Not Another Love Song

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “I can’t believe I have a boyfriend,” I tell Rae.

  We’re both sprawled on the bleachers, absorbing the fiery October sun. On the field below, the coach is having the track team run these thirty-second, full-speed drills that look so brutal I wince every time the whistle shrills.

  “And not just anyone. Mona’s son,” she says.

  I sit up. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

  “Hon, I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe you should reconsider the contest. It might change things between you and Ten.”

  Blood pounds against my temples. “He told me he’s not mad about it.”

  “Because you haven’t entered yet. It’s not real. But once you do, it’ll get real.”

  Borrowed time …

  I don’t want to think about it, so I blurt out, “I got another C in math. I think Mrs. Dabbs hates me.”

  “Well, you are dating her crush.”

  “What?” I wrinkle my nose. “Ew.”

  “Remember at the beginning of the year, when she told me I should get Ten to help me out with my calc homework, she kept on gushin’ and gushin’ about how good he is, and how mature and blah blah blah.”

  “That’s just gross.”

  Rae smirks. “Not that she ever had a chance. Since that boy stepped into Reedwood, he’s been totally infatuated with you, God knows why.”

  I flick her arm, and she laughs.

  After Rae heads back into school, I wait a couple extra minutes for the track coach’s briefing to end. The moment it’s over, Ten jogs up to me, sweat glistening on his brow and gluing his gym shirt to his chest. How he still has energy to run is beyond me. I’d be pancaked on the lawn.

  He kisses me, and I wrinkle my nose. “Sweaty man.”

  That just makes him step closer. He even wraps his arms around me.

  “Ew,” I say, between bursts of laughter. I try to push him off, but he holds on tighter. “You’re lucky I like you, sweat and all.”

  “I count my blessings each and every second of the day.”

  I roll my eyes and swat his arm.

  * * *

  AFTER SCHOOL, I stop by the middle school. I haven’t seen Nev since Sunday. Ten told me she was still angry with him, but her lack of response to my text messages tells me she’s also angry with me.

  I roll my bike up to the middle school parking lot and look for her pink backpack in the ocean of backpacks. It takes me a while to locate her, because, unlike in the cafeteria, she isn’t alone. She’s surrounded by classmates.

  Going out to the movies with Charlie has had quite the impact on her social status. Although I’m glad for her, I also worry because I recognize some of the girls she’s chatting with—the pests who bullied her.

  I hook up my bike, then traipse over to her. “Nev?”

  Slowly she turns toward me. Her gray eyes darken, become the color of thunderclouds. “What do you want, Angie?” Her tone is short. I wasn’t hallucinating her anger. She really is mad at me.

  “What I want is to talk.”

  “Are you going to try to convince me she’s evil too?”

  Her little posse has gotten all quiet.

  “No.”

  “Good, because I’m sick of people telling me what a bitch my mother is.”

  “Nev!” I’m shocked by her language, and even more shocked that she’s talking about Mona Stone so publicly.

  It hits me then … Charlie isn’t the cause of her expanding social circle—Mona is.

  She hoists her backpack higher onto her bony shoulder. “What?”

  “We’re not talking here,” I tell her.

  “Why not?”

  I narrow my eyes. Who is this girl? Certainly not the one who crawled into my bed because she was scared of the dark. I tow her away from the others by force, and even though she tries to fight me, I’m stronger.

  Charlie jogs after us, attempting to break Nev free, but I whip around on him and bark, “Get lost.”

  I’m the angry one now. No, not angry … livid!

  I only let go of her once we’ve circled the brick building and made some headway into the thicket of myrtles.

  “What the hell was that?” I bet smoke is curling out of my nostrils.

  Nev rubs her wrist. “You didn’t have to pull me!”

  “Who are you and what did you do to my friend?”

  She scowls.

  I scowl harder.

  “What’s gotten into you, Nev? Since when are Jenny and Crystal your friends?” I half shout, half roar. “Since they found out you’re Mona’s daughter?”

