by Ginger Scott
“When I get nervous. Like…really nervous. Which…being on stage makes me, like, way nervous,” she says, closing her eyes and tucking her chin. I watch her lashes open slowly, blinking, before the grays open fully on me. “You make me nervous.”
I don’t react. I work hard not to react. After a second or two, I offer a crooked smile and lean my head.
“I shouldn’t make you nervous,” I say.
She shrugs.
“You do,” she says, her eyes piercing me. She makes me nervous, too.
I swallow, and I know she sees it.
“So, what’s exhausting?” I ask, wanting to get us both off the hook. She’s not so anxious though. She seems comfortable with the silence. This is one of those moments where she’s in charge. I pull my knees up and prop her book against my legs, flipping through more pages because I’m the one folding.
“The performance of it all,” she says. “It’s not like you can sing all the time. I mean…I guess you could. But then you’d be like one of those people in musicals that gets dropped into the real world and only knows how to function while singing, but everyone looks at you weird because…duh! There really isn’t singing in the real world.”
I laugh at her, closing her book and sliding it in front of me on the floor.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” Her smile while lying down is better than the one she gives while standing. I lock the vision of it away and pray to see it closer one day.
“Are you trying to make me stutter?” she giggles.
“Maybe,” I smirk.
She breathes in slowly, rolling on her back and stretching her arms over her head. The black T-shirt she’s wearing rides up enough that I see her sides and bare stomach above her low-slung jeans, and I think to myself how far I’ve come. Any other girl, some other place and time, and I would be switching gears right now, capitalizing, because I always get the girl. I just don’t always keep the girl. They learn things, grow tired of me, or, more often, I am bored and done before anything has a chance. It’s never been the right girl, really. But Murphy…she’s a keep kind of girl. And this whole thing started because she hates me, so patience is necessary. But I have had my hand on that stomach. I’ve felt how warm her skin is through layers of fabric. I bet her skin is searing bare.
Patience isn’t a virtue. Patience is a murderer of six-foot-one fools desperate to kiss girls who sing like angels and look like my dreams.
“I pretend it’s all a performance,” she says finally.
“What’s a performance?” I ask.
“Life,” she says, falling to the side again.
Her eyes—they’re tired. I see it now.
“I think that’s true for all of us,” I say, exhaling and sliding down enough that only my head is propped against her wall. She throws a pillow to me, and I tuck it behind my neck. “Thanks.”
Every fiber of my body wants to crawl up next to her. But I can’t. Because she would think it’s all about the seduction. For once…it’s not. So, instead, I’m content staring at her, imagining how her lashes feel on my cheek, how her lips feel when my teeth tug on them, how her body reacts when I drag my hand from her bellybutton to her neck.
“I slip sometimes,” she says. I wait for her to explain. “Like in the studio, when we were recording. That’s why it was so hard. My nerves. And it’s why I only play at Paul’s. It took me forever to be able to play there. It still happens, though. I know you’ve heard it.”
“It’s not bad,” I say, and I mean it. It isn’t. If she hadn’t told me, I probably would have just always thought it was part of her quirkiness, cute nerves that get the best of her sometimes. Stage fright, maybe.
“It’s bad enough. Who wants to hear a girl sing and sound like a skipping record,” she says, and I hate that she’s frowning.
“I don’t know,” I say, lifting myself up on my elbows again. “But that’s not what people hear when they listen to you.”
“What do they hear?” she asks, her mouth crooked in question.
“God. Faith. Soul. It’s spiritual,” I say.
She laughs my words off instantly.
“You’re corny,” she says.
I laugh with her, because yeah…I get how that sounds. “I know, but seriously,” I say, “you’re a gift.”
Her laughter fades. She sits up again, her legs dangling from the side of her bed. Gray finds me fast and holds me hostage. I submit with nothing but the truth.
“And you’re beautiful,” I say. No smile, no pursed lips. All I do is look at her, because she is.
