Unfamiliar (9 page)

“I don't know. Most pianists I know are pretty boys.”

“Yeah, well, I suppose you would think that. You're probably just jealous of their talent which you so obviously lack.”

“You have no idea, do you?” he said with a bemused grin.

“No idea about what?”

“Nothing”

“Look, I know you think I'm the most boring person on earth and that I wouldn't recognize passion if it slapped me in the face, but you don't know anything about me. I'm just like everyone else—I have feelings, you know?” God, I sounded like an idiot and that frustrated me even more. “Can you just leave me alone?”

“Sure thing.” He returned to his seat toward the back of the class, laughing the whole way.

I didn't know why I was being so defensive and I didn't know why he found it so amusing. Professor Thomas walked in then, so I turned my attention to her and planned to ignore Chase for the rest of the hour. Unfortunately, Thomas dismissed us thirty minutes early so we could get started on our group projects.

“So, where do you want to do this?” Chase asked, catching up with me as we walked out of the classroom.

“I don't care.” And I didn't. I was not looking forward to this project at all.

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I know the perfect spot. C'mon.”

I had no choice but to follow Chase across campus, but I was dragging my heels, kicking and screaming inside my head.

I had never ventured around the university grounds any further than the buildings my classes were in and the dorms, so I was not familiar with this area. I could see the college soccer fields to the east, a large parking lot to the west, and right down the middle was the creek that ran along the south side of campus. There was an old red bridge that crossed it that was flanked by two Weeping Willow trees.

“What's this?”

“I'm actually not sure,” Chase answered. “But nobody ever comes here so it should be pretty quiet.”

“Which is good in case you suck.”

He chuckled at my insult before he said, “The ground is still wet from the rain last night but we should be fine to sit over on the bridge.”

“That's fine with me.”

I followed him over to the red bridge and took a seat on the wooden stairs. He sat on the railing. He didn't have a notebook or a pen which aggravated me. I guess my assumption that he was a slacker wasn't too far off since he obviously assumed that I would do the writing. I got out my pencil and notebook.

“I guess we should form some sort of game plan.”

“What?”

“Well, we should, you know, make a game plan. Decide what we need to do first. Which I guess would be to determine what kind of song we're going to write.”

“Do you make lists for everything?”

“Lists help keep me on task.”

“So what would happen if you decided to live dangerously and not make a list?”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

He laughed and shook his head at me in disbelief. Why did he have to be so critical of everything I said or did? It was irritating to be around someone who could be so mean.

“I don't have to put up with this.” I stood up to leave but he put his hand on my shoulder and pressed me back down into a sitting position.

“Let's just get started.”

“Okay, so what should we do first?”

“I guess we should decide what kind of song we want to write,” he said, echoing my previous statement.

“Like, what genre?”

“More like, what do we want to write about?”

“We should write a love song, of course.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he muttered under his breath.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It just means you’re a girl.”

“Well, obviously.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“It’s just so overdone and boring. Besides, have you ever even been in love before?”

“Yes,” I said too quickly. “I'm in love right now. My boyfriend Braxton and I have been together for almost five years.”

“Five years? Jesus Christ— how old are you?”

“Almost nineteen.”

“So you've been together since you were fourteen?”

“Yeah.”

“You're not in love.”

“What?” I gasped. “How the hell do you know? You don't know anything about me!”

“I know that when you're fourteen, hell when you're eighteen, you don't know who you are yet or what you want. You haven't even experienced anything. How can you know for sure?”

“I just know,” I stammered, flustered and angry. How dare he assume anything about me? “You're a jerk. You know that, right?”

“I've been called worse. Look, I’m sure what’s-his-name is great, but there is no way you can know for sure you are in love if you’ve never experienced heartbreak.”  

“That can’t be true.”

“Believe me, it’s true.”

“So you are saying that the only possible way to know love is to know heartbreak first?” I scoffed at the notion.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And I’ll let you in on a little secret about great songwriters: we all start with broken hearts.

“And you consider yourself to be a great songwriter?”

“Yes. But even if I didn’t, I'd still know it was obvious that all great artists have to know pain—it's where the passion comes from.”

“I think that's kind of sad, don't you?”

“I think it's just life.”

We argued for the rest of the time we were allotted to work on our song. We didn't even agree on the simplest aspects. This was a disaster.

“I have to go. I guess we should decide when to get together again.”

“I'm free after class until noon.”

“Sounds good.” I left in a hurry, not wanting to give Chase any more opportunities to get on my nerves.

The thing was, I couldn't really put my finger on what exactly frustrated me more: his extreme insensitivity or the fact that if I was honest with myself, he was right. I was boring. Everything about my life was so routine. It had to be. Growing up, I basically had to raise myself. Sure, Mrs. Douglas and the rest of Braxton's family were there for me, but it was up to me to pay the bills and make sure there was food to eat in the house. Making lists and planning everything was how I learned to cope with all the responsibility that had been thrust upon me too early.

I made sure to always keep everything the same because as far as I could tell, change was what ruined everything. I didn't want anything else to throw my world into a tailspin like it did when my mom left. So I controlled every possible aspect I could. My whole life had become one big, strict routine.

Braxton and I had been together for four years so even my relationship was routine. Every night I got a good night text and in the morning there was always a 'good morning beautiful'. Every week we had a date night. Of course sometimes we changed things up, like instead of a movie on Saturday, we'd have dinner with his family—okay, yeah, we were like an old married couple. I guess I didn't realize how odd and kind of pathetic that was until now.