  “What’s it to you? You told me I should make friends!”

  “I told you to make real friends, not sycophants!”

  “They’re not sycophants.”

  “Really? Since when have they been your friends?”

  She shrugs.

  “Since when?” I screech. “Let me guess. Since Monday.”

  “It’s my life. If I want to be friends with them, it’s my choice. At least now you don’t need to pity-hang with me anymore.” Her eyes are pinkening and turning shiny.

  My anger shrinks like a popped balloon. “Pity-hang? I never hung out with you out of pity. Nor did I do it to get closer to Ten or to get an in with your mother,” I add, in case those thoughts have crossed her mind.

  As tears dribble down her freckled cheeks, Nev knots her arms in front of her chest.

  “Oh my God, you really thought all of that?” My shrill voice hangs in the air between us.

  She scrubs her cheeks. “I don’t know what to think anymore. Who to trust—” A sob lurches out of her.

  “Me! Trust me.”

  Her bottom lip wobbles.

  “Oh, Nev.” The cry that surges up her throat is so pained that I enclose her in a fierce hug. “Never doubt me.”

  “I’m s-s-sorry, An-Angie.”

  “Shh. It’s okay.” I rub her back until her sobs begin to subside.

  “Mom was cr-crying on Sunday.”

  “I know.”

  “Dad was so m-mean to her. And Ten…” She shakes in my arms, so I squeeze her tighter. “That’s probably why she never c-came to see us. Because they are s-so awful to her.”

  I’m tempted to tell her the run-in was staged, but I’m afraid that’ll erase the trust she’s just given me back.

  “I t-told Dad I wanted her ph-phone number, and he said, n-no way. I don’t even know why we b-bothered coming back here.”

  I’m rubbing slow, soothing circles against her knobby spine. They seem to be working because she’s no longer shaking.

  “I want my mother, Angie.”

  I tuck her head under my chin.

  “Maybe I sh-should enter her contest.”

  My heart bounces. I pull away to see if she’s serious. “Your dad would never sign off on that. Besides, you’re her daughter. There’s probably a clause about family members.”

  She palms her wet cheeks. “Are you still going to do it?”

  I swallow, my throat feeling raw from all the yelling. “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  I’m all at once surprised and not surprised she wants me to participate. “Yes.” I just need to get Mom on board again.

  “Even if Ten tells you”—Nev heaves in a juddering breath—“that he’ll break up with you if you do it?”

  “We’ve already discussed it.”

  “And he really said okay?”

  “Nev, your brother understands how much I want this. He understands that if he tries to hold me back, he’ll lose me.”

  Her expression is so strained that I sense she doesn’t quite believe me.

  “Can we please talk about your new friends now?”

  She toes a clump of grass. “I don’t want to be an outcast anymore.”

  “You are aware some of them might be using you for who you are?”

  “And I’m using them for who they are.”

  “As long as you realize it.”

  “I do.” She
sinks onto the grass and crosses her legs.

  I sit down next to her.

  She plucks a blade of grass and twirls it. “Maybe one of them will become a real friend.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And by the way”—she raises her silvery eyes to me—“they’ve been nice to me since Charlie asked me out. They’re just nicer now.”

  I snort. “Have they asked you for concert tickets yet?”

  She grins in that same crooked way her brother does. “Jenny did.”

  I sigh, then lie back and stare up at the sky crosshatched by thin branches and glossy green leaves. “Swear you’ll never turn into them.”

  “I swear it.”

  I stick up my pinky, and she hooks her little finger around it, and then we shake on it. The silly gesture makes Nev crack a grin, and for a moment, I get the girl who hid under a baseball cap back.

  52

  T-Minus One

  The last week of October passes in a flurry of activity and excitement. Butterflies flap inside of me twenty-four seven, but they’re not all brought on by Ten. Some of them come from the reminders of Mona’s contest plastered over the city buses, trumpeted over the radio channels, and blasted all over social media.