“Casey,” she breaths.
“You are.”
Silence falls over us again, more comfortable than before. I could sit like this for hours, just looking, and it’s so strange how content I am.
“Murphy? Murphy!”
Lane’s voice echoes from a few doors down, breaking up what might have been my favorite full minute of breathing ever. It was definitely my most honest minute ever. And I didn’t have to say a word.
“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Murphy sighs, flashing a bashful smile as she gets up from her bed and steps around me. I pull my legs in and crane my neck to watch her walk down the hall, doubly pleased when she shakes her fingers loose at her sides. I look at my own hands and see that I’m clenching my fists too.
With a silent laugh, I pick up her photo book and move to my knees, gliding over to her small bookcase and sliding the book back into it’s spot. She has a few songbooks in here, and I wonder if each is full, or if there are more gems waiting for someone to read them and declare them as worthy of her voice. As beautiful as her singing is, her writing is even more. Hell, there are artists I hear working all day at the studio that don’t hold a candle to her writing ability. But they have swagger—and it gets them anything they want, even million-dollar contracts and the attention of all the right people in the industry. This business is ninety-nine percent confidence, and that’s what’s killing Murphy.
I let my finger trace along a few more spines, stopping at the final four set of books, which I recognize immediately, because I just looked at the yearbooks in Houston’s house a week ago. I tip the first one out and flip through a few pages until I find her freshman picture. It’s young and barely recognizable, her cheeks rounder and her hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail. I skip through a few more pages without seeing her, and put her yearbook back, taking out the senior one I’d looked at before.
My hand knows right where to go, because I look at the picture so often, and I push down on the crease, exposing all of the image so I can take in her eyes. There are a few notes scribbled on the page with arrows pointing to other people in the drama club picture with her.
“You were great!” one reads.
“You’re going to be a star,” another says.
I smirk because, yeah…if I have anything to do with it, she is.
I flip through a few more pages, noticing the one of me at the talent show, rapping and pointing to people in the crowd. Looking back on it, I wasn’t very good. But it didn’t matter, because…well…swagger.
After flipping a few more, I get to the blank pages in the back, and there are only a few signatures left. Some people just signed names. One guy drew a picture that she’s semi-scribbled out. I can tell what it is, though—I’m pretty sure I was friends with Mr. Cock and Balls. I flip a few more, and then there’s a rush that hits me like morphine in the spine.
In your dreams!
~ Casey Coffield
My heart isn’t beating. I think if I don’t move soon, I won’t be able to, because blood is no longer circulating in my body.
I’m a dick.
I’m a massive, unbelievably self-centered, insensitive dick.
The stutterer.
The girl in the freshman picture.
She wanted to sing in the talent show.
I repeated every word she said as she tried to sing it during her audition.
When she pulled out, I took he
r spot.
I was amazing.
Everyone loved me.
I’m a fucking dick.
I hear her laughing with her brother less than twenty feet away, and my eyes are red and my veins are full of adrenaline. I have to leave. I can’t fix this. And those gray eyes are going to haunt me.
My mouth is watering as I shove the book back onto the shelf, aligning it so nothing looks out of place. I grab my hat from the ground and slide it over my head, holding my palms to my eyes and stretching out my mouth that wants to scream obscenities.
With a deep breath, I step through her door and move toward her brother’s room, my keys dangling from my thumb as if this is all nonchalant, as if I’m leaving because something came up or I have somewhere better to go. I force the idea in my head that I am not running away when in fact that is all that is happening now. I’m running away, because I’m a dick.
Life is performing.
I’m on stage in five, four, three…
“Hey,” I say, leaning into Lane’s room. He smiles and waves, and I feel like a fraud.
She turns her head toward me, her fingers working on a knot in a pair of rollerblades. I can’t look at her eyes, so I focus on that knot and her fingers and the color of the wheels. Orange. They’re orange.
