake and Cam that would cause me to hyperventilate with grief and guilt. I was ignoring it and I knew that I was ignoring it, but I just had a couple more days to ignore it before I would be faced with it every day looking at Mama’s sad eyes.

  While I was scrolling, I got an Instagram Message. I clicked over to it. It was from Hayden.

  HAYDEN: Hey Mia, looks like you are in SF. I’m here too putting together a business deal. Let’s hook up.

  Hayden was in San Francisco? How ridiculous was that? Old Mia would have loved to meet up with him. Old Mia would have read too much into it and thought he had flown all the way to the West Coast to find her. She would have fixated on it and twisted it all up, but instead, I didn’t.

  A part of me still wanted to let him know that his hold over me had gone the way of the dodos so that I could securely slam that ugly door on that depressing chapter of my life, but I didn’t. Instead, I ignored the message because I knew that it would hurt Derek if I didn’t. And I didn’t want to hurt him anymore than I already would when I went home and he continued touring.

  As it neared the time to go to the club and meet Derek, I got dressed in my new jeans, a different blousy tank, and my polka dot sandals I’d worn to the wedding. I played around with the kohl eye-liner I’d picked up earlier. When I looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw. The eye-liner made my mosaic eyes—Jake’s eyes—stand out in a different way, and the green in my top reflected the greens in the pattern shining there.

  I was running later than I’d planned because I’d taken so long with the new make-up, but it was worth it. I wanted to see Derek’s expression when he took me in. I knew he’d like it too and that made me tingle all over. I texted Derek that I was on my way so he wouldn’t worry. His response of, “About fucking time,” made my heart beat like the wings of a little bird. The little bird that he claimed was me.