Smash It!

  There’s a pause, and I’m pretty sure he’s thinking of how to politely tell me I’m barking up the wrong tree. “I’ll help you with the singing part of the auditions if you help me with my dancing.”

  Sweet Jesus. Truth be told, I am good at dancing. I danced for five years before high school, but I quit. Things stop being fun when everyone’s goal is to become a professional jazz dancer or to get into some fancy dance academy—not to mention when you overhear your teacher tell your mom your body is getting too curvy.

  Whatever. I don’t need lessons to love dancing. I just like that feeling that comes with making the lyrics mean something with my body. But I don’t do it in public, not since I got ass and breast. Now, when I move my body, everything moves. I feel like a walking porn show. I don’t want him thinking I look like a thirst trap every time I shake my hips.

  “You’ve never seen me dance. How do you know I can teach you?” I’m still salty as hell about them laughing at me today. They brought up me being too much of a punk to dance in front of them and that hurt—even if it’s true.

  I know Eli’s picking up on all my petty because he starts talking fast. “Liv, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was just surprised. That’s all.”

  Mmm-hmm. “I never said you hurt my feelings.” I don’t know why I lie about things like this. I know pride is, like, the leading cause of self-sabotage, but it’s all I’ve got these days.

  “I just want you to know that I believe in you. Hundred percent.”

  Wow. If my heart wasn’t doing somersaults before, it is now. I mean, yeah, they roasted me, but what they said was true, and the whole point of change is—to change. So of course they were shocked.

  Also, Eli believes in me. I try to get my shit together and stop swooning long enough to say, “What if I’m bad? Will you laugh at me?” What I’m really asking is, What if I look like a big-boobed sex show—will you scratch your eyes out and pretend you never knew me? And what I want to hear is more of this I believe in you heart-melting stuff.

  “Yes.”

  I choke.

  He said it so fast, at first, I thought he said no—the default answer to a question like that. “But,” he adds, “I’d still love you. Hot mess and all.”

  He does that. Says the L word without actually saying it—and I always ignore it. There is no way to confirm whether he means it in that friend way or more-than-friend way—but I try to get that confirmation anyway, because my heart is beating in my damn throat.

  “You love everyone.” I wait on edge for the words I want to hear. No, just you.

  But he sighs and says, “I’m a lover, what can I say.”

  I’m glad my blinds are closed and he can’t see me slump onto my bed like the sad, parched girl I am.

  Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. It’s all cool. I can’t tell if this thing we have is exhilarating or really putting a beating on my self-esteem.

  “It’s a deal, right?” he says, and I hear him clicking off his lamp. Normally I’d say no faster than my mom when I ask to borrow her nice purse, because I don’t want Eli to hear me rap like I’ve been possessed by the devil, or see me shake my big ass like I’m putting out a mating call. But my Fuck It list is on my mirror where I put it when I got home, and even Twinks is looking at me with her squinty eyes like she’s saying, Don’t be a punk bitch.

  So I say fuck it.

  “What?”

  “I mean, yeah. Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  I’m on my way to band class when I bump into Cleo. She’s outside the theatre pinning up musical flyers.

  She raises her eyebrows at me and does that weird smile where she bunches her lips together. Welp, this is going to be awkward as hell.

  “Hey, little cuz,” she says. She’s tall and willowy like my mom—and everyone else in our family—and her hair is as straight as her spine. She’s got it in a ponytail, and it swings as she reaches up to tape a flyer to the brick wall. We’re only two months apart, but she always has this air of the older cousin, which is ridiculous, but whatever.

  I’m doing the usual wave when she hands me a flyer.

  “We’re doing a rap musical this year, hang this up by the band room for me?” She does this small laugh that means she’s about to say something she thinks is clever but I don’t get, because we don’t frequent the same universe. “As if band kids will put down their instruments long enough to try their hand at lyrical Shakespeare.” She laughs at her own joke.

