“She seems sharp,” I said.
“She seems like a shark. Exactly what we need. I can’t wait to tell the sleazy record execs to go through our manager.” He scoffed. “We’re so close, I can practically taste it.”
“Taste what?” I thought of the kiss again.
“Success.”
I glanced over at the man who’d become my only family.Thicker than blood.We both got the words tattooed on the insides of our arms when we first landed in LA. Kaz was looking at his now. “I told you we’d make it.”
Whatever courage I lacked, Kaz made up for it in spades. If he hadn’t dropped out with me to chase after this crazy dream, I never would have made it this far. There were few people in our lives who’d believed we could do it. My parents cut me off immediately. I could count on one hand how often I’d spoken to them in the past three years. The conversation with my dad when I told him I was done with Northeastern had been excruciating. He’d told me I’d never amount to anything, and that he’d wasted far too much time on a lazy idiot son. My mom had just cried. In their eyes, their only child had turned out an utter disappointment.
My other friends… Well, there hadn’t been many. I’d lost a lot of friendships when I stayed in River Valley for two years after graduating high school, and I didn’t have enough time at Northeastern to make many solid new ones. I got some pats on the back, some folks wishing me luck. Others, like Molly, tried to talk me out of it.
I remember getting on the bus to the airport and wondering if I was making a huge mistake. Was I really cut out for this? Plus, I worried about Kaz. Unlike me, he’d been doing just fine with his courses. What if I was derailing my friend’s life by letting him drop out with me?
Kaz had noticed my low mood at some point and asked what was wrong. I’d told him I was terrified about everything going wrong. His answer had stayed with me for a long time.“You know how I determine if something’s worth pursuing? It’s simple. It is if it makes me scared as shit. The best things in life exist on the other side of that fear.”
I took those words to heart and kept them there. Now, the other side was nearly within reach.
“We haven’t made it yet,” I said, squeezing the wheel a little tighter.
“Always the pessimist.”
“Just cautious.” If working with Trinity was the final step to getting us an incredible record deal, I’d have to suck it up around Molly. I’d do whatever was necessary to keep my guard up and not let her get inside my head.
“You know, I really don’t get it. What is it about that girl?” Kaz asked. “It’s been more than three years since you last saw her, and she still riles you up.”
“She doesn’t rile me up.” Kaz didn’t know the full story, mostly because it had never seemed important for me to tell him. He knew we were from the same hometown and that I was friendly with her. He also knew I’d kissed her the same night he did.
“Shit, I hope I didn’t step on your toes,”he’d said when he pried it out of me. I told him it meant nothing. I’d lied, just like I was lying now.
He glanced over at me and laughed. “Whatever you say.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence. It felt like he was giving me space to process whatever I needed to process, but I knew I couldn’t do that in this car. When we got back to the house, I didn’t waste a second before making my way down to the basement. My drum kit stood at the back of the room. The sight of it was so comforting, I felt some of my tension ease.
I got on the stool, picked up my drumsticks, and took a deep breath. Drumming was my meditation. It calmed me. It kept me sane. We’d soundproofed the basement, so I could come down here whenever I felt like it. I often found myself here in the middle of the night, working out my demons by pounding out a hard rhythm.
There was a new song we’d been writing with a complex drum track. I began to play it, doubling up the speed and driving up the intensity. My frustration at Molly, at myself, poured out. The rhythm pulsed in my veins and vibrated in my lungs.
I wasn’t the guy she remembered anymore. I’d changed. Back then, I was no better than a puppet. Going along with my parents’ will, even when it felt completely counter to who I was. I’d been scared to lose their support. My father’s words from when I was twelve years old had been branded into the fabric of my soul.“You better hope you grow out of this, because no one but your mom and I could love a stupid idiot like you.”
I was determined to prove him wrong. It would take months, maybe years, but one day, Kaz and I would have a sea of adoring fans rocking out to our music and chanting our names. They’d love us for the art we were capable of making.
Sweat dripped down my neck and brow, but I wasn’t ready to stop yet.
My secret weighed on me more heavily than it had in years. When we’d gotten to LA, I’d told myself I wouldn’t dwell on it. My academic failures were irrelevant here, and it was easy to throw myself into making music with Kaz. We hadn’t really come up for air in the past three years. It had been non-stop hard work, even if more often than not it felt like anything but that. Making music brought me peace I’d never been able to find anywhere else. Some days, my diagnosis seemed like a distant memory.
But it felt all too real again now. Molly could never find out. The thought of her knowing made me want to breathe into a paper bag.
Kaz appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He leaned against the wall to watch me, his arms crossed over his chest. I pounded out the last few beats before stopping and silencing the snares with my palms. Besides my parents, he was the only one who knew my secret, and he’d take it to his grave.
“Haven’t seen you go this hard in a while,” he commented. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You really going to tell me this—” he gestured at me with his arms, “—isn’t because of her?”
“I don’t like her, okay? I’m annoyed this is the situation, and that I can’t get out of it without acting like an asshole.”
