The Way Back Home

by Alecia Whitaker

  I look at her like she’s crazy. “First of all, do not even dare to tie the death of my little brother to a stupid spat with a celebrity. That’s base and it’s vile, and I thought you were better than that,” I snap. “And secondly, get your facts straight, reporter, because that’s not at all what happened. The only reason I don’t see Devyn anymore is because I’ve been really busy—maybe you’ve noticed that I’m headlining a national tour—and when I am in LA, I don’t have time for that party lifestyle. As far as Kayelee Ford is concerned, I have absolutely no ill will toward her. I have no idea how this weird feud got started, although I can tell you that it’s been sustained by questions like these. Those girls party, I don’t, otherwise we’d hang out. Maybe we will after this tour, but for now, I couldn’t even go to any VMA after parties because I had to get back on the road.”

  “No time to party, huh?” Jase asks, amused. How can she look so unruffled when I feel like I could explode?

  “I work a lot,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “And you’re too good for that anyway, right?”

  I take a deep breath. “It’s not something I would make a priority.”

  “Interesting,” she muses smugly as she pulls up the photo album on her iPad. “That’s not what Colton Holley had to say.” I look at her quizzically. “I contacted him when I saw some photos of the two of you. At a casino? In Vegas? Admittedly, they were grainy, but he confirmed the two of you partied well into the night, although he sadly confessed that you did not make it to his penthouse.”

  I am fuming now.

  “But he did send me a couple of these pictures.” She swipes the iPad screen as images of Colton and me appear. I look pretty, but in one I am red-faced and sipping from a daiquiri, in another I am screaming as I cheer at the roulette table, and in the worst pic, I look like I’m in love as I snuggle against Colton for an ussie. “Obviously we won’t use these because we’re Rolling Stone and not InTouch. But after denying that you’re a party girl and selling the world on your goody-goody image, now what would you say to the haters?”

  “I’d tell them that maybe I’m not as sweet as everybody thinks I am,” I snap. Then I stand up and point toward the door. “And off the record, Jase, I’d politely but firmly tell them to get the hell out.”

  16

  ANITA’S GOING TO kill me. Anita’s going to kill me. Anita’s going to kill me.

  For the past hour and a half, I have been lying on my bed with my arms over my eyes, replaying the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad interview that just went down and the mixed expression of surprise, satisfaction, and even admiration from Jaded Jase as she scooped up her bag and left my hotel room. “See you at the shoot tomorrow,” she called smugly as the door slammed closed behind her. She’s probably on her way to the Rolling Stone offices right now, taking notes on how all the haters are right about me.

  I look over at my own iPad on the bed next to me and feel tears well up in my eyes. I made the mistake of Googling “Bird Barrett Hate Sites,” and there were so many that I got upset all over again. People hate me. People literally hate me. They don’t even know me, but they want me to die or drink their urine or get blown up in the next terrorist attack. Who are these people? What did I ever do to them?

  Tears stream down the sides of my face before I can stop them.

  And my music. I work so hard on my music.

  “Bird?” Adam calls from the living room.

  Quickly, I sit up and wipe my face with my shirtsleeve. “What are you doing here?” I call.

  “I came back for a heavier coat,” he says, walking toward the bedroom, “but I must’ve grabbed the wrong key card earlier. I somehow got yours.”

  “Oh.”

  “We called and texted, but finally Stella and Dylan just went ahead and got in line and I thought I’d come back and pull you away—” He stops short when he sees my face, and his own looks really worried as he sits down on the bed beside me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  I start crying full out and lean against his chest, his arms wrapping around me immediately. “I messed up, Adam,” I sob. “I just messed up so bad and Anita’s going to kill me and Dan’s going to be so mad and my fans—” I stop, taking a deep breath, before just crying harder. “My fans are going to hate me!”

  “Bird,” he whispers. He shushes me, rocks me, and runs his fingers through my hair as I cry against his chest. “When you can,” he says quietly, “tell me what happened.”

