The Cora Carmack New Adult Boxed Set: Losing It, Keeping Her, Faking It, and Finding It plus bonus material (28 page)

20

Max

M
y phone rang so early the day after Thanksgiving that it should have been labeled cruel and unusual punishment. I reached out toward my nightstand, knocking off who knew what until my fingers finally closed around my phone.

“What?” I grumbled.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

Ugh . . . it was way too early for this.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Your father and I are at the airport. Our flight has been delayed.”

Oh no. If she said that they were going to stay even longer, I would go crazy. I had to get back to the band and back to work, and I had reached my crazy quota for the week.

“I’m sorry, Mom. There’s no chance they’ll cancel it, is there?”

“Oh, no, honey. Just something about the pilot’s plane being late the night before, so they’re required to give him so much rest. We’ll be back in Oklahoma by this evening.” Thank God. “But your father and I were talking, and we just wanted to tell you again how much we liked Cade.”

I was pretty sure that was already abundantly clear, thanks.

“You know, we’ve been worried about you. Your father and I had a lot of difficulty with your decision to drop out of college.” A lot was an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if they discussed having me committed as mentally unstable. “But we came around.” After a year of fighting, yeah. “We’ve been helping you pay your rent so you can afford to spend time doing your little music thing.” God, I was going to break out in hives if she called my career and lifelong dream a “little music thing” one more time. “It’s just . . . you’ve been here so long, and your father and I were starting to feel that perhaps it was time to face the facts and grow up.”

No. Please no. I was so close. I could feel it. The gig next weekend at The Fire was going to be huge for us. We were even doing a live recording of the set.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have plenty of money. They both had high-paying jobs, and the insurance money from Alex’s death had made our already wealthy household even wealthier. They gave me five hundred bucks a month to help pay my student loans from those pointless two years at UPenn that they’d been the ones to insist upon. You’d think when they were the ones pushing me to go to college, that they would have at least paid for it. But since they hadn’t helped Michael, they didn’t help me. Some bullshit about making my own way. Too bad it had only ever been their way.

Five hundred to them was nothing, and to me it was the difference between doing what I loved and dreaming about doing what I love. I just needed a little more time.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “You’re going to stop helping me?”

“Eventually, yes.” Shit. I was going to have to double my shifts at the Trestle. Between that and my job at the tattoo parlor, I would have zero time for singing, much less writing my own stuff. “We were going to talk to you about it while we were here, but then we met Cade.”

“What does Cade have to do with it?”

“Well . . . you’re obviously getting your life together. You’re dating a nice, respectable boy and finally starting to take things seriously. Your father and I are so glad you’ve left behind the negative influences you were spending time with before. So, since you’re obviously trying, we’re going to give you a few more months.”

“A few?” I asked.

“Well, we’re going to play things by ear. But as long as you keep taking your life seriously, you don’t need to worry about it.”

AKA . . . as long as I kept dating Cade.

I wanted to scream.

At her.

At the world.

At myself. For being too damn cowardly to tell her exactly what I was thinking. I should have told her the truth about Cade. I should have told her that she was full of shit. I
had
been taking my life seriously.

I had been taking my life seriously when I left college. Just because I was not taking a familiar road or doing something that made sense to her didn’t mean I was naive or ignorant.

It meant I didn’t want to be a mindless office worker who daydreamed about what life could have been if things had been different.

It meant I was willing to make sacrifices and work two jobs and kill myself to get it all done.

It meant I was brave.

I
wished
I had been brave enough then to tell her those things.

I wasn’t.

Instead I kept my mouth closed and listened to her prattle on about a charity event she was hosting right before Christmas and how Michael was doing, and how perfect his wife, Bethany, was.

The more she talked and the more I stayed silent, the more nauseated I became. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I lied and said, “Mom, there’s someone at the door. I have to go.”

“Oh, sure, honey. It was good to see you. Tell Cade we said hi and we’ll see him at Christmas.”

“Mom, I’m not sure he’ll make it to Christmas.”

“And why not?”

“Well, he has his own family to see, plus it’s not exactly cheap. He has tuition and loans to pay.”

Like all the rest of us.

“Oh, your father and I will just take of all that. He can stay for a few days and then go on to Texas. We’ll pay for it. I won’t take no for an answer.”

I was
so
glad she didn’t mind throwing money at someone she’d just met.

“We’ll see, Mom. I really do have to go.”

I hung up and threw my phone somewhere on the floor. I pulled the covers over my head, and hugged my pillow, but the damage was done. I was too worked up to go to sleep.

I took a long shower. I made a complicated lunch that was supposed to occupy my mind, but didn’t. I went for a run. I played my guitar. I tried to write a new song.

I did that for two days.

Distraction. Failure of said distraction.

Different distraction. Different failure.

