“Yeah. Well, I bet she was probably right.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
The oven beeped, finally preheated. Zach ignored it.
“You’re just jealous,” I said.
“That’s great.” Zach gave a short laugh. “I’m jealous of a guy with a man-bun who writes bad hipster lyrics.”
“You’re jealous because Sebastian Delacroix wasn’t too afraid to say he likes me.”
Zach went very, very red.
“Afraid? Are you—do you not even . . .” He picked up the mixing bowl, then set it down again and knocked over the bag of sugar. “You know what? Forget it. Because you’re clearly really good at forgetting things.”
My heart plummeted to my stomach. Zach was right. If anything, I was the one afraid to say anything. I was the one who said I don’t know. But what right did he have to attack me? If we were supposed to be friends, he was still treating me pretty terribly. And I hated to admit it, but I wanted to be terrible back.
“I don’t need to stay here and be judged, you know,” I said. I’d been mean, and I knew I had, but I still didn’t want to give in. I was done letting stuff like this upset me.
“Fine. I didn’t invite you in the first place.”
“Fine.”
I shoved my shoes back on, grabbed my backpack, and stomped out the back door and onto the street. Maybe it was my imagination, but as I marched toward Center City, I thought I could hear Bacon howling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I pulled up the interview with Sebastian as soon as I got on the train back to Wister—well, as soon as I got on the train and as soon as the train got out from Suburban Station and my cell reception came back. The article had only gone live that morning, but seven hours was a long time on the internet.
WE FOUND OUT WHO “NATALIE” REALLY IS—
AND THE ANSWER WILL SHOCK YOU!
By Brigid McBride, BuzzKlik Music
It’s heartbreak, not happiness, that has inspired some of the best and most enduring pop music of all time. But while most power ballads and breakup songs stay general as they relate these universal themes, Brooklyn indie rockers the Young Lungs have had all of America guessing about “Natalie,” the love-’em-and-leave-’em lady who inspired lead singer Sebastian Delacroix to write their chart-topping single—until now.
“She’s an ex-girlfriend,” said Delacroix, in an exclusive interview with BuzzKlik. “I felt really strongly about her, which you don’t need me to tell you if you’ve listened to the song.”
Delacroix, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia, says he met Natalie in high school, although “I wouldn’t call us high-school sweethearts exactly,” he was quick to add. “But yeah, sometimes I wish we could still talk.”
Although he refused to elaborate further on Natalie’s identity, Delacroix coyly fueled further speculation that a woman pictured with music blogger Vivian Violet after a recent Young Lungs show in Brooklyn is, in fact, the girl who broke his heart.
“It’s a pretty blurry photo,” Delacroix said. “Next you’re going to ask me to ID the Loch Ness Monster.”
Regardless, he says that if Natalie’s listening out there—and with the all the airplay the single’s been getting, odds are pretty good—he has no hard feelings.
“As long as people are getting enjoyment out of our song, well—that’s the most important thing. Not whoever it’s about. Or,” he added, “whatever heartbreak might have inspired it.”
Catch the Young Lungs next at the TLA in Philadelphia this Saturday night. More tour details are on their website.
I did some quick mental calendaring. If Sebastian was playing Philadelphia this Saturday, and had just played New York City last Friday, then he had to be in Wister.
As the train trundled out of the city and toward the suburbs, I pulled Pixstagram back open. The latest picture in my feed wasn’t Sebastian’s, thank God, but Tess’s: a selfie with all her makeup done up. Dance looks!!! was the caption, followed by a string of tiny cartoon balloons and hearts and then PLEASE COME EVERYBODY!
I swallowed hard and tapped into my message inbox. Maybe I couldn’t go to the dance, but I could make everyone else want to go. Because if Sebastian really wished we could still talk, who was I not to grant him that?
With quivering thumbs, I typed out a message.
to: sebdel
hey, i know you’re in town. i saw the article. we need to talk.