“Sorry, I promised him I’d fix these earlier and I forgot. He’s meeting a friend, so it will just be a minute…”
“Actually,” I interrupt, cheating and finding her innocent eyes waiting. I look away the second our gazes touch, and I know she notices. I see enough to see her smile fall. I swallow, holding my phone up.
“It’s Houston. He needs some help with Leah, so I’ve gotta go. But…I’ll call you,” I lie. I’m a horrible liar, so I keep it simple. I say the words I’ve said to every other girl I’ve ever wanted to run from. Only this is different. This one—it burns.
“Oh.” She knows.
“Thanks, though…for…just thanks,” I stammer. My eyes fall to my feet and I pat the frame of the door, quickly putting one foot in front of the other and leaving without even acknowledging the goodbyes her mom and dad give as I head through the door.
I run away.
Because that’s exactly what assholes like me do when they’re caught.
Fuck.
Chapter 11
Murphy
I’m clearly not built for boys and drama. One minute, my tummy was full of butterflies, and I wanted to freeze time and take back all of the eye rolls and sighs I’d given Casey Coffield over the years. Then he left just as quickly as he came, with an incredibly fake reason—and I wanted to choke him for being ridiculous and wasting my time.
And for making my heart flutter.
And for getting my hopes up.
For having hope that I was anything more than a project in the first place.
This is not how things progressed with the nerdy librarian and the guy who was way more into his bass guitar than me while we were dating last year. I thought those relationships were weird, because…well, the guys were weird. But now, I’m thinking that is normal, because this…it’s weird.
Of course, this is also not a relationship.
This is Casey Coffield, and honestly, this could all just be a convenient stop along the way taking over my songs and making them his and getting the credit for them. I don’t really think that’s what he’s doing, but that’s where my mind keeps going.
Thank god for Paul’s tonight. I need it to clear my head. I also think I might try something new.
When Casey blew out of my house all twitchy and neurotic, I locked myself in my room and finished writing. The music came fast. This tune that’s been stuck in my head for months was perfect. That song I was so embarrassed about—it isn’t sexy at all. It’s angry! And it’s snubbed and maybe a little bit of a women’s anthem.
I called it Tease, but I wrote a little note to myself underneath the title that says Fuck you, Casey Coffield.
I talked my friend Sam into coming tonight. She works Saturdays because she’s the lowest on the totem pole at the paper, and she takes all of the classified ad calls that come in. But the paper isn’t far from Paul’s. I’ve already requested to go on last, which is good, because I’ve been practicing the new song out here in the alley, and it’s only getting better.
My phone buzzes with a call, so I stash my pen in my mouth and tuck my notebook under my guitar strings, sitting on a crate and resting my instrument on my leg so I can talk.
“Hey girl. I’m bringing some of the office people. I hope that’s okay. They’re dying to see my famous friend,” Sam giggles. I pause, taking note of the male voices in the car with her.
“How many?” I ask.
“Just Cam,” she says, her voice trailing up on the end, which signals that it is not just Cam. He’s the guy she’s been flirting with at work. He’s kind of her boss, and it’s wholly inappropriate, but when I tell her she just giggles. Sam and Cam—that alone should be a deterrent for her. “And then his best friends work a few buildings over and they usually commute together, so I invited them.”
“How many friends?” I shouldn’t be nervous. They aren’t anyone to me, and Paul’s is familiar. But they’re unfamiliar. And I’m not sure what that will do to the vibe here—my shelter.
“Four?”
She says it like a question.
“That doesn’t sound like a very big number, Sam. Surely you can count that high,” I say, and I’m being a bitch. But Sam knows my issues. She’s known me since high school. She’s the other half of the Helen Keller picture—she was my fucking Annie!
I hear the phone rustling, and I can tell that she’s covering it with her hand and trying to move to a more private place. I thought they were in a car, though, so I don’t know what that place could be.
