Say You'll Remember Me

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“Because they’re cursed?” I meant it as a joke, but seriousness leaks through.

“Because they belong to you.” Axle goes silent like his words are somehow meant to sink in and make everything okay, but they just bounce off me and hang in the air.

He pushes off the frame and enters the garage. “The rest of us know how to play, can do the counts, but none of us can hold it steady like you. We can’t shift fast enough with the change up in rhythms and still keep the beat. We couldn’t release the sticks like you do to get the same sound. When you played, Drix, it was all emotion, all heart. It was the type of beat I could feel in my blood.”

Yeah. I used to feel it in my blood, too. Playing consumed me, and that was my sin. “I was becoming Dad.”

Silence. The heavy kind. The type I dread. A pit in my stomach because part of me said it so he would disagree. It hurts he’s not offering up a denial.

“You didn’t commit that crime,” Axle says, “but I was relieved when you were arrested.”

Concrete fist straight to my head, and I hear bones snapping.

“You needed that year away. You needed that program. It gave you something I couldn’t. You were going one hundred miles per hour toward a cliff, and I couldn’t get you to stop.”

Because I wouldn’t listen.

“I know coming home is tough. I know you don’t know how to fit back in. It’s okay not to fit back in. It’s okay to be the person that’s come out on the other side.”

I crack my neck to the side. “That’s it. That’s the problem. I don’t know who I am.”

“But you know who you aren’t. That’s a big step.”

I pick up the banged-up guitar Axle bought me for my birthday when I was younger, claim one of the hundreds of picks left out and sit on a stool. My fingers begin moving before I give conscious thought to the motions. I’m listening to the notes, closing my eyes with the vibrations, twisting the tuning pegs searching for the perfect pitch.

After a few seconds of silence, Axle grabs his acoustic guitar, sits on a stool across from me and starts tuning his instrument by ear, as well. I’ve dreamed, literally dreamed, of this moment for a year. Me making music again...there’s not another feeling like it in the world.

“I’m thinking of applying to that youth performing arts school,” I say as casually as I can. Marcus is a good guy, but he can have a big mouth. If I don’t spill, Marcus will. “The application deadline is in a month.”

Axle’s fingers freeze, then he’s smart enough to keep tuning. “What instrument will you audition with?”

“They have to accept my application before the audition.”

“What instrument?”

When the hell did he become an optimist? “The guitar.”

“You’re a beast on the drums. Don’t throw that gift in the trash.”

I don’t want to, but I don’t trust myself. “We all switch up playing something one time or another. It’s time for me to give up the drums.”

“The drums are who you are. The rest of that bull you had going on before you were arrested, that was the aftermath of ego. That was you allowing Dad to play with your brain. Dad’s on tour, and I told him if he rolls back into town, he’s not welcomed here. The house is mine. Custody of both of you is mine. He’s gone. Playing the drums doesn’t make you Dad. How you decide to behave once you get some fame, once you succeed, that’s what’s going to separate you from Dad.”

Dad taught me to play drums. He was the one who hooked me up with a band that had success. He was the one that showed me how a real man celebrates his success—with a needle. “I can’t risk it again. I don’t want to return to who I was from before.”

“You won’t.”

My hand lies over the strings to stop any sound. “You don’t think I know the drums aren’t to blame? I know it was me. I know I made the wrong choices, and I’m scared as hell that I’m going to choose wrongly again. Getting back into any type of music scares me, but it’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s my only shot of doing something worthwhile. I can choose to look at it that music destroyed me, but I’m not. I felt like a god when I played the drums, and I don’t trust myself to feel like that again and make the right choices. I’m trying here, Axle. Try with me.”

“I’ll try with you.” Marcus walks into the garage, half of a ham sandwich in his hand. “Not sure what we’re trying, but as long as it doesn’t violate parole, I’m in.”

Marcus unzips his case and extracts his electric guitar and wiring. Outside the garage door, in the shadows, there’s movement. First Dominic hopping the fence to go home, then Kellen leaning against the fence between our house and hers, watching me.

Guilt feasts on me because playing without Dominic is sacrilegious, but so is how Dominic is dumping on our friendship by not opening up to me about why he left me behind after I passed out the night of the robbery. I’ve done my part, a year of it, and it’s time for him to tell me the truth. Only then will he and I play.

Ellison (#ua40580ab-2e09-500c-88a2-fbd8fd0c2fe2)

Forget my mother and Sean, my father is never going to let me out of the house. The three of them took turns yelling at me, berating me, making me feel like the sludge of humanity because I wanted to play Whack-A-Mole. Because, as my mother explained, I lied by omission.

Now, all of them, along with other selected staffers for my father, are downstairs in his office, each trying to figure out how to contain me, the media abomination. I messed up yesterday, and I’m quite aware there’s no way my parents will ever allow the internship now.

I’m in my room, on the floor, laptop in lap, and I’m trying to find my happy place. I’m coding, and the code isn’t running correctly, but that’s okay. I find it calming to take something apart that doesn’t work, discard the broken parts, find ones that do work, and then piece it back together to make something functional—to make something new.