No sooner had I pressed Send than my heart started to squish hotly inside my rib cage. What if he didn’t see it in time? What if he did see it in time and just ignored me? How was I, Nattie McCullough-Schwartz, supposed to get Sebastian Delacroix to realize that I was worth talking to?
As I clenched my phone, it started to buzz with an unknown number—New York again—as the train squealed to a stop.
“Wister!” yelled the lady conductor. “Wister, this stop.”
I immediately hit Decline and then realized the answer was literally in the palm of my hand.
As the train pulled away, I ran up the station steps two at a time and furiously typed out a string of new messages.
to: sebdel
reporters have been calling me for days
and I haven’t been answering
but if you don’t talk to me TODAY
i’m giving the next one that calls a video of the talent show
you know which one
I walked the rest of the way home trembling but triumphant.
“Hi, Nattie.” Sam Huang waved from his computer. “Where were you?”
“Um,” I said, doing my best to conceal the fact that I was undergoing a blackmail-related blood-pressure spike. “Just . . . out. Studying. At Zach’s house.”
“I thought you were grounded,” Sam Huang said.
“Studying doesn’t count,” I said, and then wondered if this was true. No one had really laid out the parameters. But I didn’t have long to wonder, because two seconds later my phone buzzed almost right off the counter and I pounced on it.
to: nmcullz
ok
Okay. Okay! Sebastian was going to talk to me! I threw my phone back on the counter in terror and began to pace the kitchen. Having never blackmailed someone before, I wasn’t exactly sure of the procedure. I had vague notions of offshore bank accounts and escrow, whatever that was, from movies, but I was pretty sure those only applied in situations where the currency was literally currency and not a poorly shot phone video of a teenage boy making a fool of himself in a school auditorium.
I was midway through my mental composition of a threatening opening statement when my phone buzzed again.
to: nmcullz
be at yr house in 2
“Holy—” I started, and then clapped a hand over my mouth. I had to act, and I had to act fast. I didn’t even have time to consider all the stupid possibilities spinning through my mind.
“Sam?” I yelled into the recesses of the kitchen. “I’m going . . . out. I mean, not out out, but . . . outside.”
Yes. Good. Keep Sebastian from infiltrating the property. Definitely don’t let Sam Huang see him.
I had barely banged out the screen door when Sebastian’s Crown Vic pulled up to the curb. In the bright afternoon light, I could see all the patchy spots of rust covering its snout and sides. It looked as tired as I felt. It looked . . . kind of gross, actually.
Sebastian swung out of the driver’s seat. He was at peak Sebastian today, face scruffy, half smiling, half . . . chewing.
“Hey.” He crumpled something shiny and foil-y into his pocket, swallowed, and smiled.
I should’ve felt shivers. Or at the very least, stomach butterflies. But what I really felt was . . . annoyed. Annoyed at his stupid tight pink T-shirt. Annoyed that he didn’t even bother to finish eating whatever he was eating before he showed up, and annoyed that he was drumming on the thigh of his jeans even as he was staring me down. And most of all, annoyed that he’d ignored me, gone totally
silent after all those messages, and then suddenly decided he could call me his “ex-girlfriend” just because it would make an interview sound interesting.
He swallowed whatever he was eating and rubbed his chin. “So, listen—”
“Hey. Wait. Hey.” My words were stumbling and mushing together. “Can we not talk here? Not inside, either,” I added, thinking of Sam Huang on his computer. “Let’s go . . . here.”
I swept my arm toward the yurt. Sebastian frowned.
“What is that?”
“It’s a yurt,” I said. After a few evenings of work from Dad and Sam, it was more or less back to its yurtly shape.
Sebastian laughed softly, which, honestly, made me want to smack him.
“Well, it is,” I said. “My dad’s been working on it for weeks. Just go in, okay?”
I held up my phone as a tacit warning. Sebastian stopped laughing.
I marched over and pulled open the yurt flap to usher Sebastian in, casting a careful eye around the yard. No one on the street, no Sam Huang emerging from the house, no Mom coming home from the art supply store—
Clonk.
“Ow!”
