London Boy | Jamie Flatters

Eighteen

    Sighing, I throw my head back, soaking in the way the sun feels on my skin, warm and comforting, beginning to hang low in the sky, streaks of pink and purple painted around it. I'd been up here all day, guitar on my lap as I avoided the rest of the world... or, I guess, two people in particular.

She'd been all over him when we went for brunch this morning, chair scooted as close as she could get it, head resting on his shoulder, and he spoke to me like nothing was out of the ordinary, eyes sparkling as he made jokes like it was any other day. It almost made things worse somehow, how normal he acted when everything felt anything but normal.

"Write your feelings out," Zoe had advised the other night after she fixed me up before the premiere. After that moment in the coat closet with her and Sam, the two of them looked out for me all night. I could feel their gazes from across the room the entire after-party, watching as I chatted with Jamie and Lilly, drink in hand, numbing the pain.

I'd found a guitar in a music room downstairs, something I'd never seen in a hotel before but wasn't going to complain about. It's much nicer than the old acoustic in my room back home. The strings never seem to tune quite right, unlike this one, which sounded perfect. I hadn't realized how long I'd been out here writing until the sun began setting, letting me know that hours had passed since I came up to the rooftop, scattered pages of rejected lyrics piled beside me.

I haven't written a song in ages. To be quite honest, I didn't think I still had it in me until I started, a tune coming to me fairly quickly, lyrics pouring out of my like a waterfall. I wrote the words I longed to say to Jamie out loud, my fingers beginning to ache from holding down the strings for so long.

A door shuts behind me, startling the silence I'd created, "there you are," as soon as I hear the familiar voice, my shoulders relax, head turning to look back at the curly-haired boy that I haven't seen since brunch this morning, "figured you'd be hungry." He greets me, holding up a box of pizza.

As if on cue, my stomach growled, suddenly remembering the last thing I'd eaten was the strawberry French toast at the fancy brunch place we went to, "starving," I corrected him, smiling, "thanks, Jack."

I scoot over on the couch I'd been residing on, placing the guitar gently against it as Jack strolls over, dramatically lifting the lid to the cardboard pizza box, which steam immediately floats out of. He'd remembered all of my favourite toppings. "You play guitar too?" Jack asks as I reach for a slice, eagerly taking a bite.

"Mhmm," I hum, nodding as I finish chewing, "I used to want to be a musician."

The words used to hang in the air between us; I can see Jack's hanging onto them as well, his brow furrowing together as he asks, "used to?" He takes a slice of pizza, leaning back into the cushions.

"Every kid wants to be famous, right?" I question, shrugging nonchalantly. I don't go on to bother explaining anything about my birth father and the way he hated all things art related. I had to teach myself guitar and piano because he thought a guitar teacher was a waste of money, and even after they split, it still felt wrong to long to make music for a living, like a childish dream that would never in a million years happen for a girl like me. A girl like Trinity, sure. My sister is sweet, charming, and talented; she's the whole package and more. Of course, it'd happen for a girl like her. "

"Not you, though," Jack shakes his head, knowing me too well. When I quirk my brow, eating more, he continues, "you're not that type of person," he explains, like it's obvious, "you hate attention, you don't care about fame. If you wanted to be a musician, it was because you really loved it, no other reason."

I did really love it. I think as I glance down at the page of paper on my other side fully written out, a messy scrawl that only I could make out, with music notes written below them, "it's still a farfetched fantasy," I say, looking back over at him, "seems I've got a lot of those."