by M. A. Hinkle
I COULDN’T EVEN laugh at Felix’s makeup test, which appeared to be eye shadow and an entire tub of glitter. It was adorable.
I SPENT MOST of the next day trying not to think about Morgan’s talk with Felix. Even if they weren’t going to be cute boyfriends, I appreciated the person Morgan turned into around Felix. The LGBT Whatevers were the safe space Morgan needed to remake himself. If this went badly, I wasn’t sure he could bounce back. Four years of therapy hadn’t worked, after all.
And I wouldn’t be able to hang around Felix anymore, but that was selfish, and I was trying to ignore it.
By the time eighth hour rolled around, I was sick to my stomach. Instead of heading to the library, I wandered around the halls until the bell rang and I could take the long route home.
WHEN I GOT home, Morgan was already in our bedroom with his headphones on. He pushed them off his ears the second I came inside, though he didn’t speak.
I sat on my bed, pretending to be absorbed in taking off my socks and throwing them in the hamper. “So…”
Morgan sighed. “Well, I told him, but I have no idea what he thinks. He got embarrassed when I said I knew. Then he tried to make me feel better for having to turn him down. It was…weird.”
“No, sounds just like him.” I felt overheated, even though it had been chilly and I hadn’t had a jacket for the walk home.
Morgan glanced at me oddly; I pretended not to notice, and he didn’t press the point. “Well, he told me it was fine. I don’t believe him, but if he meant something else, he didn’t admit it, so…” He pushed a hand through his hair. “He said he still wanted us to come over on Saturday. Maybe I should have said no, but I want to hear his band. They’re good.”
I fell back on my bed. “No, you did the right thing. He’d just feel worse about it if you changed your mind.” I passed a hand over my head, wishing I’d found an excuse to stay after rehearsal after all. I wanted to know how Felix reacted when Morgan turned him down.
But I was being ridiculous. He had better friends than me. Only he’d told me more than once how he wasn’t talking to them, so who knew?
I let out a breath. “What’d you tell him? About what’s going on with you. Did you have any last minute revelations?”
Morgan shook his head. “I still don’t know, but…telling someone else helped. Felix said he’s confused about a lot of stuff too, so he didn’t mind.” He sighed. “I’m sure he was lying, but the rest of it was nice to hear. He’s been trying to figure himself out for a lot longer, after all.”
“It really is okay to have no goddamn clue, you know.”
“I’m not used to it,” said Morgan, neither agreeing nor denying. “Which is part of the problem. I’m accustomed to…”
“Being perfect?”
“Don’t be that way. I’m not any better or worse than you. I happened to fit in the box everybody wanted to put me in—only I don’t, really.” Morgan slouched in his chair. “I’ve always done what everybody expected. I play the violin because Mom wanted it. I’m good at school because Father wants it. Only now am I realizing I don’t want it. I…I hate it. But I don’t know what to replace it with.”
I stretched out on my back, satisfied he was not going to start panicking. This was one of the calmest conversations we’d ever had, although I knew better than to say so. Nothing worse than panicking about why he wasn’t panicking. “Well, I think you’re making a good start. You never would have gone to a jam session before.”
“Nobody at Cherrywood was any good. You know that.” Morgan stood up. “I’m going to take a bath. Hopefully, I can soak away feeling like a garbage person.”
“Hey, I’m the garbage person here, and there’s only room for one grouch per can. You have to get your own.”
Morgan glanced over his shoulder at me. “Yeah, well, the old Gareth never would have spent an afternoon teaching Felix how to dance, so…”
He left the room before I could respond without exposing my crush. It was becoming an irritating pattern.
I WAS WORRIED about school the next day—in other words, I went in prepared to be a dick. But Felix spent study hall at the tables, not the back of the stacks, and play practice was all costume fitting. I had a full tuxedo with tails; my waistcoat was made of glittery fabric. I had to keep my eyes away in case anyone noticed I thought it was pretty. Sadly, I didn’t get to see Felix’s outfit, but I told myself I didn’t care.