  The deadline is tomorrow, and I have neither Mom’s signature nor have I uploaded my song to Mona’s website. Lynn and Steffi assume I’ve already sent everything in. I think Ten does, too. The only people who know I haven’t entered are Mom, Rae, and Laney. Mom because she hasn’t signed the form, and my friends because when they asked, I confessed my hesitation. Neither passed judgment or pressed me one way or another. Both listened as I listed the pros and cons.

  As for Nev, I told her that my mom hadn’t agreed to sign the form. Which is sort of true. Since the Mona debacle, Mom and I haven’t discussed Mona or her contest.

  When I get home from Lynn and Steffi’s on Friday, I find Mom sitting in the kitchen with Nev.

  Grinning, Nev peels a sheet of paper off the emerald stone island and flaps it. “I convinced her!”

  My heart pounds harder than during my dance lesson with Steffi.

  Mom’s forehead is furrowed and her eyes tight. She’s either feeling confused or cornered. Neither is good. I want to come clean but can’t. Not in front of Nev.

  My fingers shake so badly it takes me several attempts to hang up my denim jacket. I tug on the long sleeves of my exercise top, and it droops off one of my shoulders.

  “Something smells good,” I say, my voice low and slightly croaky.

  “I made roast chicken.” Mom’s inspecting my face. “Want to stay for dinner, Nev?”

  “I’d love to, but I need to check with Dad first.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  Nev taps on her cell phone, which is next to the signed form. After a couple of rings, Jeff’s deep voice rumbles out of her phone. “Hey, Dad, can I eat with Jade and Angie? Ten went over to Archie’s, so I’m home alone anyway.”

  “I was on my way home,” Jeff says.

  Mom leans toward the phone. “You’re welcome to come over too, Jeff.”

  “That’s really kind. Are you sure you have enough food?”

  Mom smiles. “Only two chickens and a green bean casserole.”

  Jeff chuckles. “Were you expecting other guests?”

  “No. Just my daughter.” She grins, and it smooths away some of the tension crimping her brow.

  “Then I’ll be right over. With dessert.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Nev beams after she hangs up.

  Mom grabs a stack of plates from a cupboard and hands them to me. Nev lurches off the stool to help. She grabs the leather place mats and sets them on the glass table, and then I add the plates, but my aim is off on the last one, and the ceramic plate teeters and then crashes to the floor, splitting into large gunmetal-colored shards.

  The sound is like an explosion in the quiet kitchen. I crouch and pick up the pieces, fingers shaking.

  Mom kneels beside me, her army-green silk pants bunching around her legs. “Nev, can you pass me the brush and dustpan? They’re under the sink.” She takes a chunk of ceramic from my fingers. “Baby, I’m not mad at you.” I know she doesn’t mean about the plate. She touches my cheek. “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a shower?”

  I rise from my crouch in slow motion and start toward the stairs, when Nev chirrups, “Don’t forget your form.”

  I take it from the island, and although I want to ball it up, I don’t. The second I arrive in my bedroom, I chuck the paper in the drawer that’s become a graveyard for forgotten things.

  There’s no more doubt in my mind about what I will do.

  I won’t risk my relationship with Ten.

  I’ll get into the music business some other way—I’ll write more songs, get more demos recorded, send my work off to agents. If I break out on my own, it’ll be that much more rewarding.

  I don’t need a contest to make me.

  Especially one that could just as easily break me.

  Dinner with Jeff and Nev is fun, in part because no one brings up the contest—if Jeff has any inkling I wanted to compete, he doesn’t mention it—in part because making up my mind has lifted a huge weight off my chest.

  I’m dying to tell Ten, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. I settle on telling him tomorrow, before the Halloween party. I can’t wait to see the look on his face. Even if we don’t speak about the contest, it has to be affecting him.

  After father and daughter leave, Mom finally asks me why Nev begged her to sign the form. And I tell her everything. Although my mother’s face doesn’t betray her emotions, a stillness envelops her … envelops us.

