Tone Deaf(11)

No. I can’t blame Avery. It’s not her fault.

Avery sighs and, as if she’s reading my mind, signs, “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry, Ali. I never should have dragged you to their concert.”

I quickly sign back, “It’s not your fault. Not at all. You’re not responsible for that *’s actions.”

She turns away and scrubs at her face with her hands. It’s obvious she’s holding back tears, but I don’t have it in me to comfort her. If I tried, I’d just burst out crying myself.

“Look, Avery,” I sign. “Just forget about it, okay? It happened, and now it’s over.” I point to the pile of crumpled posters as proof.

She shakes her head and signs, “We should go to the media. He can’t just get away with treating you like that. He can’t!”

I roll my eyes and scribble out the cat. It looks all lopsided and pitiful, and I don’t have the patience to fix it. “If you heard Jace treated someone like that, would you have believed it two days ago?”

“Yes. Of course.”

I give her a pointed look. She lets her head fall back and reluctantly signs, “No. I guess not. Two days ago, I would have thought he was too good to do anything like that.”

“And that’s exactly what all the Tone Deaf fans out there would think. They wouldn’t believe me. Besides, it’s not like I have proof of what he said to me.”

Avery flops onto her bed and crosses her arms over her chest, her lips pursed in a pout. I can tell she still wants to try reporting Jace, and a small part of me wants to smile at her loyalty.

“He needs to pay for this,” Avery grumbles, although I don’t know if she means for me to see the words.

I shrug. “His attitude will catch up to him eventually.”

Even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. He’s a freaking rock star, a celebrity, a modern god with hordes of followers. He can do anything, and nobody will care. Well, as long as he does his shit to someone like me—someone who doesn’t matter.

“Eventually isn’t soon enough,” Avery says.

I don’t respond, and we fall into silence. I start sketching a sleepy puppy, and Avery sulks on the bed, glaring at the ceiling. Then I feel a buzzing in my pocket, startling me and making me draw a thick, dark line through my cute puppy.

Crumpling up the paper, I toss it in the corner with the others and tear my phone out of my pocket. A new text waits for me on the home screen.

Sorry.

I bite my lip, hiding a frown as I wonder which of my meager group of friends has heard about my run-in with Jace. I don’t recognize the number, which is weird. When you use your cell phone as much as I do, everyone gets programmed into contacts. Texting is one of the easiest ways to communicate with hearing people, so I use it all the time. Not that it’s made my small group of friends grow much; getting close to people is near impossible when I’m constantly hiding everything about my home life. But at least it helps.

I toss the phone onto Avery’s desk, not bothering with a reply. No matter who it is, I don’t want to take part in a pity party.

It buzzes again, and I reluctantly look at the screen: I was a jerk. Sorry.

What the . . . no. It can’t be Jace. He doesn’t know my number, and even if he did, I don’t think an * like him would ever bother with an apology.

Avery taps on my shoulder. I turn to find her standing beside me, hands on her hips, lips still in a pout. “We need to do something, Ali. We . . .” She trails off as she sees the text on my screen. “Who is that?”

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

“Wrong number?” she asks, although her frown is just as suspicious as mine.

“Probably.”

The phone buzzes again. Alison. Come on.

My heart picks up its pace. So it’s not a wrong number. And, as far as I know, there’s no one else who should be apologizing to me.

No one other than Jace.

I reach for the phone, but Avery grabs the arms of the desk chair and spins it so I’m facing her. “No,” she says. “You are so not going to waste your time giving that douchebag a response.”

I nod in agreement, but I can’t form any words. How in the hell did he get my number? My heart keeps pounding, and I close my eyes, just wanting the whole situation to go away.

Avery grabs the phone and starts typing, but I snatch it away before she sends some insulting message. I hug the phone close to me and wag my finger at her. “We’re not going to get in a pissing war with him.” I say it out loud, so she can’t pretend to misunderstand me. “Like you said, he’s not worth our time.”

She throws her hands up and glares at me. I’m used to exasperating Avery, but I’ve rarely seen her like this; she looks genuinely upset with me. “Let me talk to him.”

“No.” This is something I need to deal with myself. He insulted me, he flipped me off, and so it should be me who deals with him.

Before Avery can protest, I jog into the hallway, clutching the phone close to me. I turn into the bathroom right outside her room and lock the door. Taking a deep breath, I sit on the edge of the bathtub.

Vibrations run through the tile, and I know Avery is outside banging on the door, trying to get me to come out. I pull out the phone and erase the part of the message Avery already typed. Once the last swear is cleared from the screen, I start my own message.