Sebastian straightened up, a hand to his forehead. “Damn. What the hell?”
“It’s a low door,” I said. “Just get in, okay?”
Since Sebastian seemed to be challenged in the art of humbling himself, I demonstrated. Inside, the yurt was warm and pleasantly glowy, and smelled like the inside of an L.L.Bean tote bag. Unfortunately, the canvas ceiling was so low that the only place we could stand straight was right in the center. Right next to each other. Inches apart.
“Hey.”
When he spoke, I could feel it—the words, his breath, the hum of someone else’s body so close to mine. Closer than any male person had ever been, maybe.
“Um,” I said. “Hey.”
I wished I could close my eyes, but Sebastian’s face was too close to mine. The yurt air was pressing up on every inch of my skin, particularly my feet, which were bare.
“Natalie.” Sebastian bit his lip and cocked his head. “So.”
We were not having an actual conversation, let alone a confrontation. I squinched my eyes shut for half of a half of a second and plunged in.
“Bring your band to the dance.” I practically shouted it. “That’s it. I just need you to have the Young Lungs show up on Friday night and play and then I won’t post the video or . . . or anything.”
Sebastian shifted his weight, considering me. Then he chuckled.
“Natalie,” he said again. “This isn’t like you.”
“Like me?” I blinked. “How would you even know?”
“Because we’ve been talking for so long,” Sebastian said. “We have a connection.”
He cocked his hip out, coming even closer toward me in the already very small space. But I refused to flinch. Because now that he was here, now that we were actually talking, I realized something about all those Pixstagram messages.
“First of all,” I said, “it’s Nattie. Second of all, we haven’t been talking. You’ve been talking at me. You just sent me tons and tons of random stuff about beauty and the moon and tacos, or whatever, but when I actually asked you a question, you ignored me. Remember? Even when I came all the way to New York.”
Sebastian didn’t seem to be listening.
“God, you’re so tough,” he said, his voice annoyingly soft. “And yet . . . kinda delicate.”
His eyes settled on the only available exposed part of my body, which was the triangle of skin where I’d cut the elastic out of my Wister Prep hoodie because it had been choking me. But the way he looked at it did make it seem . . . sexy. Sort of. Just a little.
And then he kissed my neck.
I froze. I had never had anyone kiss my neck before. It was warm and suctiony and kind of wet, like how I imagine a sea slug might feel if it cuddled up to you. I didn’t know what to do, especially with my hands, so I just stood there, and tried to . . . well, to enjoy it.
No. No. Focus, Nattie.
“Haven’t you been wondering,” Sebastian mumbled into the space behind my earlobe, “why I wrote a song about you?”
He mashed his lips into my neck a second time, and right then, I did wonder. Wonder whether it mattered. Wondered whether Sebastian was even going to have a good reason, and if I cared. If it would make any difference.
“Uh, Sebastian, um—” I remembered I had hands, and pushed him in the chest, which was surprisingly firm. “Stop.”
Sebastian looked confused, as if no one had ever pushed him away before, which I realized might be true. I sucked in a deep breath and went for it.
“Look,” I said, words tumbling out faster than I could control them, “I know the song’s about me. I know you’re telling people I was your ex-girlfriend when I wasn’t. And I know you never really liked me, because . . . because you never even knew me. But, um, I don’t care. I mean . . . okay, actually, I care a lot, and if this weren’t an emergency I’d be super pissed. I mean”—shoot, this was not going well—“I am super pissed, but if you just get your band to play this one dance so that everyone at school will show up, then the rest of it doesn’t matter. One show and you can keep singing about me as long as your career lasts.”
Sebastian’s mouth hung open a little, which was not a great look for him. Then, as if he remembered what he was trying to do, he slipped back into seductive mode.
“Didn’t really like you?” He chuckled. Sebastian never laugh laughed, I noticed, just made a low rumble, almost like he was clearing his throat. “Would I being doing this if I didn’t like you?”
Then he put a hand behind my neck and kissed me. On the mouth.
