—
An hour later, we’re still sitting here. This week’s assignment is long done—one page on T. S. Eliot’s repeated references to dirt—so now we’re just hanging out, chatting. Maybe becoming actual friends, not just study partners.
“You never told me what you thought of Oville,” Ethan says after he has refilled his cup for the third time. He takes his coffee black. No fuss. Pure, unadulterated caffeine.
“Seriously? You guys were amazing.” If I were Gem or Crystal, I’d probably be smart and play it cool. Not fangirl all over him. But whatever. They indisputably rocked. “You’re all really talented.”
“I wish we could just play in my guesthouse, no shows at all, but apparently, it’s not up to me. That’s what we used to do before.” He says it like the “before” should be capitalized. Before and After.
“Before what?”
“Nothing. I mean before Liam joined. He’s all serious about launching a real music career, and I just want to play some music. Hang out.” Ethan stirs his coffee with a stick, a mindless habit since there’s nothing in there that needs mixing.
“Do you get stage fright?” I ask.
He pauses, as if I’m asking an important question that deserves a precise answer.
“Nah, not exactly. I just feel, I don’t know, more alone when everyone is staring up at me. It’s…isolating, I guess. And tiring.”
“I thought most performers feel the opposite. That it’s the only place they don’t feel alone,” I say. “Everyone wants to be the guy up onstage.”
Ethan shrugs.
“When I go to concerts, and it’s crowded and no one is bothering me, and it’s like, just me and the music…that’s when I don’t feel alone. I guess I’m not much of a people person,” he says.
“Really? Tell that to everyone at Wood Valley,” I say.
“Huh?”
Does he not notice that every girl in school lusts after him? That people actually line up to talk to him?
“Come on, it’s like you have a harem at lunchtime.” Again, I say too much. Seriously, I need lessons on how to flirt.
“Nah. That has nothing to do with me. It’s because of…Never mind. Long story.”
I want to say something like I have time, but I see how he is, that things are pretty straightforward: When he wants to talk, he talks. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. I don’t know him well enough yet to push.
“Who writes your lyrics?” What I really want to know is who wrote “The Girl No One Knows,” but I don’t want to admit to knowing Oville’s entire playlist. Dri sent me all of their songs, but I keep listening to that one on repeat, my tally now so high I’d die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw it. At the store, Liam only sang the chorus, which is simple and catchy and misleading because the rest of the song is something altogether different. Brooding, beautiful, desperate.
A poem, really. An elegy.
“Depends on the song. Me, usually. Some Liam. Oh, and this guy Caleb, who’s not actually in the band but hangs around and pitches in.” My head shoots up. Caleb? Did he write “The Girl No One Knows”? If so, then it all makes sense. SN is the type to write song lyrics, haunting, melancholy ones, but not the type to get up onstage and sing them out loud. In front of people.
“Caleb’s the tall guy, right?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Not really. Sort of. Met him the other day at work.”
“Yeah, he and Liam are tight.” I guess Ethan knows I work at Liam’s mom’s store. I must have told him last week when I mentioned knowing Liam. Or did Liam mention it? Oh shit. Have they talked about me? My palms start to sweat: I picture Ethan and Liam laughing about how I made it seem like Liam and I are close friends.
Is that why Gem called me a skank? Does everyone think I’m obsessed with Liam? Does Liam? Does Ethan? Does Caleb?
“You think I’ll ever figure this school out?” I ask Ethan. It’s frustrating how everyone knows each other. My closest friend here is SN—or should I just call him Caleb?—and our relationship consists solely of text messages. I need to hire Dri to give me a full background on everyone so I can stop stepping in it.
“Nope,” Ethan says. “I haven’t, and I’ve been here since kindergarten. But you know what I did figure out?”
“What?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. Not even a little bit.”
“Really?” I now stir my latte, which is finished, which means I’m stirring an empty cup. I need to keep my hands busy. The desire to touch Ethan’s hair, even his hands, has become borderline uncontrollable. I want to bite his earlobe, which looks like it once housed an ill-advised earring. I want to ask him how he can run so hot and so cold, how right now he can be so reassuring, almost a real friend, and at the party, I wasn’t worth enough of his time to stop and say more than that one syllable, that dismissive “hey.”
“Yup. Who cares about all these assholes? A few of them are great people, the vast majority are not, and at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself. If they don’t like you, screw ’em.”