Just Talk to Him! (IM5)

Chapter 20

July 23rd, 2013 - 5:45 p.m.

I don’t tell Anna about Dalton’s date. One, because I still don’t know who he went out with, and two, I don’t know how serious he was. Meanwhile, I curl up the hotel sofa with Dana next to me as I catch him up on season two of Teen Wolf. Dana almost cried during the season one finale.

“Did not,” he reminds me when I bring it up. I laugh and lean my head on his shoulder as we stare suspensefully at the lizard thing crawling around the swimming pool on screen.

Ever since that kiss, I’ve felt ten times more comfortable around him — I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the fact that my self esteem is raised a little bit higher. (“Kylie, you ought to love yourself. Don’t base your worth on whether other people like you.” -Wise words of advice from Anna M. Chase). Or maybe it’s that the kiss was a tipping point. Like, we were just skirting around on friendship and now we can be more. And maybe it’s the realization that July is almost over and I don’t have much time left and even less to lose.

I grab Dana’s hand, which is stuck awkwardly between us, around my shoulders and tug it tightly closer. The extra body heat on a summer’s day doesn’t seem to bother either of us. In fact, to me it feels like the perfect temperature.

When the credits roll, I muse, “Where do you think we’ll be a year from now?”

“Well,” Dana says, “You’ll be fifteen and I’ll be sixteen.”

“Yeah, but,” I rephrase, “What do you think we’ll be doing? What will we think of each other?”

“I’ll be on tour still, probably. I don’t know where you’d be. Soccer?”

“I’m trying to have a deep conversation here.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He kisses my head. “Live in the now.”

“I am. I’m just wondering.”

He brushes me off. “Let’s just watch.” Dana clicks the remote and the next episode starts.

I frown, slouching into the couch. Sometimes, this whole “Live in the now” stuff just isn’t enough.

As we watch more, though, my thoughts slip away and my mood subconsciously brightens. As the next end credits roll, I rope Dana into singing for me. He starts at a medium dynamic, but quickly gets louder, like he’s belting out lyrics on stage.

“You’re disturbing everyone!” I say.

He tries to quiet down, but loses some of the tone. He doesn’t sound as good singing quietly. He sounds like a normal boy, trying to match the pitch of the song but missing by half an octave. I shake my head and start to match him in song and volume.

“We can run down the street with the stars in our eyes. We can tear down this town in the dark of the night. Just open the door; we’ve got time on our side. We can make it out alive.” I’m about to break out into the chorus, air guitar and all, but Dana grabs my arm with wide eyes.

“You can sing?”

“Anyone can sing,” I inform him. “It’s a matter of practice.”

“You learned by yourself?”

“Cole taught me,” I explain. “When he took up singing and acting, he wanted to form a band and tried to convince me to join. I didn’t know anything about music until he made me learn piano and singing.” I poke him. “You need to work on your inside voice. Like the band directors always say, ‘Anyone can play loudly. It’s who can play softly that matters.’”

“How ‘bout you sing quietly and I sing loudly?” He asks. I notice he doesn’t question why I never sing in public.

“That’s not how it works.”