I KNEW MORGAN was nervous on Saturday because he spent the morning playing scales. Thankfully, he practiced in the basement. I could only listen for so long before I wanted to beat my head against the wall.
Around noon, I got a text from a number I didn’t know. Hey, I’m coming over to show you where the triplets minus one live. I tried texting Morgan, but he didn’t answer, so…yeah. I’ll be there in five minutes. This was followed by several peace sign emojis.
I sent Felix back a thumbs-up and went downstairs to collect Morgan. He’d moved on to his solo ensemble piece. I paused to listen, then walked around in front of him to get his attention. He didn’t take well to being startled. At best, he jumped and screamed, which was less than optimal when holding an instrument worth a thousand dollars.
He took his bow away from the strings. “What’s up?”
“Felix texted me. He’s coming to get us for band practice. Did you give him my number or something?” I tried to make this sound unplanned and not accusatory.
Morgan busied himself putting away his violin. “He pointed out he should have our numbers in case we go to another concert and get separated.” He glanced at his phone and winced. “He texted me five times.”
“He’ll understand when you tell him you were working. Come on, let’s head outside. The last thing we need is for him to buzz the gate and have Trevor answer.”
Morgan didn’t even give me a scathing frown. As for me…well, I understood why animals will chew their own legs off to get out of traps. I was feeling pretty trapped and pretty chewy.
Felix was trying to figure out how the gate worked. He backed away when we came outside. It was easy to tell his smile was forced if, say, one spent way too much time thinking about his smiles. “Hey! Cool. I was wondering if I was going to have to jump the fence. I’m not good at it.”
“I’m having a hard time believing you’ve ever had to jump a fence,” I said, crossing my arms.
Felix huffed. Again, forced. “I totally have. It’s how we got into the first Cameron James concert. It was on this plot of land somebody owns but never did anything with, out on the edge of town. Although I had the triplets minus one to boost me up. Tall friends are useful.”
I nudged Morgan with my elbow to test the waters. “This is the part where you say you don’t condone breaking and entering, Morgan.”
Morgan shrugged—as though it was no big deal, although he was focused on his feet. “From what I’ve heard about his concerts, he has this thing about repurposing misused spaces—take the empty strip mall. He makes them into art spaces to highlight how much wasted land we’ve got sitting around. It goes with the themes of social and economic justice present in his work and the strong anti-capitalist lyrics.”
Felix tipped his head back. “I always assumed he didn’t want to pay for a venue, but…that’s deep. You should tell Dr. Hale about it. I don’t think she’s planning to research Cameron James, but she writes about music.”
From there, they moved to discussing the topics Dr. Hale studied. They were both on edge, yeah, but not more than usual. Maybe it was working out.
THE TRIPLETS MINUS one had a less ostentatious house and better taste. At the gate, Felix pressed the button and got a fart noise over the loudspeaker in response. Alex and Zach were waiting for us, so we headed to the basement, which had several soundproofed rooms and a large open practice area. Sarah was talking something over with the Hale patriarch.
Morgan’s face brightened like—
Well, I wasn’t sure what, other than this specific circumstance
, would make Morgan happy. Winning a contest would stress him out. He’d skip straight to trying to figure out how much it’d cost in taxes. “Wow, this is great.”
“Our dad’s in a jazz band, so he needs the space,” said Alex, as though everyone had several guitars (both electric and acoustic), a string bass, a cello, and a full drum kit lying around in your basement.
Then again, Trevor had an entire room full of first editions of Victorian-era fairy tales, so first remove the plank from thine own eye and all that good stuff.
“Oh, good, you didn’t take long,” said Mr. Hale.
“They live two blocks away, Dad,” said Alex, rolling his eyes.
“Yes, but never underestimate the ability of teenagers to turn a five-minute walk into an entire young adult movie.” Mr. Hale got to his feet. “I suppose you’re all kicking the old man out now the whole band’s here.”
“Sorry, Mr. Hale,” said Felix.
Mr. Hale ruffled Felix’s hair as he passed. “Try and remember to stop before I have to come and get you, all right?”