My cell buzzes, and I consider ignoring it, just like I’m ignoring any social media account and the news. Another buzz—it’s the fourth one in a row. Most of my friends have texted, wanting the behind-the-scene details to everything they’re seeing on the news, but I’ve remained silent. Another buzz, and I’m plain annoyed at the spamming. Though the urge is to throw something, instead I set my computer gently on the ground, and I swipe my cell:

Henry: You okay?

Henry: Answer.

Henry: Answer now.

Henry: Answer now or I’ll call your dad again and tell him you snuck out four months ago to go on a date.

Henry: I’m dialing.

And I’m texting, quickly, because I need more drama like I need a hole in my head.

Me: I’m okay and it wasn’t a date. It was a group of guys and a group of girls. That’s it.

Henry: There were boys, correct?

Me: Yes.

Henry: It was a date.

Did I wish it was a date? Yes. Was it a date? I sure as hell hope not. Some boy who spent most of the evening looking at my breasts and who kept trying to touch me instead of talking to me isn’t what I want a date to be.

Me: I hate you.

Henry: I can live with that. I saw the news. Who was the asshole you were with?

Me: There were two guys harassing me. I don’t know who they are.

Henry: Them I’ll figure out. I’m talking about the guy there’s a picture of you looking all googly-eyed at. You’re too young to look at anyone like that.

I groan. It’s long, it’s painful and the back of my head hits my fluffy bed. The media is having a field day with a picture of me and Drix. No wonder all my friends are demanding details. I go to an all-girls school, and besides the times I’ve snuck out with friends to go to parties where there were boys, I don’t date. I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to date. It’s not that I’ve been told that as much as there’s been this unspoken agreement. Boys are a complication.

Me: At least you agree with Mom and Dad on something.

I stare at my cell, waiting for his response, and my lips lift because I shut him down. Then I frown as another message appears.

Henry: Were you on a date with this Pierce guy?

Me: I really did just meet him. And I wasn’t looking googly-eyed at him.

Henry: Do we have to have the sex talk now? If so, here it is—you’re becoming a nun.

Neanderthal.

Me: I’m not Catholic.

Henry: Semantics.

The last thing I want to do is talk boys with Henry, and I silently thank the doorbell gods above when the loud chime rings through the house.

Henry: Can you come down to Grandma’s today?

I’ll probably never be let out of the house again. Me: I’ll try for tomorrow. Doorbell. Gotta go.

Barefoot, I pad along the plush carpet of the hallway, down the curved stairs, then cross the hardwood of the foyer.

I open the door and the late spring heat creeps in. When I lift my head with my practiced smile to greet whichever member of Dad’s staff has been summoned, my eyes widen and sweet nervous adrenaline floods my veins. The type that tickles and makes me feel like I’m floating.

It’s not Dad’s staff. It’s dirty blond hair sticking up in a sexy way, defined arms, broad shoulders and dark, beautiful eyes. My mouth drops open to speak, but absolutely no words are formed. There’s no way this is real. I want it to be real, but my mind can’t seem to find a reason why this is at all logical. Standing on my doorstep is the main lead of last night’s dreams. It’s Drix.

Hendrix (#ua40580ab-2e09-500c-88a2-fbd8fd0c2fe2)

Elle was beautiful yesterday—perfection from a magazine—but today she’s my type of perfect. Cutoff jean shorts, a T-shirt that clings to her curves, blond hair piled upon her head in a messy bun and she wears black horn-rimmed glasses. Gotta admit, it’s the sexiest sight I’ve seen in over a year.

Those blue eyes go from big, round shock to narrowed and, once again, intimidating. “What are you doing here?”

I hook my thumbs into my belt loops and wonder the same thing. “My brother received a phone call from a guy named Sean Johnson an hour ago who said I needed to show.”

Her mouth moves to the side, and I follow the action more closely than I should. Elle has lips made for sin. The kind I would have worked my magic a year ago to spend an evening kissing. Me and sin, though, aren’t friends anymore, and I’m supposed to be avoiding temptation.

“That sounds like Sean. Super control freakish and bossy.” She widens the door and steps aside to create a path for me. “Come in, then, and I’ll track him down for you. Though it wouldn’t be hard for you to find him yourself. You just have to close your eyes and feel for the dark energy of the Force.”

Sean Johnson’s the guy Axle talked with the most after we signed on for the program, and Axle would agree with the dark Force association. My brother said that the guy wasn’t an ass, but was pushy. “A good friend of mine is a Star Wars fan.”

“I’ve seen it a few times. It’s good, but it’s not my thing, you know? My cousin loves it. I had my tonsils taken out when I was ten, and we watched every movie back to back.”

I walk into the house. “Was it torture for you?

She brightens like she’s listening to the best chorus of a song in her head. The type of chorus that touches your soul in a way you know you’ll never be the same again. “No. It was with Henry. Anything with Henry is worth doing.”

I get it. Anything with Axle is worth doing, too.

Elle closes the door, and I freeze. And I thought the outside of this sprawling house was a formidable fort of red brick. The inside of this place makes me feel like dirt on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

“I texted Sean.” Elle pockets her cell. “He said to give him a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Behind Elle is a massive staircase leading to the second floor with an open air hallway. Dark hardwood below me, walls with white crown molding, huge heavy solid oak closed door to my right, and to my left is a dining room with a long table and chandelier.

I finish the scan and find Elle watching me. Curiosity plain on her face. She’s studying me the same way I’m trying to figure out her.