Repeat until insane.

The whole time my phone sat there, taunting me. Cade was one call away. Or a text if I was feeling particularly cowardly.

One question could solve so many of my problems. Or delay them anyway. Wasn’t that what life was? Taking the good while we could get it, and delaying the bad as long as possible.

Cade was good, and he could help delay the bad. Win-win, right?

Except for the part where I had to degrade myself to do it.

How much was I willing to sacrifice for the money my parents were giving me?

I knew . . . I could feel it somewhere in the space between my heart and lungs that this wasn’t a hopeless dream. Anything that felt this good and consumed me so completely couldn’t be hopeless. I thought of all the gigs I’d have to cut back on if I didn’t have that money. Any one of them could be the one that puts us on the track of making music for a living, but if the gigs never happened, neither would our break.

I’d just finished thinking that I wasn’t afraid to make sacrifices.

Could I sacrifice my own pride, bend to my parents, and pretend to be something I wasn’t if it meant following my dream? It wasn’t as if I had to actually
be
someone else. I just had to pretend . . . for a little while.

Five hundred bucks a month. I suppose people had betrayed themselves for less.

I made it to Sunday evening before I went back to my room and fished my phone out from under the pillow I had stuffed it under to dampen the temptation. Before I could analyze what I was doing, I scrolled through my old texts and found Cade’s number.

Hey. My band is playing this Friday at The Fire in Northern Liberties. You should come.

I tossed my phone down on the bed, and then pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes.

Why did I feel like I’d just hit my self-destruct button?

I was just inviting him to see us play. That didn’t mean anything. I still had a whole week to make up my mind.

My phone started ringing, and I jumped to answer it.

Oh, it was Mace.

He probably wanted to do something tonight . . . or spend the night, now that my parents were gone. I just . . . I wasn’t feeling up to being around people.

I hit ignore.

Cade’s reply came a few minutes later.

What time?

I spent most of the next week avoiding Mace. We saw each other at practice, and we grabbed dinner beforehand a few times, but I just kept telling him I had to work, which was true. And when I didn’t have to work, I told him I wasn’t feeling well, which wasn’t true, but oh well.

When the day of the gig arrived, we were set to meet that afternoon to load up our equipment from Trestle. Spence had a van we used to transport what we needed. When I arrived, Mace wasn’t there, and Spence was outside smoking.

He inhaled, and on the exhale said, “You look like shit.”

I did. “Thanks, douche rocket.”

I hadn’t slept well the night before because I knew I was going to see Cade the next day, and I still hadn’t decided whether I was going to ask him about Christmas.

“I’m just saying . . . we need you to look hot for tonight and you look like you’re auditioning to be an extra on
The Walking Dead.
”

“I’ve had a shitty couple of days, okay?”

“Right. Mace said you’ve been sick the last few days.” Spence made air quotes with his fingers when he said “sick.”

“Stay out of it, Spence. And don’t you worry. I’ll be good by tonight. I’ll look so sexy you’ll be dying to get back into my pants.”

“You know I’m always dying to get back in your pants.”

I rolled my eyes. “Har-har.”

He smiled, and took another drag on his cigarette.

“You sure Mace is coming?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

He shrugged. “Maybe he took one look at you in that outfit and decided not to show after all. Or maybe he found out about the preppy boy you were making googly eyes at last week at the bar.”

I flicked his cigarette and it went flying out of his mouth.

He said, “Hey! I was using that.”

“I was
not
making googly eyes at anyone. You’re delirious.”

“No, love, I’m observant. There’s a difference. But keep your secrets. Fine by me. Just wait to cut Mace loose until after tonight or we’ll have problems.”

I twisted the key and opened the heavy front door to Trestle. He followed me inside the darkened, lifeless bar, and I said, “No one is cutting anyone loose. You’re way off on this one, Spence.”

I flipped on the light, and he shrugged. “I wasn’t wrong when I thought you were about to toss me to the curb. I doubt I’m wrong this time.”

Sometimes it was really obnoxious being friends with an ex. He liked to bring it up all the time, but I knew for a fact that he was way past over me. The guy had a different girl every week. He liked to say he was practicing for the groupies we’d eventually have. I liked to call him man-whorrible.

My pocket buzzed.

Mace had texted.

Can’t make it 4 set up. Sry. C U 2night tho.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I hit dial, and it went straight to voice mail. I called a second time. Same thing. At the tone, I said, “You better have the best damn excuse in the world, Mace. Tonight is important. Don’t you dare be late!”

Spencer was holding both of our guitars, smirking when I hung up.

“Maybe it’s not Mace who is getting tossed to the curb.”

21

Cade

I
t was undoubtedly the worst idea ever, bringing Cammie to Max’s show. But my desire to see her play overruled any common sense I was still holding on to. I’d been in midconversation with Milo about date ideas when I received her text. I didn’t even hesitate before saying yes.