“Yes, Dad,” said the triplets minus one in the same bored tone of voice, not even glancing up when he left the room. They were inspecting their guitars—Zach had a bass and Alex an electric guitar. An actual musician could list off things about them, but I only knew they were cool.
Felix flopped over next to Sarah, who was still peering at a notebook. “How come you show your stuff to Mr. Hale and not meeee?”
Sarah pushed him away with the ease of long practice. “Because it’s not finished. It always works best when you don’t see it until you sing it.”
“Yes, but I want to feel included,” said Felix, propping his head in his hands. “You guys are all being super cagey about this song.”
“Because it’s sad,” said Alex. He was tuning up his guitar, so he didn’t see the horrified look Zach shot him.
Otherwise, the room was dead silent. Morgan had turned into a block of wood, and I was reconsidering chewing my leg off—the ambulance ride would change the subject.
Felix opened his mouth. He glanced at Morgan, then at me, and then he tugged his hands through his hair. “Okay, no, I do not want to sing a sad song, because if it’s going to be any good, I have to feel it, and right now I have way too many things to be sad about. We can admit it is a thing I am feeling without it being weird, okay?”
“Oh, shit, are we doing this now?” Alex set his guitar down, sheepish. “I thought you guys already told him.”
Sarah and Zach exchanged a glance, negotiating who would speak first. Sarah won—or lost. “Felix, it’s not weird to be sad. What’s weird is pretending everything is great when it’s not.”
“We’ve been trying to let you do what you need,” said Zach, coming to stand next to Sarah. “But, dude, it’s obvious you’re not okay. I know you’re trying to hide it by hanging out with these guys—no offense, you’re cool and all, but you aren’t in the band.” He gestured in Morgan’s direction.
“Yet,” said Alex.
“Yet,” Zach agreed. “It’s cool if you don’t want to talk about it. But none of us is going to be mad if you want to admit everything isn’t perfect happy fun time, either. You wouldn’t expect us to act okay if something happened to our families. We love you. You know that.”
At this point, Felix had fidgeted around so much he’d moved in a circle and returned to where he started. “I just know you guys have got your own thing going on. I mean, Sarah, you’re trying to pretend you’re fine, but I can tell you really care about this girl, whoever she is, and it’s messing you up.” Sarah scowled, though she didn’t argue. “And you guys are saying everything’s fine and great, but I know you’re upset Sebastian hasn’t been home.”
Zach sat on one of the amps. “Yes, Felix, believe it or not, we all have our own lives. We always have. And so have you, even though you do your best to pretend there’s nothing going on in that cute little head of yours. But we can still all help each other.”
“And if not for friendship, then do it for the sake of the band,” said Alex. Sarah and Zach glanced at him, and Alex heaved a deep sigh. “Yes, I know, I am the worst possible person to blunder into feeling talk. Well, maybe except for him.” He pointed at me.
“Guilty as charged.” I slouched further in my chair to indicate I wasn’t paying attention.
Alex nodded. “But even I can tell you we can’t go on pretending we’re kids learning how to play. Sarah and Zach and I are going to be eighteen this summer. And yeah, blah blah blah, arbitrary marker of adulthood, but still. We’ve only got one year left of high school. We’ve got to learn how to handle our own lives and the band, or we’ll drift apart, the same as every other teenage band ever. And I dunno about you guys, but sometimes, the band is the only way I get through school.”
Zach draped an arm around Alex’s shoulder. “Look at you, contributing to emotional discussions as though you wouldn’t rather live your life on a desert island surrounded by instruments.” The way he rubbed his brother’s arm made it clear he appreciated the speech.
“I wouldn’t want to be all by myself. It can’t be a jam session without someone to hear you. And yeah, okay, I don’t go around telling you guys I love you all the time, but Felix beats me to it.”
Felix leaned forward so his hair hid his face. He usually seemed poised for whatever hilarious mishaps his sitcom of a life brought his way, but with his friends, it was different, as though he kept expecting everything to come crashing down if he put one foot wrong. Then he straightened, smiling. Not completely relaxed, but better.