  I sniff, lean back, and reach over for a box of tissues. I hate that I’m crying like this in front of Adam, but at the same time, I love that he’s here. “Ugh, I feel so stupid,” I say. “I let her get to me. It was just like when I lost my temper with Kayelee on New Year’s, and I’m so mad at myself. I try so hard to be nice to everybody, but when somebody pushes me and pushes me and pushes me, I explode.”

  He nods.

  “And this reporter,” I spit out. I blow my nose and shake my head. “She acted so cool this whole time. I’m following her on Instagram and everything, and I thought, you know, we might even stay in touch. But it’s like she was just reeling me in. Like, ‘This isn’t an interview, Bird, you idiot. This is just a bunch of friends hanging out on tour for a few days.’ And then, bam! She sits me down a while ago and shows me all these hate sites about me and mean tweets and memes and—” I exhale loudly. I take a shaky breath and go on. “I know I shouldn’t care what people think about me, but I do. It hurts. They don’t know how hard I work and how much I care about my music or what it was like to lose my brother and then ask my family to give up the one thing that kept us together during the worst time of our lives. They don’t know anything, but they spew all this venom and—I don’t get it.”

  Adam nods, his eyes filled with real concern.

  “Why?” I ask, my eyes filling with fresh tears. “Why do they hate me, Adam?”

  He gives me a small grin and kisses my temple. “Nobody hates you, Lady Bird,” he says sweetly. “You’re un-hate-able.”

  I scoff. “Not according to the I Hate Bird Barrett Facebook page,” I say bitterly.

  “You can’t read that stuff,” he says when I reach for my iPad. He turns it facedown and grabs my hands. “You can’t let pathetic trolls—cowards who hide behind their computer screens at night—do this to you. You just can’t let them. There are people out there who are so miserable that they’re not happy unless someone else is miserable. They are broken and bruised and scarred, and the only way they can cope with the depressing lives they are forced to live is to try to bring other people down with them.”

  He is staring at me so intently that I finally nod. “I know,” I say softly.

  “You can’t let broken people break you.”

  I sniff and reach for another tissue, letting his words sink in. “I like that,” I say. “You’re right.”

  “Good,” he says. “Now what’s this reporter’s home address? I need to go egg her house.”

  “Adam!”

  “Come on,” he says, throwing an arm around my shoulders. He is grinning from ear to ear. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “It’d be awesome,” I admit.

  I smile over at him, his face right next to mine, his impossibly long lashes low as his face softens. “I really want to kiss you right now, Lady Bird.”

  I gulp. “You should,” I say quietly.

  And so Adam leans in, his hand tightening around my shoulder as he draws closer, and I shut my eyes. His lips are so soft and perfect against mine that when our mouths meet my whole body melts into his as he pulls me near. It’s not our first kiss, but it’s gentle, it’s sweet, and it’s been a long time coming. My heart isn’t skipping; my pulse isn’t racing. My whole body is relaxed, comfortable, and content, like this is the person I was born to kiss. He pulls away a little, rubs his nose against the side of mine, and lays his forehead against my own. “Bird, I’ve wanted to do that again since that first time in my truck and every single time I’ve seen you sin
ce that day.”

  I pull back some and look him right in the eyes. “I was hoping you’d give us another chance,” I admit softly. “With the tour and my schedule being so crazy—my life hasn’t gotten any less complicated—I wasn’t sure you’d want to try again.”

  “Oh, I do want to try again,” he says, kissing me. “And again,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose. “And again.” He kisses both cheeks.

  I laugh. “I was talking about ‘us,’ but this works, too.”

  Then Adam scrunches up his face and pulls away. He licks his tongue on the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Oh, there’s every girl’s dream come true,” I say sarcastically.

  “No.” He laughs. “I love kissing you, Bird. It’s just—your makeup’s smudged all over your cheeks and that last kiss…”

  I grab a tissue and stand up, horrified after I run to the bathroom mirror and see my reflection. “I look like a zombie!”

  “A cute zombie,” he calls.

