Smash It!

  I sing.

  “Louder,” he shouts.

  I’m screaming the lyrics, and I know I sound ridiculous, but it’s too much fun when we’re both yelling and dancing like nothing matters. We’re in this moment, not a second before or after. Just now.

  He mouths words at me, and I can’t hear anything between my screaming and the music.

  “What?” I yell.

  He moves closer, jumping with me. His lips nearly touch my cheek as he says, “You’re amazing.”

  * * *

  We spent an hour dancing and laughing around the garage. It’s November and some of the leaves are falling off the trees, but it’s still 70 degrees outside, and in this closed garage, I’m sweating bullets.

  We’re lying down with our backs on the cool cement when Eli says, “I can’t remember the last time we laughed like this.” We laugh all the time, but I know he means the last time we did really stupid shit and laughed so hard we cried. The kind of laughing that sounds like we have really bad asthma.

  My head is next to his, my shoulder touching his shoulder, and even though we spent the last hour transported to our middle school days, I’m very aware that we’re back in the present. Me in this body I didn’t ask for, and him to a chiseled jaw that makes me swoon.

  His hair is curled around his face from all the sweating, and I hope I don’t look half as crazy as I feel. My curls are slicked back in a bun, but I can feel some pulled loose on the back of my neck. “I don’t know,” I say. Then it hits me. “Eighth grade.”

  His eyes go wide, and we’re laughing again.

  The summer before eighth grade, I found my sister’s old camera and we reenacted all eight Harry Potter movies. I can hardly talk. “When Dré came out of the bathroom with his mom’s wig...” I can’t even finish.

  “Oh my god.” Eli snorts, and tears collect in the corners of his eyes. “He thought he looked so good. Behold the Mighty Draco, bitches. Oh my god.” He sits up. “We have to find that. He had on eyeliner and everything.”

  I remember it like it was just this morning. We were doing the emo version, and we thought we were geniuses. The editing on it was absolute trash, but it was us.

  Eli wipes his eyes, still chuckling. For once, I’m not envious of his thick lashes. I want them in a different way. The way you want to see something on a person who belongs to you.

  With the music on low and us in a bubble of silence, I realize we’re staring at each other. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth, and I want to know all the secrets that make up Elijah Peretz. I thought I knew them, but now I know I don’t.

  He doesn’t look away, but he doesn’t lean in and kiss me either. He says, “Ready to sing for real this time?”

  I pull away from his gaze and stare at the ceiling. I’m the biggest sucker in the candy shop. I breathe out the nerves that were collecting in my stomach.

  “Liv.” He’s saying it like he does when we’re on the phone, and I know I can’t be making up this whole thing between us. “Liv...” He’s singing my name now. He stands up with his water and holds out his other hand for me. I let him pull me up as he drinks half the bottle. He gives me the rest and I finish it.

  We share like this all the time...but it feels different right now. I’m waiting for something, but nothing comes next. He just walks over to the table with my phone and puts on his own playlist. He knows my music, because my music is his music. We share everything except for the truth about what is happening right now.

  He starts to sing with the track and raises his brows at me. His voice is liquid gold. It’s deep, and it does its own thing. His voice is my body with music. It doesn’t hesitate or need an invitation to be. It just is. “Sing with me.”

  I look up at the ceiling again, mumbling out the words, because I’m not the kind of person who can look longingly into someone’s eyes and sing. I die when they do it to me. I squirm like a slug dying as someone sprinkles table salt on my little slug body.

  His fingers tickle my neck, and I push his hands away, kind of hoping he’ll push mine back and lock them together, but he just laughs and says, “Look at me.”

  “That’s super intimidating and awkward. I’m not fearless like you,” I say, but I scrunch up my face so he knows I’m being funny instead of honest. I can tell him the truth if I cover it up in a joke. Maybe that’s my problem.

  “I’m not fearless. Everyone’s scared. We’re all scared to fail or scared to admit we’re in love. We’re all stupid and smart all at the same time. We’re all good at something someone thinks is stupid. Being brave enough to do it anyway is the difference.”