  As usual, I don’t get how that was supposed to be funny, but okay. At best, it was sorta rude.

  There are two types of magnet kids—the ones who go really hard for their department, like Cleo, and the ones like me, who really don’t care about who is in which department. I don’t think music defines me. It’s just a thing I do—something my mom picked, actually. While I was in middle school, she thought all girls who played the flute were pretty. And now I play the flute and take music theory.

  I nod at a passing oboe player who’s looking at the flyers and squealing about the new production. “Actually,” I say to Cleo as she grabs the rest of the flyers to plaster the school, “I’m trying out.”

  I’d have to tell her eventually so I just put a small smile on my face so she knows I’m not trying to be combative. It’s weird, this relationship—we aren’t friends, we’re not really family—I mean we are, but we don’t act like it.

  We have other cousins, who I love. We have a blast when they come up for holidays, so I don’t know why Cleo and I are like this. I’ve always blamed our moms, who have this sibling rivalry thing going, but one day, it just seemed like Cleo and I went from being uninterested in each other to eyeing one another like we’re on Survivor and one of us is about to be cast off the island.

  Cleo, still processing, tilts her head. “You’re trying out?” She’s squinting her eyes like it’s a joke, but just when I think she’s about to get all Aunt Rachel on me and make some smart-ass comment about how it’s so unlike me, she nods. “That’s ballsy.”

  I don’t know how to take that, so I just wiggle my hips. “Yeah, I’ve got plenty.” I don’t know why I said that, and she’s shaking her head like, Girl, stop. And I do. “Well, it always looks like a lot of fun, so—” Talking with her is so awkward. Once, we went to the mall with my mom and spent the whole trip not talking. We just sat on a bench between stores on our phones while my mom shopped.

  We both like musicals. You’d think that’d be something to bond over, but she hates the ones I like. WHO HATES RENT?! Cleo, that’s who. I’d say she’s a horrible human being, but she’s my cousin, so...

  Cleo’s adjusting her book bag. “They’re totally fun—but super hard. I mean, auditions are a beast to get through, and even if you get a small role, it’s so much work.”

  I nod. “Yeah, but worth it, right?” Is she trying to talk me out of it?

  A few other kids from band walk around us, and this one boy who plays the trombone spins between us, nearly knocking the pile of papers out of Cleo’s arms.

  “Of course, I just mean you already have a lot going on, and Mrs. G is a harsh judge. But if you’re serious about it, I can totally help you with lines.” She’s smiling like normal now—which is still a tight-lipped half smile, but with Cleo and me, that’s about as warm as it gets.

  “Sure,” I say. I don’t know if I really want to take her up on it, because deep down the ugly part of me thinks she might try to sabotage me. I know that’s super paranoid and borderline self-obsessed, but Cleo’s still holding her face in the exact same position—stiff and forced.

  She’s not a bad person, and I know I’m being extra. Not to mention she is a theatre kid, and like Al said, she could give me legit tips—so I try the fuck-it thing to get out of my head—but before I can ask her when she’s free, the bell’s ringing and she’s taking those long-legged strides away from me toward t
he theatre.

  Eli is leaning on one of the brick columns in front of the band room, watching me with a smirk on his face.

  “Don’t,” I say as his smile widens and his bottom lip catches on his teeth. He knows about the weird thing between Cleo and me. A few years ago, my mom hosted a Fourth of July party in our backyard, and Eli and Dré stopped over. Cleo was there, and our moms kept asking us to perform things. Cleo, Aunt Rachel would say, do your skit from recitals. Then my mom would shout, Liv, go get your flute.

  Needless to say, I went inside to grab my flute and never resurfaced. We all ended up playing Xbox at Eli’s, and Cleo was clearly the odd one out.

  Eli laughs. “You two are so awkward. It hurts just watching.”

  “I’m not awkward. She’s the weird one. I just told her I’m trying out, and she pretty much told me I’m too busy and not good enough.”