How was I ever going to write lyrics that would make other people feel something if I never felt anything myself? Maybe Chase was right—maybe I needed to experience new things, to live a fuller life, but the thing was, I wasn't really sure where to start.

I had nothing else to do today so I planned on googling William C. Lancaster when I got back to my dorm to see if there was an earlier concert. He had passion—it was obvious in the way he played. Maybe I could acquire some through osmosis. But when I got back to the dorms, Tessa announced that she was going into the city for some shopping and asked—no demanded—me to go too.

“I'm thinking about doing something crazy to my hair. I mean, Jonathan has a Mohawk—I think I at least need to have some purple or maybe pink highlights. What do you think?” Tessa asked, though I doubt she really cared what my actual opinion on the matter was.

“Purple highlights?”

“Or pink.”

“That's, um, adventurous.”

“You should do something new with your hair too.”

I subconsciously touched the ends of my shoulder length brown hair and asked, “Why?”

“Don't you ever just want a change?”

“Not really.”

“Isn't that boring?”

“That's the second time I've been called boring today,” I pointed out.

“Well— ” she said with a shrug, not denying it. She must have seen something in my face that made her feel bad because she quickly added, “Come on, you know the best thing about trying something new with your hair?”

“What?”

“It always grows back.” She raised her eyebrows and looked at me expectantly.

She had a point. I guess if I was going to try something new, a good place to start would be my hair. And I did get my refund check today so I finally had a little bit of spending money.

“Okay, fine. Just a cut though. I'm not dying it any funky colors,” I said sternly.

“Baby steps.”

She dragged me into the first place we came across on The Plaza. There were only two chairs for cutting hair and one table for what I assumed was used for manicures. It wasn’t a big space, but it was richly decorated. It sort of reminded me of walking into a Pier 1 but with that unmistakable smell of a salon.

“What can we do for you ladies today?” asked a short man with short dark hair and equally dark eyes. He was dressed nicely in the way only a gay man could pull off.

“Do you take walk-ins?” Tessa asked him.

“But of course!” He gestured over to the first chair and Tessa took a seat. “I'm Angelo.”

“I’m Tessa, and this is Hailey.”

“What are you thinking, Gorgeous?”

“Well, I just started dating this new guy. He's in a band—the drummer.”   

“Hot?”

“Totally sexy.”

“Tell me more,” he insisted.

“I just wanted to try something a little daring, you know? Just something fun. I'm thinking purple or maybe pink highlights. Thoughts?”

“Oh honey, with your skin tone? Let's go with teal,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “Just here—framing your face.”

“Teal? Sounds good to me!”

“And what about you?” he asked me.

“I'm thinking just a cut. But not too much. Just the ends. Let's go with more of a trim.”

“Hailey,” she said with a look. “Don't be boring.”

“I don't really know what I want. My face is so round it’s hard to do anything shorter that looks right.”

“Well, why don't you just let me work my magic?” Angelo asked.

“I don't know.” I hesitated, but Chase's words echoed in my mind and really, it was just hair. “Okay. Do your worst.”

Angelo worked on my hair after he put the dye on Tessa's. I kept my eyes shut the entire time. My head felt lighter as inches of my hair were snipped off. What if I hated it? What if I looked horrible?

Finally Angelo finished styling my hair and said, “Open your eyes, Gorgeous.”

I peeked through one eyelid first then bravely opened the other. I was a little shocked. He had cut off quite a bit of my hair, but I was surprised that it didn't make my face look as fat as I thought it would. In fact, I kind of liked it.

“Wow.”

“I second that,” Tessa piped up.

“Do we love?” Angelo asked.

“We do.” I smiled at him then I added, “Thank you.”

“I think we have some more shopping to do,” Tessa said after we left Angelo’s salon.

“What for?”

“Some new clothes. There is no way you can have awesome hair and still wear your boring old librarian clothes.”

Well, I couldn't argue with that.

Chase

The cool morning breeze hit my face as I strode across the campus grounds and toward the Music room. I didn’t have a class until later in the day so I figured I could use the time to get some extra piano practice in.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing guitar, but there was something about gliding my fingers over the ivory keys that made the piano my instrument of choice. Even calling it an instrument seemed to degrade it somehow. It was so much more than that. Once my fingers found the right notes, it created magic.

I wished my parents could understand that part of me. My ex hadn’t understood my passion for music either. All I’d wanted was to share my love of music with someone who just got me and what I was trying to do.

That’s why I was unhappy most days, even though I hated to admit it, and I didn’t think I’d ever truly be happy until I really got somewhere with the band.

As I headed down the hall toward the Music room, I heard the soft notes from an acoustic guitar drift down the hall toward me.

Great. Someone had beat me to it.

The song being played was unfamiliar to me, but it sounded damn good.

Pausing outside the slightly ajar door, I peered through the gap and found a girl with short brown hair sitting on a chair and facing the back wall as she played. She didn’t look familiar at all. She was wearing tight fitted black jeans and a top that dipped low to show off her back. Nope. I definitely hadn’t seen her around before. She was probably from a different class.

I listened to her play and was already captivated by the seemingly effortless way her fingers found every chord flawlessly, when all of a sudden she began to sing. I had definitely never heard the song before—it was probably an original piece—and I stood rooted to the spot as her beautiful voice caused goosebumps to pop up on my arms.

Holy shit, could this girl sing.

Now I had to see her face. I had to know who she was. Her voice had captured a piece of my soul and latched on. She was someone who had a passion for music.