  Did he just say we’re in love? I can’t tell if he’s being abstract or if he’s saying he loves me and he’s scared. This is going to haunt me until eternity, because I’m too chickenshit to get clarification.

  “All right.” He moves next to me; we’re shoulder to shoulder facing opposite directions. “Now I can’t see you.” He sings again and nudges me.

  I’m still stuck on the love thing. I used to be able to figure him out. I knew when he was sad, angry, bits of both. I knew it all, and Eli used to be the kid of very few words. Now, he talks so much, and I can’t figure out what he’s saying.

  I let the lyrics fall out of my mouth, and he doesn’t laugh at my shaky voice. I’m terrified right now, but fuck it. That’s what this year is supposed to be about. Fuck the terror. I take a deep breath and keep going. Song after song, he makes me sing louder and louder until I’m shouting and we’re laughing all over again. At this rate, we’ll never be ready for auditions, but I want to keep going like this forever.

  Maybe this is the way it is with us. We’ll dance around it until we fall into each other. Maybe we’re making that secret contract right now. To do this thing naturally.

  I don’t get Eli anymore, not like I used to, but I’m stupid in love with him. And I’m pretty sure he’s in love with me, too.

  Chapter 7

  Eli and I don’t talk about our secret dance parties or how my rap game is kinda scary. (Luckily, as we go through the audition pieces, I realize that most of the female parts are sung anyway.) We’ve been practicing most nights when no one is around, so I’m bummed when Dré announces he’s booked them another gig at the Grove. It pays double this time, because their Halloween gig sold to maximum capacity.

  I’m happy for them—I am—but I’m also positive that Eli and I are one practice away from throwing our panting bodies into each other and sucking face. Actually, that’s a lie—I just keep hoping it’ll happen, like the sad sack I am. Al would be so disappointed in me, but I haven’t the guts to tell him I’m back on the Elijah Peretz train and still apparently going nowhere.

  I was sure Eli was sending me vibes, but now I’m back to not having a single clue. When we get close and I look into his eyes, he does...nothing. I give him the eyes. The ones where I look longingly at him for a second too long after a flirty joke. I find the cheesiest excuses to touch him. To brush our hands against each other—and yet he’s giving me nothing back.

  But at the same time—when I least expect it, he’ll drop a line like, How you single dancing like that? Who says that without a follow-up? I thought we were doing the when the mood strikes, it will happen thing. But it doesn’t get more romantic than singing love songs together in my bedroom—unless he’s just not into me.

  I just want to cry into a bowl full of mini Reese’s Cups.

  I’m sitting in Bio II across from Lennox with our DNA results from the fake crime scene, when I realize the only person I have to talk to about my non-love life is a seventy-year-old man who thinks Twitter is the work of the devil.

  Lennox is staring at me, probably because it’s the fifth time I’ve sighed and I haven’t added anything useful to the conversation in ten minutes. “O, what is up with you, girl? I can’t have you fucking with my grades.” She calls me O now. No o
ne calls me Olivia except my grandmother. And when she says it, it’s like she believes I’ll be a debutante with white gloves and a black boyfriend named Cliff.

  “I’m fine.” I’m so not fine. I’m far from it. Not to mention my jeans keep falling off my butt and I don’t have a belt, because I hate the extra bulk buckles add around my waist. All the black girls at my school have pants that fit but I swear they all have those tiny bellies that stay flat when they sit down.

  Lennox puts down her pen and leans forward, surveying my face. “You in love?”

  This girl is like the psychic version of Bob Marley. I don’t even know how to answer her. “No.” I don’t want her telling me about who else she’s slept with. There are over three thousand kids at our school, but if she says Eli, I’ll fucking lose it. So I change the subject. “I’m nervous about auditions.” It’s true, I am. They’re at the end of next week, and I am low-key freaking out. Every time I think about getting onstage and singing or delivering my lines, I get that deep dread in my stomach.