  Eli opens the door to the band room, and we’re blasted with a wave of noise—a flat trumpet and high-pitched flute shrill at the top of the sound cloud. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just trying to whittle down the competition.” He winks at me, and I walk with him to his French horn locker, since I’ve already got my flute with me. His fingers roll through the combination—I know it like I know everything else about him.

  I have to raise my voice over the random notes and timpani bangs. Everyone is warming up like a responsible ensemble after yesterday’s practice, where Mr. Kaminski yelled at us for being total garbage on every song we rehearsed. I was well rehearsed, of course, but that’s because I know what I’m doing. The flute comes easy to me—boring but easy—unlike theatre. “To be honest, I’m having second thoughts. All the drama kids are going to be trying out for these parts. She has a point. I’ve never done this before.”

  Eli pulls out his mouthpiece and buzzes on it. I wish I could say it wasn’t sexy. But everything he does just looks right. I’m making myself sick. I am sick.

  I spot Mr. Kaminski popping his head out of the office, surveying us like he’s readying for battle, and I drop my book bag next to Eli’s locker to start unpacking my flute. “I’m just saying, this is starting to look like a crazy idea. I mean—where will I find the time?”

  Eli pulls the mouthpiece from his lips and shrugs. He holds his locker door open for me to put my case in—it’s things like this that make me feel like, if he gets a girlfriend, it will ruin our entire friendship. I share his space—his room is across from mine. I can’t look up one day and be the girl who has to stop sharing Eli’s space because his girlfriend has taken up residence.

  He’s already off grabbing a music stand, and I pull my sheet music from my bag and take my seat—second chair to the world’s most neurotic flute player, Zora Jackson. She’s always marking up my music when I don’t take down every note that is rather obvious to me. I just let her do it—better to go with the flow sometimes and not make waves, as they say.

  Except trying out for this musical is making waves.

  Someone taps my shoulder, and I look back—but no one is there, and I immediately know it was Dré. He does that all the time, and I can’t believe I looked. He’s walking with his trumpet to his seat and pretending he didn’t just pull a made you look.

  He’s carefree, relaxing in his chair while everyone else is trying to look productive so as not to catch Mr. Kaminski’s wrath. Dré’s like that. He’ll find a way to make the musical work in his schedule; he doesn’t care about auditions, because he doesn’t really care about anything. He’s just good at things.

  The horns are settling in, and Eli’s still buzzing on his mouthpiece when he catches my gaze. He raises his eyebrows and winks before going back to his music.

  I want an ounce of their confidence. If I’m honest, Cleo has me feeling a little overwhelmed with all the shit that can go wrong—that I’m up against kids who do this every day and might as well be professionals in comparison to me. Al told me to get help. Eli is great but he’s never done musical theatre before either, and the obvious person to give it to me just sashayed her tiny little ass away from me, taking my hope with her.

  Zora is in her seat next to me, pulling out her flute and music. She looks a little ruffled as she grabs her pencil and starts rattling off a bunch of words that should make sense, but because it’s Zora, they don’t. I have no clue what she’s talking about, and her music is all marked up; it looks borderline serial-killer-esque.

  Zora is a star pupil as far as Mr. Kaminski is concerned. She does all the extracurriculars and goes out for leadership roles during marching band season. Hell, she’s got her eye on drum major next year, and I think she’d literally kill for the position. No doubt Zora’s going to play in the pit for the musical. She did the last two years. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing—but I just don’t care about band like she does. I don’t want to be in the pit.

  I want to be onstage.

  Even if Cleo, no doubt, believes I don’t belong there.

  Zora leans into my stand with her pencil at the ready, and I stop her just before she puts some of her crazy on my copy. “No, thank you,” I say, blocking her twitchy little fingers.

  Wide-eyed, she looks at me and then around the room like she’s taking in the world for the first time and then goes back to chattering a mile a minute about crescendos and key changes.

  Maybe making waves is better than getting swept away.