Cammie and I met up Friday night at a restaurant close to the venue. She was wearing a little black dress that fit her slim body perfectly. It also probably cost more than my entire wardrobe . . . maybe my whole apartment. When we’d met at Trestle her cheeks had been bright pink. I’d assumed she’d been flushed from alcohol. She’d also been the dictionary definition of
giggly
. Again, I thought alcohol.

Apparently, I was wrong on both accounts. That was just Cammie, cheeks drowning in blush and lungs made of laughing gas.

I went through all the motions of a date.

Pulling out her chair.

Ordering wine.

Small talk.

Cammie was nice enough, and very pretty, but a bit predictable. She ordered a salad and kept tossing her blond hair back and forth so much I was surprised she didn’t have whiplash. She giggled not just when stuff was funny, but to fill the silence.

There was a lot of silence on my part.

“So, my professor was completely unreasonable, and wouldn’t even consider letting me retake the test, when really the entire misunderstanding was his fault. You’d think for the amount of money we’re paying for his class that he would be a little better at communicating, right?”

Silence.

Cammie giggled.

I cringed.

I had to work on replying faster.

“Right. You’d think.”

She smiled and tossed her hair again. “I’m sorry. I’m probably boring you with all my talk about school.”

“Oh, no, not at all!” I said.

“Oh good. Because you know, I ran into the same professor at happy hour hitting on a girl my age. Can you believe it?”

I said as fast as humanly possible, “I cannot!”

“I mean, the guy was like forty. I suppose if I were a different kind of girl maybe he would have let me retake the test, but honestly. I wrote a letter to the dean about the professor. Maybe he’ll get fired. At the very least, my grade will get changed. Daddy is friends with the dean. They’ve been golfing together for ages.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Oh yes. You know, I almost went to another school so that I could ‘make my own way,’ and all that, but in the end, I thought . . . why not take advantage of every opportunity I’m given?”

She kept going, but I was having trouble listening. I liked to think that I probably made it longer than most before tuning out. I was sure that there was a really cool person underneath the designer clothes and the manicured nails and the most obnoxious laughter known to man, but tonight I didn’t have the patience or attention span to find her. My body felt almost electric at the thought of where we’d be heading next.

I’d spent an embarrassingly long time Googling Max’s band Under the Bell Jar. I learned that they’d named themselves after a Sylvia Plath novel, which made me think of Max’s threat to stick my head in the oven on Thanksgiving, and I died laughing. The bass player and Max were the original founding members, and it looked like Max’s boyfriend was a more recent addition. His name was
Mace
. As in the stuff sprayed into the eyes of rapists and muggers. Or the ancient weapon used to bludgeon people to death.

He sounded like a real keeper.

I was snapped out of my reverie when the waiter came by with the check. My stomach clenched as I slipped a ridiculous amount of cash into the plastic folder. Maybe I shouldn’t be dating, not if I wanted to have the money to go home for Christmas.

I pulled out Cammie’s chair and offered her my arm.

She giggled.

God help me.

“I’m so glad I met you at that god-awful bar. My friends dragged me there, and I wanted to leave as soon as we got there. Well, until I met you.”

Awesome. That meant she was probably going to hate the place we were heading.

“So, tell me again about this band,” she said.

I’d been on the website enough to be able to parrot back to her, “They’re a local Philly band that blends rock and folk music. They’re supposed to be pretty good.”

“Cool.”

Giggle.

Giggle.

Giggle.

Dear God. I had to keep talking.

“Yeah, I’ve not heard them play before, but I know someone in the band. I think it’s going to pretty awesome. Do you like music?”

She started talking about Lady Gaga and I sighed in relief. That should last us at least until we walked the block and a half to The Fire. Then hopefully it would be loud enough there to drown out her inane giggling.

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’d thought of all these strategies for talking to her again, and it looked like I wasn’t even going to have to use them. That made it ten times harder to accept the drinks from the bartender and return to Cammie, who giggled when I sat down with what would probably prove to be the worst cosmo in history.

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.

“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

The bell jar drops, the air gets thin

Nothing gets out, but nothing gets in

“It’s better this way

Untouched under glass

It’s better, I say

This way I’ll last.”

The song slowed, and her voice went into her higher register. It was heartbreaking and honest, and I understood her better in that moment than ever before.

“It’s Better

Better

Better

“Better

Better

“I’ll Never

Never

Get past the pressure

Never, never

I’m my own oppressor

“No one does it better.”

She smiled grimly, and I swear she held the whole audience in the palm of her hands. Everyone was leaning forward, me included. She strummed a few more notes, humming slightly, and the music faded out to just the beat of the drums and bass as she chanted a few more times.

“Better

Better.”