Love Songs & Other Lies(58)

“Still at it, huh?” We’re parked for the night in the lot of the auditorium we’ll play tomorrow night. Aside from the six buses lined up like dominoes, it’s a pavement desert around us.

Vee turns her head to look at me. “Who gave me away?”

I wasn’t sure she’d even acknowledge me. I came up here knowing there was a decent chance she’d try to push me off. A red blanket is spread out under her at the center of the bus and she’s lying on her back, hands folded over her stomach.

“Tad,” I say.

She giggles, a mischievous curl to her lips.

I point to the edge of the blanket. “Can I?”

She gives me a quick nod and I wonder if she’s hoping I’ll roll myself off the roof. “He’s afraid of heights,” she says.

I slowly make my way toward the blanket, scooting on my knees, and gently lowering myself down.

“And he’s not the only one, apparently.” She smiles, and I’m glad that for once, it doesn’t feel forced. Lying side by side, we look up at the sky. Vee whispers, like someone might hear her. “I wish you could see the stars. There’s too much light pollution everywhere we go.”

“I didn’t realize light was a pollutant.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not. It’s just what they call a bunch of lights that drown out the stars. Because the sky is polluted by light, I guess.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah, hmm,” she says. I keep waiting for her voice to get harsh with me, but it stays light. It’s not the indifferent tone I listened to for the first month of the tour, or the hostility I’ve gotten used to over the last two weeks. She almost sounds like the old Vee, and I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one. Maybe this is the calm before the storm.

“I’m sorry about the other night.” I’ve thought of a million ways I could tell her how I messed up. What a jerk I was for making her say all those things to me. In the end, “I’m sorry” is all that comes out.

“Don’t apologize.” She turns her head against the roof and looks me in the eye. “The way I’ve felt about you—the hate, the anger—I’ve been keeping it alive for so long. Feeding it, letting it grow and bloom.” She turns her eyes back to the sky. “I had to let it out—and I wouldn’t have done it on my own. It needed to happen.”

“You used to open up about everything.”

“No, I was always like this. I was just different with you. And I was different after you.” She’s quiet, and the soft hum of the nearby freeway fills the air. “It wasn’t all bad.”

As we lie in the warm summer air, I’m reminded of all of the nights we spent on the sand, looking up at the same stars. She was like an unlocked diary on those nights, sharing everything. More than I ever deserved. I still don’t deserve her secrets, but I can’t help myself.

“You told your mom you’d see her soon,” I say. “Are you leaving?” I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.

“I’m going home next week.” A wave of regret hits me. Why did it take us this long to get to a place where we could talk? “Just for a few days,” she says, and it feels like a second chance. “My parents are getting remarried.” She says it like a joke, and even though I can’t see them, I know she’s rolling her eyes.

“Wow.” I don’t know what to say; I didn’t even know her parents were divorced. “So are you the flower girl or something?”

“Very funny.” She smacks my leg, and I grab her hand and hold it in mine. Maybe it’s muscle memory. Vee flinches, but doesn’t pull away. Her hand is rigid inside of mine, tense. “Close, though,” she says. “I’m a bridesmaid. Cort, too. As if it’s not weird enough that my parents are old and getting married for a second time, my best friend is also one of my mom’s bridesmaids. Mom’s stressed about my dress. I had to order it over the phone.”

We stay this way, lying side by side in the silence, her hand in mine, our eyes on the sky, and she never relaxes. I’ve thought about a moment like this for so long, and now all I can think about is how different this feels from the way it used to be. I always felt like re-creating the past would be like a victory, but this just feels like a bad copy of what we used to have.

She finally breaks the silence. “What would you do differently?” Vee picks at the buttons on her shirt with her free hand, and I realize it’s the first time she’s ever asked me something without giving her own answer first.

I squeeze her hand. “Besides the obvious?”

“Obviously.”

“I would have taken you to Chicago,” I say. “We would have set up on some busy corner and busked on the street. We would have made bank—at least twenty bucks. You would have made your musical debut, and then we would have walked through Millennium Park and taken one of those cheesy pictures, kissing in front of the Bean.”

“I would have liked that.” Her voice is soft and sad. “I’ve been to the Bean.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“I’m going to make it up to you.”

Vee doesn’t say anything. She gives me a tight smile—a hesitant smile—and turns her eyes back to the polluted sky.