  I turn on the water and grab my face wash, chagrined that Adam finally kissed me on the day I have mascara streaming down my cheeks and a runny nose. This is what Hollywood always gets wrong. The major moments are never flawless.

  When I turn the water off, I hear music as I grab for a towel. I dry my face and apply some moisturizer, smiling as Adam picks out a melody on my guitar that I’ve never heard before.

  “That’s pretty,” I remark, walking back to the bed.

  He nods and grins up at me. “I think there may be a song in this room.” He stops playing and passes me my iPad. The only app open now is Notes, where he’s typed, “Broken People.”

  “‘You can’t let broken people break you,’” I say, repeating what he told me earlier.

  He starts to play again and I nod my head, feeling the notes wrap around me like a warm hug. I start typing quick phrases, images flooding my brain as he strums, and I feel power in responding to the hate that had me in its grip before Adam walked in. Adam: this boy who’s like my mirror image in so many ways.

  There is a song in this room, one beating against my rib cage, one that we’re going to write together.

  17

  “FLYING COMMERCIAL, HUH?” Adam jokes over the phone the next night as I deplane in Nashville. “Like a peasant?”

  “Ha-ha,” I say dryly. “There was some kind of maintenance issue with the label’s jet, and I really wanted to get home.” After our second show at Madison Square Garden, the rest of the tour headed back to Nashville while I stayed behind for my Rolling Stone shoot.

  “Is Anita with you?” he asks.

  “Nah, she wanted to stay and visit her family on Long Island. Big Dave is here,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. A string of passengers file out behind me, and I lower my ball cap again, always feeling weird in disguise. “But yeah, I’m so glad I called her. She wasn’t thrilled about me losing my cool in that last interview, but she took half the blame for leaving me alone with a reporter for so many days in a row.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was Jase there this morning?” he asks.

  “Yeah, she skirted around the perimeter,” I say, still feeling so stupid and betrayed. “But all the other people at Rolling Stone were really welcoming—even the photographer was easy to work with—so I tried to block Jase out and stay focused on how big-time it is to have a feature in their magazine.”

  “Good.”

  “And while Jase is intimidating, she’s no match for Anita.”

  “Nobody is.”

  “Got that right,” I say with a grin. I follow the signs toward baggage claim and switch my phone to the other ear, hoisting my carry-on bag up higher onto my shoulder. “You happy to be back home?” I ask. “A few days off and then a couple shows at Bridgestone. Feels like a vacation.”

  “It does,” he says. “And I have plans.”

  I can hear the smile in his voice, and my heart flutters. “Oh, really?”

  “I thought maybe you could do me the honor of a redo.”

  “A redo?”

  “Yeah.” He pauses before going on. “The real reason I came up to your hotel room yesterday is because Stella and Dylan had helped me plan this second-first-kiss thing at the top of the Empire State Building.”

  “Oh no!” I say, stunned.

  “No, listen, no big deal,” he rushes on. “I still got my kiss.”

  I can picture his lopsided grin on the other end of the phone. “Yes, you did.”

  “But having to leave you in New York killed me. So I want a redo,” he says.

  I laugh out loud and say, “You going to kiss me at the top of the AT&T Building?”

  “Oh, I have big plans,” Adam says. “I’m going to date you like a normal person.”

  “Hey, I am a normal person!”

  He laughs. “No! I mean, let’s go to the movies, let’s crash the bluegrass jam at the Station Inn, or get fried chicken and biscuits at the Loveless.”

  “Yes!” I say with a hop. “Let’s be normal!”

  I feel like skipping, like running through the terminals with my arms wide or riding the conveyor belt at baggage claim singing something from The Sound of Music.