  Mr. Kaminski leaves the podium, and I pull out my phone and type a quick message to Eli.

  Practice. My house tomorrow?

  I watch as he pulls out his phone and shoves it back into his pocket.

  We lock eyes, and he smiles. “Definitely,” he says, just as everyone stops their honks and shrills. Everyone’s looking at him. I am, too. But he’s only looking at me.

  Chapter 6

  Eli and I are standing in the middle of my garage. It’s Saturday, and my mom gets off in the late afternoon on Saturdays, so we only have three hours before she pulls in and makes fun of us, calling us cute for putting on a show, or some such mom nonsense.

  He pulls off his shirt, leaving just a sleeveless black tee that’s tight on his chest. It’s not even hot in here, but I’m pretending not to care about all the eye candy because old me wouldn’t have cared—wait. Maybe old me would have roasted him for showing off his chest. Where is that girl?

  He’s smirking now. “Checking out my pecs?”

  “I was wondering what ate the rest of your shirt.” I roll my eyes and pretend to check if we have everything we need: water, Bluetooth speaker, phone—yup.

  He smiles wide, and the bottom of his lip gets caught on his tooth. I know that it’s always done that, but I didn’t find it sexy before. Now I think about it whenever we talk. I double-check the water bottles and phone again. Fantasizing about us alone and flirting until one of us jumps the other is a lot easier than living it. What kind of weirdo tries to stage a romantic scene?

  “You don’t have to lie.” He’s next to me, and I look over because I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He’s got that smirk on his face again, which means it could go either way.

  I throw a towel at him and put on music so I don’t have to respond. “We’ll dance first so I still have time to duck out of all this singing business.”

  “Aye aye, Captain. Just show me how to bust a move.” He can say stupid stuff and still be cool. When I do it, I sound like that one old-ass teacher who creeps on teens. There’s one at every school. They still think we ride skateboards and say things like, Rad, man!

  I move to the middle of the garage and close my eyes, because I can’t do this with him staring at me. It’s a lot, knowing that I’m the only thing in the room he has to look at. I even put on my tightest bra and undershorts under my shorts to keep things from jiggling because the last thing I want is my boobs flipping and flopping around like fucking balloons.

  I find the beat and let my body s
tep into it. When I dance, I feel like I am the beat. I twerk and grind in my room when no one is looking, I do it in the club when I think it’s too packed for people to see me, and most of all I do it with guys I know I’ll never see again. I’ve always been able to slide into a song like it’s telling my story.

  I open my eyes, and I don’t know what I expected, but Eli’s small smile is enough to make me feel...like this isn’t weird. It’s fun. The music’s loud, and I scream over it, “Just go with it.”

  He nods and starts moving along with me. We’re not close, like in those weird dance movies where people all of a sudden practically start having sex on the dance floor. We’re just two people in the same space, dancing. And then we’re jumping and pounding our feet against the pavement.

  He takes it to a whole other place and hoots into the music. He starts singing, and his moves—they’re so bad it actually looks good. He’s hopping on one foot doing some rendition of the chicken dance, and I can’t stop laughing. Eli never dances onstage. He’s got three moves that keep him in the same spot, and now I know why. But the more he weaves back and forth, like he’s Stevie Wonder in the middle of a riff, the more I actually wish he would.

  He grabs my hands and twirls me around him. We are Beauty and the Beast, and for the first time I feel like Beauty, but Beast Boy is nothing to snub my nose at.

  The beat is thumping, and Eli shouts the lyrics even louder. Even when he’s not trying, his voice is smooth and full. He lets go of me and claps to the song. “Sing,” he yells.

  I open my mouth, but the words stick in my throat. I am a walking hesitation. Why is it so hard for me to just do?

  He dances around me, clapping and jutting his head back and forth.

  I’m laughing so hard, and for a minute I’m back in middle school when we used to make these dumb home videos of ourselves singing and doing skits. I don’t know what happened to that girl. She wasn’t afraid of anything.