Rewound {PTX}

Vacation

Wasting time feels so wrong now. I guess I'm not as lazy as I used to be. I have little half-hour gaps scattered throughout my day now, and all I have to do is scroll through Twitter. Again and again, I find myself staring at Kirstie's profile wishing she would notice me. Is this how the fans feel? I turn on notifications for Kirstie, Avi, and Kevin. "@kirstin_taylor @avi_kaplan @kolusola i miss u." I delete the draft without tweeting it. My phone buzzes in my hand and I nearly jump out of my skin.

Incoming FaceTime call: K-Pop. "Hello?"

"Is this an okay time?"

"Mmm-hmmm."

"I just wanted to say hi. You're gonna tease me, but I miss you already."

I could cry. "Not as much as I miss you, Kirstie."

"How's vacation?"

Terrible. My family keeps me distracted most of the time, and catching up with old friends is really, really nice, but I'm not busy enough. My mind has too much time to wander. I find myself just sitting sometimes with no responsibilities and nothing to do. I haven't experienced this since the summer after junior year, during the small window between when school ended and college applications opened. My little chunks of empty time invariably leave me thinking of new reasons why it sucks that Pentatonix is over. "So far, so good. Catching up and stuff. How's voice acting? Can you recite some for me?"

"I can't give it away! You'll have to wait until it's released."

"It's already been released, and there are already English captions. You wouldn't be spoiling anything."

"I signed an NDA."

"First, why would they make you agree to nondisclosure for something like this, and second, I'm Mitch. You know I can keep a secret."

She glances over her shoulders and then leans toward the camera. "I'm not actually dubbing a Japanese anime." She smirks.

"Spit it out, girl!"

"My lips are sealed."

"Yeah? You can't sing with your lips sealed. I'm gonna beat you to that Grammy. Hey, am I allowed to visit 2011-Pentatonix in a parallel universe and steal a song they wrote, or is that cheating?"

"What is it with you and 2011?"

"What's something 2011-you knows that I don't?"

"Ooh, I have all kinds of juicy little secrets."

"Wait, really?"

"None as good as the one I'm keeping right now, though." She's grinning enough that it spreads to both sides.

"Then I'll just ask the other you."

"I don't get it."

"There's another you in 2011, and she'll tell me your secret."

"Nonsense. Besides, I didn't even know until two months ago."

"Tell me something she does know, then. I can find out and tell you."

"Get a life."

"Funny you'd say that. I actually have two."

"I'm serious. I mean it in the most loving way possible, but you need to get your head out of the clouds and do something real. I'm living my dreams right here and now, and I want you to do the same."

"That's all I did for four beautiful years, Kirstie. But then you left, so forgive me if I'm more interested in the past than the future right now. It's not as imaginary as you think."

"Mitch... please listen to me. You need help. This is a big change, and I know it's hard, but you won't ever be happy if you dwell on the past."

"Call Scott. If you can convince him I need a therapist, I'll go. But we've already had this conversation, and he already knows I'm sane. I just don't know how to persuade you if you won't listen. Talk to him, okay? And if that's not enough, talk to Kevin. I appreciate your concern. There's just more going on than you realize."

"Are you mad at me?"

"I get why you're worried. I know I sound crazy."

"No... for leaving." I said I was living my dream until she left. That was probably too harsh.

"Oh." Yes, I'm mad.

"I'm sorry."

"It's a weird kind of humility you have, to apologize when you know you had every right to go. You're having the time of your life and you wouldn't change any of your decisions. What do you think you mean when you say 'I'm sorry?' It's not just a magic word that fixes things."

She hangs up.

I deserved that. "I'm sorry," I text her.

I call Scott to let him know I'm coming over, but the line is busy. Kirstie is probably telling him I'm a nutcase.

Scott is the reason I've been sitting around doing nothing. He really needs this vacation. He needs time to reset himself. I really will become a nutcase if I open Twitter one more time, though, so I sit down at the piano and open the most complicated piece we have.

I always played this at recitals, and I guess it's still buried in my fingers. After a few runs, it's seamless again. I try to sing the counter-melody and skip those notes on the piano. This is my real talent: not singing, not playing, not writing, but practicing. Sticking with something until it's perfect. I sigh and start rearranging the piano piece past recognition, then write rough lyrics in my phone. I'll perform this in 2011, I guess, or maybe here with just Scott.

Thick with ink,
Think it through,
No one thinks of you but you.

The words click together tightly with lots of alliteration and assonance: things I never thought I'd use in real life when my AP English teacher taught them to me. The most useful thing I picked up from that class was the idea that words can mean more than their literal denotations. Here, they mean something brooding and bitter. It's too dark for Pentatonix. Maybe I'll become an angsty emo artist now, though.

"Hey. Talk me out of starting an emo band, Scott." I can tell just by the shadow that it's him walking in.

"Kirstie's upset."

"Me too. Hence the emo band."

"Mitch, she's crying." He's being patient, but when I look up at his face, I can tell he blames me. I wasn't exactly polite. I thought she was mad, though, not sad. I open my mouth to ask how I can fix it, ~but suddenly it's closed. Kirstie is standing right in front of me.