  “Don’t even sweat it.” Lennox has gold wire wrapped around her dreads today, and it accents her light brown eyes. Those eyes are already intense as is with the color, but she’s also an eye-contact person. Normal people blink away every three seconds. Lennox is a slow blinker, and her gaze never leaves mine. “My first time auditioning I was scared, too, but everyone is supportive. We’re all there for the same reason, so it’s like being in front of friends.”

  I want to tell her that, until recently, my friends couldn’t say they’d ever seen me do anything—but she tilts her head like she’s got an idea.

  “You know what. Come to our audition party.”

  I blink. I’m at a magnet school, and I’ve seen those PBS specials about performing arts schools and kids doing all that off-Broadway kinda shit. My school isn’t really like that—we’re just normal—but I won’t lie, the theatre kids, they’re like a cult. They break out in song in the mornings, by the lockers, in the pizza line. They move in groups, and unless you’re one of them, you don’t know what they’re up to or when they’re going to flash mob you. So, while I’m surprised they have parties for occasions like auditions, I’m not surprised at the same time.

  “When is it?” I don’t even know why I’m asking, because I know I’m going to settle on I’m sorry I can’t make it, no matter what she says.

  “Tonight.” Lennox is all chill about asking me the day of.

  “Girl—that’s real short notice.” I don’t even have to come up with a clever excuse. I get ready for a resounding no, but the annoying voice in my head saying fuck it is getting louder. So far, this fuck-it thing has not come easy. Every choice is forced and uncomfortable. It’s not like I live a wild and crazy life. I go to school, do homework, practice my flute, and do chores. I started this list thinking I was making some huge change in my life, and so far it’s been a week of—nothing life changing.

  Al said change isn’t about creating opportunities, it’s about taking advantage of the ones present, but does going to a party with strangers count? I’m not scared. I’m just not interested. I don’t do parties without Dré and Eli, because they’re my people. They’re the reason I go to the party. I don’t even know anyone in the theatre program besides Cleo—oh god, what if Cleo is at the party and we get our awkward-stank all over the place?

  These are starting to feel like excuses, and I groan. “Fine.”

  Lennox raises an eyebrow. “Damn, I take it back if you’re gonna act like that.”

  I hold up my hands and laugh. She looks really insulted, and I can’t help but laugh harder—no, really, when people get mad, my first reaction is to laugh. It’s so messed up, and my mom has slapped me upside the head more times than I can count because of it. “I’m not saying that to you. I’m saying it to me.”‘

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  “I’m doing this Year of Fuck It thing and—” I can tell I’m losing her, so I explain it to her the same way I explained it to Al, and she, like Al, is into Grey’s Anatomy. It’s like the show to bridge all generations. Obviously, if Shonda Rhimes can do that, she’s got to be onto something about this Year of Yes thing.

  “I get it. Is that why you’re doing the musical?”

  I nod, and just when I think she’s about to say something slick, she smiles. “That’s boss. Shit, I want to do it, too—well, I would if I didn’t already say yes to everything that scares me. But I dig it.”

  Lennox picks up her pen, and we get back to work trying to match blood samples. Before we leave class, she offers to be my ride and puts my address in her phone. Again, she just whips it out and no one even bats an eye. I swear, once I just checked the time and had admin all over me like drug dogs on a bag of cocaine. I don’t know how she does it—but I dig it, too.

  She puts her phone away with this look on her face that I can only describe as devious. “Bring that fuck-it attitude with you—you’re gonna need it.” She leaves me standing in front of the lockers, trying to figure out what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

  * * *

  Eli and Dré’s gig is tonight, and I feel bad for canceling on them, but I don’t know why. It’s not like I do anything for them; they have all the moral support they need when they’re onstage, with a fan base that spans a few schools. They don’t need me. But I’m looking at Dré’s message in the group chat, wondering if his Cool means Yeah, it’s cool you’re going to a party, or Yeah, whatever, we don’t need you anyway, asshole.

  Eli just sent a K. Nothing else.

  It shouldn’t bother me, but I want them to fight for my attention a little. Maybe they’ve gotten so used to me being around, they don’t even notice when I’m not. Or, most likely because I’m my mother’s neurotic child, I’m reading way too much into two one-word messages.

