Faking It (Losing It, #2)(36)

When we got to the door, I paid the cover and slipped happily into the darkened bar. I found us a table, and then escaped to get us both drinks. As I was leaving, Cammie was looking worriedly at her barstool like it was going to give her Ebola. They had a great selection of local beers. I got Yards ale. Cammie wanted a cosmo. The bartender looked at me like I was crazy. This wasn’t really a cosmo kind of place, but he went off to make it anyway. While I waited for our drinks, I pulled out my phone and texted Max.

Here. Have a great show!

I didn’t expect a reply, since she was going on soon, but I got one almost immediately.

Thanks. You should come backstage afterward.

Huh. We hadn’t talked once since her original text, so I had assumed she’d only invited me to be nice . . . or to make more money, but she seemed to genuinely want to see me again. I@ra6">To her credit, she winced when she took a drink but didn’t complain. I kept flicking my eyes back to the stage, waiting for the concert to start. I managed to keep up a halfhearted conversation with Cammie about her plans to study abroad.

“I just can’t make up my mind where I want to study though. Australia would be amazing. Or London. But I think Paris is my favorite right now. Then again, it changes once a week.”

“I have a friend who is backpacking overseas right now. I lose track of where she is, but last I heard she was somewhere in Germany. She’s pretty much been all over the place, taking trains and staying in hostels.”

“Hostels? Seriously? What if she gets chopped up into pieces or something like that movie?”

I smiled. “I don’t think they’re actually like that.”

“Still,” she said, flipping her hair, “I don’t think I could ever stay there.”

It was official. I had given up hope of excavating a normal person underneath all the spoiled. The evening wasn’t a complete bust though, because at that moment a shrill whine came over the speakers, and I saw Max fiddling with her microphone up on stage.

She was wearing the same flower in her hair as the day I met her. Surrounding the white petals were riotous red curls that were even more out of control than I remember. Almost as if she was trying to make up for the day she’d spent tamed down for her parents. She wore these short leopard print shorts over black, sheer stockings with red heels that made her legs look incredible. She had on a white, ripped tee that hung off her shoulders, showing the angles and architecture of her body. She looked effortlessly cool.

Her pale skin practically glowed under the lights, and her white shirt was just transparent enough that I could see the outline of her black bra beneath. I liked it until I remembered everyone could see that same black bra. She slipped the guitar strap over her head and looked more at home than she ever had in her apartment.

She stepped up to the mic, her red lips brushing against it as she said, “Hello, I’m Max and this is Under the Bell Jar.”

I wanted to cheer, but I restrained myself to clapping like the rest of the crowd. “This first song is called ‘Better,’ and it’s the song that gave us our name.”

She stood back from the mic as she started to play, and for the first time, I noticed the other people around her. On bass was a guy who was the oddest mix of punk and nerd that I’d ever seen. He had on a sweater vest and a bow tie with metal spikes. He wore glasses that didn’t look like they were just for show, but his hair hung long and grunge-band shaggy. At the back, between him and Max, was her boyfriend from the coffee shop. Mace. He played the drums, his eyes were fixed on Max the entire time.

I couldn’t blame him.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take my eyes off of her either. She smiled as she played the opening progression, and I could see the moment when the rest of the world ceased to exist for her. Then she sang, and the rest of the world disappeared for me, too. fingernails scrape squeezedowlmy “I pick a smile and paint it on Smooth the cracks, right the wrongs Try to push some life into my eyes I’ve lost my soul under all the lies.”

Her voice was low and raspy but had this sweet tone that was at odds with the rest of her. The music picked up slightly and the drums got louder.

“It’s better this way,

Better that no one sees

It’s better this way

Better when I’m not me

“I’ll be better

Better

Better.”

Her eyes were closed, her rose petal lips right up against the mic. As she repeated the word, she wavered between desperation and anger and shame. It was one word, but I could feel her emotions so clearly, as if she poured them directly into me.

“Better

Better

“I’m drowning under the weight of these Can’t tell apart all the different me’s





22

Max

If this was what drugs were like, I understood how people got addicted. No matter how many times I did this, it never got any less exhilarating. The nerves and the fear and the hope and the hurt and the healing—my soul was a galaxy all its own when I was onstage.

I had tried a million things in an attempt to piece my life back together after Alexandria’s death, to make the world feel right-side-up again. Music was the only thing that worked.

When the last notes of “Better” were over, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would do whatever it took to keep this. Maybe it made me weak. It definitely made me selfish and a liar, but if there was any way I could convince Cade to continue the charade just long enough so that my parents didn’t cut me off completely, I would do it.