“It’s embarrassing, okay? And I don’t want to keep rehashing the same stuff when we should be getting things done.”
Sarah and Zach traded another glance. Sarah got to her feet and stretched. “Well, all of this is a moot point because the sad song isn’t ready anyway. The good news is I’ve got a different one. It’s about a date.”
“A date with your girrrrrlfriend?” said Felix, leaning toward her.
Sarah tossed her head. “We’ll have a good long talk about your lack of nuance some other time.”
“I understand you’re doing the ‘it’s complicated’ thing with this girl,” said Felix, tucking himself up under her arm. “But I love you, and I want you to be happy with someone as cool as you are.”
Sarah tugged on his curls. “Nice way to change the subject.”
The triplets minus one turned to us. “Sorry we’ve been ignoring you guys,” said Zach.
“It’s family conference day, apparently,” said Alex. “But Sarah wants to do the first date song. There’s a lot of violin in it, so c’mere and let me teach you.” He gestured at Morgan.
Morgan hadn’t noticed, so I nudged him. “There’s your cue. Isn’t that what you music types say?”
Morgan shot me a disgusted glare, which I didn’t grudge him because it meant one of us was chill. “You came down here to hang out with a band all afternoon, so I think you can drop the act.”
“Hey, I’m just here for moral support,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
Sarah lifted her head. “Oh, no, you are not. You came here to sing some very specific low notes into a microphone.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I didn’t realize it was a matter of life and death. I’m sorry.”
“It is when there’s been a record producer at three out of the five past Cameron James shows, and we do not yet have a demo decent enough to give to anyone.”
“Gotcha. I’ll be good.”
Sarah shot me a warning frown; she knew I’d never been good once in my life, but she did not have time to call me on it. She shooed Felix away. “Go on, go get me the recording.”
I lurched up and almost tripped over my own feet. My first instinct was to run for the steps before anyone could catch me, but jeez. It was bad enough I knew I was a coward. I didn’t need it spread around. “Hey, nobody told me this was part of the plan.”
Sarah squinted at me. “Who did you thi
nk would be in charge of vocals? The rest of us don’t sing. And anyway, this song is Felix’s baby. It’s his job to make sure it sounds right.”
Felix shrugged, smiling to smooth things over. It only made me antsier. “It’ll just take a couple minutes. We can’t get anything done until Morgan knows the part anyway.”
Morgan could memorize twenty minutes of classical music without mistakes, so three minutes of a pop tune wasn’t going to tax him.
But really…I wanted to know how the song sounded, the same way I wanted to know how the final act of the play would appear. The same way I wanted to know how Felix would feel in my arms in full costume. It was okay to admit it, if only to myself.
So I followed Felix into one of the soundproofed rooms. He shut the door behind us and noodled with the laptop hooked up to the microphone. “This’ll just take me a minute. I’m not as quick with this stuff as Sarah is, but I’ve got more patience than the triplets minus one, so she lets me help her sometimes. I guess. I dunno.”
At least he wasn’t pretending to be upbeat. I appreciated it. I wasn’t worthy of his trust, but…maybe I had fuzzy feelings thinking he trusted me anyway.
I leaned against the wall, trying to act chill. But I was no good at standing still. Or keeping my mouth shut.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Morgan told me about your conversation the other day.” Felix stiffened. “If you weren’t talking to your friends about your mom, then you definitely weren’t talking to them about Morgan. And even though I’ve told you often and at length how talking to me is stupid, I’m still the only one who knows the whole story. And—”
He didn’t prompt me to continue, because he was raised to be polite and not because he knew interrupting me would make me snap.
The least I could do was tell the truth. Shame the non-existent devil. “—And I feel bad because…I thought it was going to work. I really did. Morgan’s nice, you’re nice, and you should have spent the rest of your lives cuddling like cute little birds. But he’s still got a lot to learn about himself, I guess.” I crossed my arms because I wanted to seem tough, not because I was being purposefully vulnerable for the first time. “This is a conversation, so this is the part where you talk.”