The Songs in Our Hearts: A Young Adult Romance(31)

“Who is the monster and who is the man?” J asked, eyes bright with excitement. “Please tell me you got Charlie to be the monster. Oh, my God, she’d be the best!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I laughed.

“Aww, a little Blake monster!” J teased.

“My guess is that Charlie will be the love interest,” Josh interjected, snacking away.

“I don’t even know who that is. Is that the chick who ends up getting diced up and made into another monster?” Ben asked, looking from Micah to me.

“Sure is,” Josh replied.

“Whoa. You really are going to be a Blake monster! Are you going to…” he slid a finger along the crease of his neck, “...make it look like you were all cut up and sewn back together?”

I hadn’t really thought about that element of Elizabeth’s role. If Micah’s vision was to remake the Robert De Niro film, then I would eventually look like Helena Bonham Carter, stitches and all.

“I really didn’t think about that,” I admitted.

“You should get David or Daan to help with your makeup,” Ben suggested. David’s eyes caught mine.

“We could help if you want,” he offered.

“That would be cool,” Micah agreed. “I want to make this as epic as possible. Stunts. Setting. Makeup. The works.”

“Nice,” J said with a smirk. “In other news,” J glanced at David, “did you ever get around to asking Rachel out?”

David glared at J. “I’m not going to answer that right now,” he said solemnly.

“Aw, why not?” J grinned.

“Because it’s none of your business,” David countered.

“Touchy much?” J looked away. I didn’t want to know about Rachel and David; it felt way too invasive. I tugged on Micah’s T-shirt sleeve.

“We’re going to get to work,” I announced.

“We’ll help,” Ben piped up. “I mean, we could be extras or...you know, whatever!”

“Anything for attention,” Josh mumbled.

“Dude, what?” Ben turned on him. I took that as my cue to grab Micah’s arm and yank him toward my room.





“My Eyes”

The Lumineers





I KNEW THEY’D EVENTUALLY STOP arguing and head down to the creek as planned. Micah paused at my door.

“Anxious to get me in your room?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” I opened the door. Micah glanced around, and I began to wonder what he thought of it. I had begged my dad to let me paint the walls a soft aqua color. Finally, after helping him with work around the house, he relented. One of the stipulations was that I had to pay for the paint. It was the best twenty bucks I’d ever spent.

I had a collage of photos of my friends and me on my bedroom wall and door—memories of field trips, roller-skating, birthday parties, Halloweens, and candid photos from around Grand Lakes. Micah grinned as he admired the pictures, tapping on a few.

“At least you look happy here,” he teased. “The times I see you, you appear to be irritated or constipated. I can’t figure out if I should tell you to take a happy pill or a—”

“That’s not very nice.”

“With all the pizza you ate yesterday at Samantha’s house, I had hoped you’d have found some relief. I was pretty sure you’d spend some time on the—” Micah stopped mid-sentence at my expression. I wanted to shoulder-punch him.

“It’s gotta be resting bitch-face, then. That’s what it has to be!” He laughed as he sat down on the edge of my bed.

“If you’re going to be rude, I will ask you to leave.” But I found myself smiling at him. God! I hate how he does that to me!

Micah grabbed the notebook from his backpack and started to draw out rough sketches of scenery for different parts of the screenplay. I was amazed at his straightforward vision for the sets. I especially understood he was trying to keep it easy for Paul.

“And for the end, we could make some sort of raft and set it on fire on the lake. There’s a full moon on Halloween; it’ll make for a perfectly haunting backdrop. We could get Marshall to figure out how to burn the homemade pyre. It would be so cool.”

Maybe I’d need to make sure Paul or Marshall had 9-1-1 on speed dial that night.

“I guess you won’t really need me for that. By that point in the movie, Elizabeth has been long dead,” I said.

“But this is a part of your project. You’ll probably want to have a say in how it ends.”

“I think as long as aliens and the mafia stay out of the screenplay, I won’t doubt your ability to complete the film without me.”

“Actually,” Micah smiled, “I was thinking about adding a huge change to the ending. Maybe the monster gets abducted by an extraterrestrial.” I snorted but Micah continued, “And then, just as the alien is about to phone home and take the monster with him, the mafia comes out of the woods with the Terminator and Arnold goes all ‘I’ll be back’ on Victor.”

“That’s just dumb,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“So, you’ll be there then?” He smirked, amused. “Because I’m sure Paul and Marshall could make it happen. And by the sound of it, Josh and his friends could, too!”