The Songs in Our Hearts: A Young Adult Romance(18)

“So, what’s going on in Charlie-ville?” he asked, brushing a bit of his bangs away with his clean arm. I shrugged as I slid my fingers around the clay.

“Other than the whole Micah thing?” I replied.

“Ah, yeah. Right. Samantha is kind of a douche,” Daan shrugged.

“Kind of,” I mumbled.

“What’s going on with that? I heard you two have an English project now, too?”

“Yup. A real-life soap opera,” I said as I squeezed my fingers deeply into the moving clay.

Okay, I was overreacting. Micah had been right about that at least. It was stifling to be so concerned by what other people thought of me.

“I just met up with Micah in study hall,” I continued. “And we had this awful…I don’t even want to call it a fight. Miscommunication?” That wasn’t the right word either. We communicated just fine. Only, we had differences.

“Then, why don’t you just go apologize?” Daan asked. His fingers began to sculpt the clay into a large vase with deep, curved grooves.

“It’s not that easy,” I said. But maybe it could be that easy. The way the words rolled off of Daan’s tongue, anything seemed possible. Maybe if Micah weren’t so stubborn. Maybe if I weren’t so stubborn…. I hadn’t noticed the slowing of my movements until my clay abruptly fell into itself. I watched with envy as Daan’s creation began to look more and more like a professional vase from a store. I admired how he took his time to create something perfect. One day, he was going to become a famous artist and he’d forget all about Grand Lakes and unimportant people like me.

Daan stood and walked to the sink to wash his hands. “It just sounds like you need to go talk to the guy again. I don’t know much about him, but, for the most part, he seems to be semi-reasonable.” Semi-reasonable?

“I’m avoiding him for now. I’m just going home with Josh today.” I looked down at the mess of clay, which now resembled nothing (other than a heap of poop) and sighed.

“I guess that works, too.” Daan nodded. “I mean, I tend to avoid people, too. Mainly Samantha. She’s been on me since the beginning of the school year. I think she has it in her mind that I’m going to ask her to Homecoming. And it’s just not going to happen.”

I wrinkled my nose and huffed out a small laugh, “Wow. I’m sorry.”

“Surprising, right?” Daan smirked.

“Not really,” I said honestly. It was pretty well known to all of us that Samantha liked Daan. Her expectation of his invitation didn’t come as a huge surprise.

“Yeah, I think she’s been in love with me since, like…the first grade. She would race me on the playground and scream in my ear. I remember, in third grade, she used to make a game of chasing me and calling me ‘Marshmallow' at every recess. When she’d finally catch me, she’d pretend to eat me. Samantha is an odd cookie. Always has been, always will be.”

Whoa. I didn’t even know how to process that information. Samantha has been in love with Daan since first grade? She had never told me that—even back then.

“By your expression, I can tell you’re shocked.” Daan laughed, coming back to sit down beside me. I could only nod, doing my best to not laugh out loud.

“We’ve had some great times together. When High School Musical was popular, she’d come over and we’d record each other singing the songs and acting out the scenes.” Daan paused, grinning at me. “Don’t tell her I told you that. I’m pretty sure she’d kill me.”

Oooohhh. I was mentally documenting all of this in a folder. I never wanted to forget. Ever. Even if just for my own enjoyment.

“Right, I won’t,” I said slowly. This would become purely as-needed blackmail, to be used only under dire circumstances.

“But, I just don’t like her like that,” Daan continued. “I guess it sucks for her, more than for me.”

“Do you like someone?” I asked, curious. Daan shrugged.

“I mean, I guess I do. But it’s not something that I’m really open to talking about. I don’t think I’m really ready to come out and say…what I want to say.” He paused, looking as if he had just revealed more than he’d wanted to. I nodded and directed my attention back to the mound of clay.

“If you’re not going to make anything, just stick it on my wheel. I’ll do something with it.” He chuckled.

“Not going to teach me like Patrick Swayze?” I teased.

He rolled his eyes and pointed to his phone.

“The song is on my playlist if you want to play it.” Too perfect. I stood up, bringing the clay over to his station.

“I just want to listen to ‘Africa’ when it’s over,” he added with a smile. With the remaining class period, I watched as Daan created a bowl and drew the letter C in the middle with his fingertip. If this was what therapy felt like, I needed to come see Daan every day.





I STOOD BY JOSH’S JEEP, waiting for him or at least one of his friends to show up. There was a lineup of buses by the school, and I hoped Micah wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t want to have to lie to him about my reason for riding with Josh. I grabbed the paperback from my backpack and decided to read.

“CHARLIE!” I heard my name coming from the direction of the buses, but ignored it. If it was Josh or his friends, they could talk to me when they got to the Jeep. “CHARLIE!” I didn’t turn. I lifted the book closer to my face, reading the same sentence over and over again.