  I put on my best pair of jeans, the ones that ride high on my waist and make me look slimmer, and a white tank top with a billowy kimono blouse.

  I stole the blouse from my mom’s closet, and as she watches me put on some of her red lipstick, she nods in approval. “You look cute,” she says, eyeing her sheer kimono.

  I’m always stealing her clothes when I want to look nice. She’s got fashion sense, but apparently not enough of it to pass down to me. She helps with mascara, and I can’t help but ogle her poreless skin. She’s not even wearing makeup. My mother looks like a doll. She’s in her late forties, but everyone thinks she’s my sister. Not in that lame flattery kind of way. In the she tries to buy wine and they card her and eye her like it’s a fake ID kind of way.

  Because she has vampire genes, I look like I’m twelve when I wear my hair in a bun or try bringing back coveralls. I’m not mad about it, but I get the cute comment from guys while girls like Lennox get the hot damn! kind of recognition.

  “You really should do something with that hair.” My mom thinks natural hair is nappy and unruly. She doesn’t get the embrace the curl movement. She’s all about weaves and—to my unfortunate middle school days—thick braids that don’t belong on a girl with a round face. I was that girl. The one who looked like she didn’t know hair could be pretty.

  I don’t know what it is with my mom. She always looks flawless, but she would dress me like I was Oliver Twist—like she wanted people to take pity and toss me a few coins. To be fair, I was a big kid. I was shopping in Junior Miss before I was a miss. I was the kid who thought everyone ate a box of cookies in one sitting.

  Now, I’m not fat, but damn, I’m not snatched either. Clothes just don’t fit me like they do other girls—except these jeans and this sheer, flowy blouse. Perfect outfits only happen on magical leap years, and though I’m thinking about it, I have too much shame to wear the same outfit every day just because it’s banging.

  My mom’s talking again, and I have no idea what she’s saying. Over the years I’ve learned to tune her out like background noise. “I’m sorry, wh
at?”

  She cuts her eyes at me. “I said—you should put on some of my heels. They’ll give you height, trim a few pounds off your thighs.”

  OH MY GOD. This is why she lives on mute most of the time. “I’m good in flats.” Who does she think I’m trying to impress anyway? And I’m short and have thick thighs; no amount of heel is going to change that.

  She’s rolling her eyes, like, why do I even try. And I want her to try, I do. I want to know how she can piece together an outfit from just a pair of shoes, or how she learned to ombré her lipsticks. I want to know these things, but she always comes at me with some whack-ass nonsense that just doesn’t look right on me. Last year, I let her do my makeup for homecoming, and I swear she had me looking like a clown.

  Twinks jumps up on the counter and puts her tail in my mouth while I tweeze a few rebellious eyebrow hairs. Twinks is probably on her last year or two, and I don’t have the heart to yell at her. I try batting her tail out of the way and get a streak of drool on my arm instead.

  I’m checking myself in the hallway mirror when I get second thoughts. Lennox’s words haunt me like flashbacks from Halloween. Bring that fuck-it attitude, you’re going to need it.

  But there’s no time to call it off, Lennox is five minutes early, and I’m honestly surprised. I don’t know anyone with an ounce of melanin who is ever on time. “Damn, girl.” She’s checking me out, and I can’t help but smile. I tried. I really did. This whole look took me three hours and four changes of clothes to get right. “Bitch, you fine as fuck. Stick to high-waisted jeans. I don’t know why you don’t wear them to school.”

  I look at the jeans—she’s not wrong. My sister gave them to me last week. Amber’s always giving me her castoffs when she’s down for a random weekend. She lives in Atlanta doing—I actually have no idea what she does. She’s always changing careers, and every time she starts explaining her job, I hear that, whamp whamp sound all the adults in Charlie Brown make. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I’d rather talk about what she’s going to cook. She can throw down in the kitchen, and once, I really did scream, “Hallelujah! Take me, Jesus!” after my sister made me a key lime pie.