  But then I stop short, the person behind me nearly running me over, when I see a kiosk to my right with shelves stocked high with Bird Barrett merchandise. “Oh my gosh,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “This shop,” I say as my feet, almost as if of their own volition, carry me over to the tiny store. I am stunned by what I see. Obviously, “merch” is a big part of being a performer—I know my label and manager are licensing my image and “brand,” as Troy calls it—but I mostly leave those decisions up to my parents. Of course I’ve seen the T-shirts, posters, and hats, and I’ve autographed thousands upon thousands of CDs for sale at my concerts. But as I walk around this shop, letting my fingers graze Bird Barrett souvenirs and tchotchkes—magnets and mugs and pillows and playing cards—I am positively stunned. It’s unnerving.

  “What is it, Bird?”

  “It’s just—” I start. “There’s all this ‘Bird’ stuff. Like, my face and my signature are everywhere.”

  “Well, you have to expect that stuff in Nashville,” he says.

  “No, but Adam, it’s so much more than—” I stop. It’s like I’m in a house of mirrors at a carnival. “Okay, the Bird Barrett doll is kind of cool, if a little creepy, and the calendar and the book are okay. But what in the world would someone want with a Bird Barrett robe or my face crocheted on a blanket?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I should hide my Bird Barrett Kleenex dispenser when you come over?”

  I chuckle. “Yes, please.”

  “It’s pretty cool, actually. You pull the tissues right out of your nose. Could’ve really come in handy yesterday.”

  “Adam, you do not have a Bird Barrett tissue box.”

  He laughs. “No, but I wish I did.”

  Then my eyes fall on a square magnet of me playing my fiddle. It’s the only image in this whole shop of Bird Barrett wonders that I recognize as the real me. I snatch it without thinking, remembering some advice I got last year from Bonnie: It’s just very important that through it all, you remember who you really are.

  I place the magnet on the counter and reach for my wallet. “Just this, please.”

  “You’re buying your own stuff?” Adam asks loudly through the phone.

  “Shh,” I say, setting my phone down as I pay.

  I glance up at the cashier, knowing she’ll recognize me and probably want me to sign a bunch of stuff or snap a picture with her. But she just scans the magnet, takes my five bucks, puts the souvenir in a gift bag, and hands me my change and receipt. Then she says, “Have a good evening, sweetie.”

  “You too,” I say, stunned as I pick up my phone and walk away. It’s surreal. I am totally separate from the image of me that I’m selling. “Well, Mr. Dean, maybe the normal-person mini-break h
as already begun.”

  “She didn’t recognize you?” he asks incredulously. “And she’s surrounded by your face all day long?”

  “I took a page from the Adam Dean Pro Disguises Handbook,” I joke as I pass through the security checkpoint. “I’m in sweats and no makeup. Nobody suspects a thing.”

  “Well, I’d know you anywhere,” he says, and suddenly I feel strong arms wrap around my back and his face appears next to mine.

  “Adam!” I scream.

  He spins me around to face him, and I don’t even know what to say. I just stare at him, blinking, with my mouth in an O.

  Adam is here.

  I know he wants to kiss me as badly as I want to kiss him, but I can also see that he is aware of the people all around us. So he just takes my bag, and as if floating on a cloud, I follow him through the airport. Like a normal person. WELCOME TO NASHVILLE, a sign says near the baggage area, and with Adam at my side, there’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be.

  “So this is our redo?” I ask as Adam parks his truck at Percy Warner Park.

  “Consider this whole week in Nashville one giant series of redos,” he says, getting out.

  I step out of the truck as well, taking in the gorgeous October day and my handsome hiking partner. “This will be fun.”

  “Yeah, and Yelp said this place is romantic”—he stops and makes air quotes—“‘yet public enough in case you still don’t know if your date is certifiably insane.’”

  I laugh. “I know your brand of insanity isn’t certifiable, so I’m not worried.”

  He grins. “Maybe I was worried about yours.”

  I swat his arm, and he grabs my hand, squeezing it as he leads me toward a hiking trail. We walk a little ways and are soon hidden from the world, under a dense overhanging of trees with leaves just starting to change colors. I hear the buzz of forest life, so peaceful and yet so alive with birds chirping and twigs snapping beneath our steps. “I do kind of love that you researched your redo date,” I say now.