Chasing Sevens

Chapter Seven

7

I spent the evening ignoring Seven, taking every path to avoid crossing hers. I drove circles around the backroads of Moonview, blasting a Metallica cassette tape 'til my ears rang, and the bass vibrated my pocketknife off the dashboard. I sang the lyrics so loud I wondered if Grandpa had heard them. When I won a handful of tapes in a radio contest, he'd installed a cassette player in the Chevy so we could listen while we ran errands. We'd rewound them so many times I wondered how they still played.

When his favorite track, Fade to Black, came on, I screamed every word 'til my throat was raw and my voice was so hoarse I was speaking a foreign language. I veered off into a ditch, the dampness of my eyes fogging up my vision. He was in the seat next to me, drumming on the dash with two pens he'd nabbed from the glove box.

"Death greets me warm, now, I will just say goodbye," he mouthed in sync with the song.

The outro blared on the speaker, and I punched the eject button so hard it nearly busted off. I forced my eyes to stay open, but the minute I blinked, he was gone. I pressed my face into the steering wheel, trying to shove the tears back down wherever they came from. I couldn't let him see me like this.

"A man shouldn't let anyone see him cry," his voice told me.

"Sorry, Grandpa," I whispered. Then, I sobbed 'til the metal of the wheel was too slick to rest against, and I couldn't breathe through my nose.

♥♦♠♣

I stayed out under the stars 'til Cal's truck was parked in the driveway and there was a zero percent chance she was in there. I'd spilled a bit too much of my feelings for my liking and I was scared to death of losing her for good.

That night, I told Candice about the competition and my desire to try for a shot at being discovered. She was supportive, as usual, and allowed me the evenings to write in peace. I worked on song ideas but still hadn't found any meaningful inspiration.

By the time Thursday rolled around, I knew that it would soon be time to bite the bullet and face Seven again. She'd be coming over that night to hear the finished product, which was unfortunately far from complete.

I decided to skip out on school that day and drove straight home after my day at the Inn. For several hours, I scribbled my thoughts into my notebook, but nothing felt even remotely close to a coherent song.

Eventually, there was a faint knock on the door, and I opened it to find Seven holding a medium pizza. She had a bandana tied on like a headband, hiding the truth—to play pretend, like the rest of us do.

"Look, I wanted to tell ya I'm sorry for brushing off your help the other day." She stared at the ground, unable to look me in the eye. "I know you were just looking out for me."

"Correct," I said dismissively, holding the door open for her to enter. She tossed the pizza box onto the table. At first, I wondered how she'd been able to afford it, but assumed she'd likely gotten it from Max.