It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. I felt every molecule in my body seize up with my own weirdness, and stay seized, even as Sebastian kept opening his mouth on top of mine. The weirdness wasn’t going away. If anything, I was starting to feel weirder. Whatever the opposite of melting was, that’s what I was doing. Solidifying. Hardening up.
“Stop!” I pushed Sebastian away, right in his stupid gym-chiseled pecs. “Sebastian, no offense, but gross. I don’t even li—”
“Nattie?”
Crouching at the yurt flap, bent over so he wouldn’t hit his head, was Zach the Anarchist.
“Shoot!” I jumped, actually jumped, and would’ve fallen backward if there had been space in the yurt to support it. “Zach? What are you doing here?”
Zach silently held up my Latin notebook. The notebook I’d forgotten at his house.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I said quickly. My face was burning up. “I mean, no, it is, but trust me, I did not think that was going to—”
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” Sebastian, who was irritatingly not reacting to anything, put his hands in his pockets and nodded at Zach the Anarchist. Zach did not nod back.
“We’re kinda—hah—busy,” Sebastian went on, “so if you could—”
“Yeah, okay.” Zach the Anarchist dropped the yurt flap.
“Zach!” I swallowed a lump in my throat and leaped out after him. Even outside of the yurt, I still felt like I was burning up. Somewhere behind me, I heard the yurt flap flop shut again.
“It’s because of the dance,” I called across the yard. “To get the band to play.”
“Him?” Zach stopped, halfway to his car. “Seriously? The guy who sang ‘A Medley from Andrew Lloyd Webber’ in a literal Technicolor dreamcoat? Or was I the only one watching that talent show?”
All Sebastian’s coolness dropped away.
“You said nobody knew!” he squealed at me. “Did you tell people?”
“Shut up,” I explained. Clearly, my suspicions were correct: for indie rockers, an earnest performance of musical theater was the kiss of death. Especially when it was wickedly off-key. “Zach, it’s for Tess. For everyone. So people will come.”
But Zach was focused on Sebastian.
“You know what, Sebastian? I
listened to your album.”
Zach took a step toward Sebastian, my Latin notebook still in hand. Sebastian kind of flinched. I rolled up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, desperate to calm down.
“Yeah?” Sebastian folded his arms. Zach took another step.
“Yeah.” Zach shook his head. “You stole riffs from the Stiff Little Fingers, drum lines from Dave Grohl’s early stuff, and most of your shitty lyrics from, I don’t know, the Maroon 4.”
“Maroon 5,” I said, and itched the inside of my elbow, which was amazingly itchy all of a sudden.
“Whatever.”
Sebastian gave a one-shouldered shrug. “What can I say? Artists steal.”
“Oh my God, seriously?” The words barged right out of my mouth. “Sebastian, you’re not an artist.”
Zach the Anarchist smiled a tiny smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s not making art. That’s making money.”
Instead of being angry, or even ruffled, Sebastian just shook his head and looked at me from under his bangs.
“Really?” he said. To me. “You’re really going to let this guy tell you what to think?”
I couldn’t answer. The weirdness was coalescing. My entire body felt like it was getting stabbed with tiny pins. I was kind of having trouble breathing. I was literally speechless.
“See, man?” Sebastian said. “She doesn’t agree with you.”
“Don’t tell Nattie what she thinks.”
It was too much. My lungs hurt, and my itchy elbow had become my itchy entire torso.
“Shut up!” I wheezed in the deepest breath I could. “Both of you! I . . . I . . .”
I started to cough, and grabbed onto the side of the yurt for support. I barely had time to see Zach the Anarchist’s eyes get very wide before he sprinted across the yard.
“Nattie? What’s up? Are you okay?”
Behind us, Sebastian hovered. “Uh, is she, like . . . dying, or something?”
My throat felt like a straw that someone was pinching shut. I tried to shake my head, but everything was getting kind of one-dimensional.
“Holy shit, Nattie, are you having an allergic reaction?”
“Yeah,” I wheezed. “I just decided to eat a strawberry.”
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