  “Are you sure, baby?” she asks as I climb the stairs toward my bedroom.

  “A hundred percent.”

  Finally, she smiles.

  I pause, hand on the balustrade. “But if Nev asks, I sent it in, okay?”

  “Won’t she find out the truth?”

  “No. She’ll just assume I lost.”

  Mom bites her lip. “As long as you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  53

  The Beds We Make and Lie In

  “Your face is all golden.” I swipe my thumb over Ten’s jaw to dislodge the face paint I plastered over my skin tonight to match my gold unitard. I’m supposed to be a CMA award, and he’s supposed to be a vampire.

  Ten’s been acting a little weird since he walked into my house—he’s nervous. I think it has to do with his mother’s contest. He keeps staring at the discolored patch of wall in my room where Mona Stone’s poster hung until yesterday.

  “I have something to tell—”

  But I don’t get my announcement out, because Ten chooses that exact moment to ask, “Did you really lose your virginity to a stranger?”

  My hands tumble away from his face. Heart blasting, I whip my head around to make sure my bedroom door is closed. Finally, I whisper, “What?”

  “You said you lost your virginity, but you never had a boyfriend, so I assumed it had to be a random hookup.”

  I shift my legs off his lap and scoot to the edge of my queen-sized bed. “I—I never … I never did anything.”

  “But—”

  “I lied.” I study the fibers of my aquamarine rug.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m seventeen. All my friends have done it. And I didn’t think you’d want to date someone”—I shrug—“inexperienced.”

  “I’ll admit, it’s a total buzzkill.” His delivery is so serious, I have to check his expression to make sure he’s joking. The small smile curling up the corners of his lips reassures me that he’s teasing me. He twirls the curly end of my gold-painted ponytail and tugs on it until my face is angled toward his. “Angie, promise not to lie to me again? About anything.”

  I nod. “I promise.”

  He twines his fingers through my hair and kisses me. Gently and then less gently.

  When we break apart, I
say, “My turn to ask a question.”

  His expression turns cautious.

  “After tonight, I never want to talk about it again, but”—I chew on my bottom lip—“did you have sex with all of your girlfriends?”

  His hand drops to my comforter, dimples the striped fabric. “No.”

  “But with more than one?”

  “Yes. But they didn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Then why’d you sleep with them?”

  Regret grays his yellow irises. “Because I was angry and stupid. I believed meaningless sex could help make me less angry and less stupid.”

  “What made you angry?”

  “A bunch of things. Mom. Having to repeat a school year. Moving back here.” He rubs the back of his head, mussing up his combed, gelled hair. “Little did I know it would turn out this way.”

  “This way?”

  He raises his eyes to mine. “With me being ridiculously happy.” He places his hand back on my body—on my thigh this time. “It feels like I found a part of myself that was missing by coming back here.”

  I cover his hand with mine, interlock our fingers. He lifts our hands and kisses my knuckles.

  “I have something to tell you,” I say. “It has to do with the contest.”

  He clenches his jaw. “I told you, Angie, I’m okay—”

  “I decided not to enter.”

  “—with you competing.” The hard lines of his face soften as my words sink in. “You decided not to enter?”

  “I did.”

  Surprise ripples over his clean-shaven face.

  “I choose you, Ten.”

  “You don’t need to choose.”

  “But I did. I do.”

  He doesn’t move for so long that he begins to resemble a real vampire—one that’s just been staked.

  “Angie…” he whispers, his lips settling on my neck, on that spot right below my ear that makes me shudder. “I think I’m in love with you.”

  My breath catches in my throat the same way my heart catches in my rib cage. I twist around until I’m straddling his lap, and my hands are locked behind his neck. “I love you too, Ten.”

  Except I don’t think it … I know it. I fell in love with him long before we even started dating, which I’ll never admit. Or maybe I will. I’m surprising myself with the number of things I’m doing that I would never have dreamed myself capable of.