“They’re good guys, Murph. And they’re excited to see you. I talk about you all the time when we go out to lunch. When they found out Cam and I were coming tonight they just sort of tagged along,” she whispers. I hear a whistling sound in the background and that all-encompassing round of masculine laughter that comes along with a frat party.
“Are they drunk?” I ask. I can already feel my pulse racing.
“No…not…not really,” she giggles.
“What the hell, Sam! Are you drunk?”
“No,” she says, and her effort to hold in her chortle loses and she snort laughs. “Okay, okay. We got a party bus.”
“What? A fucking bus?” I’ve set my guitar on the ground in my case and am now hunched over, rubbing my head and thinking of a good place to throw up.
“It’s not really a bus. That’s just what they call it. It’s more of a limo, actually. It’s fully stocked. Cam paid for it. It’s fun; you should come out with us after you’re done. Oh…hey, we’re almost there. I’ve gotta go!”
My mouth is held open when she hangs up before I have a chance to tell her not to bother coming. It wouldn’t matter. This disaster snowball is already rolling.
My arms are sweating. And I can feel the saliva overtaking my tongue. I lean forward more and spit, which is gross and totally ungirly, but it’s better than retching.
My phone buzzes against my leg, and I consider tossing it into the garbage bin across the alley. I pinch the bridge of my nose instead, feeling a migraine threatening to break through and turn this evening into the most awesome nightmare ever when I focus on the text message that kicks off a whole new conflict of emotions in my belly.
It’s Casey.
I need to talk to you.
That’s it.
I need to talk to him too. I’m not going to. I just need to. I need to tell him to quit fucking with my head, and to not leave me hanging after saying things like I’m beautiful and special and…he called me beautiful, goddamn it!
“Murph? You out here?” I hear the smack of the door around the corner and soon my friend Steph is standing under the lights of the neighboring restaurant back entrance.
“I’m here,” I say,
raising a hand and palming my phone. “I was just working out a few new things.”
“You look like you’re getting sick,” she says. Steph has seen my not-so-great performances. She just thinks its stage fright. If that were my only demon.
“Yeah, that too. I’ll be all right, though. I’ll be in in a few minutes.”
Her feet shuffle in the gravel and I plaster a huge smile on my lips to look at her, because if she comes over to check on me, I’m not so sure that the fake grin will do the trick close up.
“All right. Well, your friends are here,” she says.
My stomach rolls.
“Awesome,” I say, holding up a thumb.
She chuckles and turns toward the door, her guitar hung around her back all Johnny-Cash style. Steph is hip like that. She looks like Joan Jett, but sings country. Maybe I can convince Sam to lie and tell her crew of boyfriends that Steph is really me on stage. Knowing that won’t work, I bend forward and spit one more time, saying a quiet prayer that the contents in my stomach stay put, then close up my guitar case and head inside to Paul’s. At this point, my performance is going to be whatever it’s going to be. I shove my phone into my back pocket and pretend I never saw Casey’s message in the first place, because really? I can only handle one hot mess at a time.
Almost an hour passes between Steph’s session and the one right before mine. I’ve been hanging out in the back, pacing between Sam’s table of misfits and the line of performers for the night at the bar.
I’ve never met Cam before, but he hugged me. So did his cousin Ted—I think that was his cousin. They look nothing alike, so they may have been messing with me. I’m pretty sure Ted isn’t even his name. It doesn’t matter really, because I don’t care who any of these guys are. I’m hopefully never going to see them again. I’m most certainly never going to hug them again.
I’m next, so I haven’t been back to their table for the last ten minutes. I shouldn’t have ever visited them at all, but I wanted to see Sam, and I knew she wanted me to meet Cam—who is still a horrible idea. At least he’s nice. They were all nice, in that very drunk kind of way. They were really excited about hearing me sing, and they promised shouts and cheering, which I begged against. They didn’t hear my begging, so I’ve been spending the last ten minutes contemplating faking the flu so I can get out of going on and being stared at and cheered for by the drunk table of five.