Scar Girl (The Scar Boys #2)(13)

she scrapes the ground.

She wishes she had the time

To hear pleasant sounds.



He stopped.

“I’m still working on some of the lyrics, but it has a bridge, too.” He started strumming, going from the main riff to a series of power chords.

Run away,

Go away,

Hide away,

Sneak away.

There’s got to be an easier way

To face each day.



Then the bridge flowed back to the main riff, like a musical river.

Her ears ring,

Deafened by noise of boys playing with toys.

But the noise is nothing;

Maybe it’s why she’s so silently annoyed.



Johnny started messing around on the piano, but I wished he hadn’t. It almost ruined the moment.

“Pleasant Sounds”—that’s what it’s called—was maybe the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. And here’s the thing: I knew it was about me.

I could see it in Harry’s eyes.

I could feel it in the chords.

I can’t really explain it. I just somehow knew.

Johnny was clueless. When it came to music, he wasn’t the same as the rest of us. Johnny was, in some ways, the most talented guy in the band, but it was coming from a different place. With me and Richie and Harry, it came from the heart. With Johnny, it came from the head. I actually think that’s a good thing for a band, to have some of it coming from the heart and some of it coming from the head.

Anyway, Harry and I were in the middle of sharing this incredible moment, and Johnny was sitting there, grinning like an idiot, missing the whole thing.

“Isn’t that great?” he said to me. “Don’t you love it?” he pushed. Johnny always pushed.

I started to cry. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, or maybe the song was just that beautiful, or maybe the long walk from the number twenty bus had done me in. Whatever the reason, I lost it.

“Chey?” Johnny asked, this time with a gentle voice.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Harry said. He put down the acoustic guitar, picked up his Strat, and walked out of the room. I heard the front door to Johnny’s house close, and we were alone.

“Pick, are you okay?” Johnny pulled himself up—like I said, he wasn’t wearing his leg—and took a hopping step toward me. I saw him stifle a grimace of pain as he tried to pull me into an embrace. It didn’t work.

We flopped down together on the bed, Johnny landing on top of me, pretty hard.

I panicked for a second, thinking, like, Oh, crap, did he just squash the baby? But even I knew that was silly. He must’ve seen my eyes go wide or heard me gasp with fear or something.

“Chey, I’m sorry. . . . I’m not . . . it’s not what you think.”

It would’ve been so easy to just tell him right then and there. To say, “No, Johnny, I don’t think you’re hitting on me. It’s that I’m worried about the baby in my belly. Our baby.” But I couldn’t. His eyes were darting back and forth, and they were all glassy. Everything about him seemed lost, like he was in some kind of maze and couldn’t find his way out. Johnny was still going through so much shit that I couldn’t dump this gigantic thing on him. I just couldn’t. It would just have to wait a few more days.

I managed to choke back my tears and tried to smile.

“No, it’s okay,” I whispered, talking about us falling onto the bed. “I know, I know.”

And then Johnny McKenna did something I’d never seen him do before.

He started crying.





HARBINGER JONES


It got way more complicated when Chey showed up. I mean, the song was about her. Of course it was about her. I didn’t realize that when I was writing it. Sometimes the words and music just pour out and you have no idea what they mean until much later.

In the case of “Pleasant Sounds,” I understood the meaning as soon as I started playing the guitar riff for Johnny. But once I’d started picking the notes, I was trapped.

I kind of hiccupped when I sang the first line—Phones ring—my voice catching like it was tripping over the edge of a carpet. And I mumbled. But it didn’t matter.

Johnny, who is smarter than me most of the time, is kind of dumb in a couple of very specific ways. It would never occur to him that I would write a song about Cheyenne. Whether that’s because he and I are best friends and he and Chey are together, or whether it’s because he thinks someone like me has no business fantasizing about someone like Cheyenne, I have no idea.

So I finished the song, and Johnny was just beaming. I could tell that he really loved it, and that put me at ease.

“We have to add this to our set right away. Play it again.”

So I did, and he started messing around with some piano parts.

Then the doorbell rang.

In the two minutes Johnny was gone answering the door, my nerves started jangling. I was pretty sure it was Chey. It’s like the universe suddenly notices that I’m doing kind of okay and then it rings the doorbell to set things straight.

When Chey walked into the room trailing Johnny, I felt an overwhelming need to get the hell out of there. I tried, but Johnny kind of forced me to play the song.

Again, I was trapped.

I know what you’re thinking. How can he force you, Harry?