I avoid passing judgements onto the stranger. He could be smoking because it’s one of the only ways he can calm down, find peace, get a break from the thoughts filling every corner of his mind. It’s not something I would ever do…but I, at the very least, can understand why. I wave the smoke away and don’t bother to look in the direction of where it came from. I start toward the intersection, which is at a main road, and the cars are racing past as if it’s rush hour and they are running late for a work presentation.
It’s the kind of urgency that could easily result in an accident, so I press my finger against the button for the walking signal and take several steps back to keep myself out of the way. The chill September breeze has raised goosebumps along my arms, and I’m wishing I’d brought a jacket when I hear What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong playing.
I turn my body slightly, toward the sound, and I see him. The boy. He’s leaning against the grey outer walls of the corner store, by the entrance, cigarette in one hand, phone in the other. The song is playing from his speakers, and he has his head tilted toward the sky, which is a blend of purple and pink now that the sun has nearly made its full descent below the horizon.
I stand still, my gaze lingering on the boy. Occasionally, I glance down at my phone, but then I look back at him, and he’s still standing there, bringing the cigarette to his lips and inhaling deeply. I feel like I’m intruding on a deeply introspective moment, but I’m drawn to it, even as an outsider—someone who knows nothing about him. I tap my gym shoes against the pavement, wondering if he lives around here or is just visiting the area. Biting my lip, I wonder why I care.
A couple walks by, distracting me for a moment. I take this as an opportunity to check my phone again. There’s an unread message from Phoebe. She’s asking me how I’m liking Avenburgh since my last text had informed her I’d arrived. My fingers hover over the keyboard.
“You’re going to miss the light,” I hear a voice say, so pleasant to the ears that I don’t have to wonder where it came from. It perfectly suits him. My eyes flicker in his direction, but he’s not looking at me. He’s still gazing up at the sky. I turn toward the intersection, and the second I step forward, the light for the walking signal—which was green for who knows how long—turns red. Clearly, the phone distracted me. Or was it the boy? No—it was the phone. It had to be.
The line of cars speed through the intersection again in a haze of color and I sigh, taking a step backward and pressing the button for the walking signal. Again.
“It’ll be a while. This light is infamous for how long it takes,” the boy says in a low, breathtaking voice.
I turn to look at him.
“I’m not in a hurry or anything,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, polite, but it ends up coming out too quiet, and I wonder if he’s even heard me. In an attempt to appear nonchalant, I turn my attention back to the intersection, watching the cars go by.
“I didn’t think you were. It’s just…” his voice drifts as if he’s calculating exactly what to say and how to say it. “You aren’t from around here.”
His observation makes me cringe. I’ve been in this city for less than an hour and already I’ve been scouted as the “new girl.”
I turn around and face the boy again. This time, he’s looking at me and…wow. If Hollywood could see him the way I do now—the lights flickering off his face from the signs above as the chorus to What a Wonderful World plays, who knows, they might want to take a chance on him. He doesn’t fit here. Standing so casually outside of a corner store…staring at me, of all people.
“Is it that obvious?” I ask.
A ghost of a smile raises the corners of his lips.
“I mean, yeah.” He pauses for a brief moment, his eyes studying me. “I know everyone who comes around here and I’ve never seen you before.”
“You work here?”
“No, but I like to think I’m their number one customer. They may as well offer me a paycheck considering how much I end up having to organize the CDs in that place.”
“There’s too many of them,” I say.
“You’d be surprised by how many people come in to complain that there aren’t enough.” He has a slight smile on his face and it’s as if someone has turned up the dial on his magnetism. I don’t know what it is about him, but in his presence I can’t help but feel a sense of awe. Maybe it’s the way he just seems so effortlessly comfortable in his own skin. The confidence isn’t just in the way he stands, but in the way he looks at me. He’s beautiful, and he knows it.
A cloud of smoke drifts away from him as he turns the volume up on his phone and a Stevie Wonder song begins to play from the speakers. Did this boy somehow get ahold of my dad’s Sunday Cleaning playlist? The one he belts out loud to when my Mom and I try—and fail—to sleep in. Dad’s the reason why I have such an unwavering interest in music that came out “before my time.” Clearly, this boy has that same interest.
“My dad can’t get enough of him,” I say, thinking bout all the times he used to play Stevie Wonder for me, particularly during my preteen years when I had begun my infatuation with pop music. Back then, I thought my dad’s taste in music was old. ‘This is real music,’ he’d say, and I’d just roll my eyes at him and put my headphones in, drowning out the whole world. I’ve grown a lot since then. Although I still have a tendency to drown out the world, I now have an appreciation for music pre-2000s and outside of my preferred genre. Even metal has it’s place on one of my playlists.
The boy tosses his cigarette into an ashtray.
“Your dad has good taste,” he says, staring directly into my eyes. “Not everyone does.” The eye contact feels intense, although I’m not sure if it’s intentional on the boy’s end. All he’s doing is looking at me, but it’s enough to turn my mind to static. I want to keep the conversation going, but I’m not sure why. I should be heading home—it’s getting darker and although the area seems relatively safe, my parents are probably wondering where I’ve wandered off to. This was supposed to be a short trip. In and out. But it’s turned into something else. I should be focused on tending to my injury. Getting my room in order. Unpacking. Yet, here I am, not able to think of doing anything with this boy looking at me like this.
The crosswalk finally turns green after what feels like an eternity, but I don’t cross the street. I walk closer to the boy. It’s only a few steps, but it feels like a giant leap.
“My dad…he loves Stevie Wonder so much. He once told me he’d travel the world four times—without breaks—just to see him perform live. Do you know all the places you could see if you traveled the world that many times All the thing syou could do? I asked him if he’d stop to see the pyramids and he said ‘nope’ just get me a front row ticket to see Stevie.”
The boy smiles, and it reaches all the way to his eyes, making them glisten.
“Would you go with him?”
I put my fingers to my lips. “It depends.”
“On what?”
I think of the one woman whose voice I’d switch with in a heartbeat.
“Mariah Carey. If she’s performing with him, I’d go. I wouldn’t have any second thoughts about it, either.”
The boy’s smile deepens, revealing a dimple in his left cheek that I hadn’t noticed before. I inwardly sigh at the sight of it.
“What’s the first song you’d want her to sing?”
I pause, thinking about it. I love all of Mariah Carey’s songs, but one stands out to me more than the rest because it reminds me of my last solo dance performance about a year ago. It was the closest I’ve ever felt—in real life—to my ideal life that I’m always daydreaming about. The main difference being that I wasn’t in New York in a sold-out stadium, but the reaction from the crowd was priceless.
“Underneath the Stars,” I say.
The boy looks down at his phone and stars tapping his screen. A few seconds later, Underneath the Stars begins to play. A wave of heat runs down my body when the intro stars. This stranger cares enough to pull up the song and play it? I take more careful steps toward him—close enough that I can clearly see the hue of his eyes. A light, golden brown. They shine beneath the sign above us that flickers with a bright, flashing light. I close the gap between us, internally shocked at my own behavior. I’m only a few feet away when I stop. I hope the boy doesn’t mind.
He grins. “I see why you would want to hear this live,” he says. “Even if it took forever.”
Another wave of heat hits me, but I try to remain calm, cool. “It reminds me of home. The seven-day flight would be worth it.”
“That’s how long it would take?”
“Four times around the world? Non-stop flight” I pause, thinking about it more. I’ve always been good at math, so I’m confident in my answer. “Yes, that’s about right.”
The boy appears amused by my calculation.
“I don’t know how I would entertain myself,” he says.
“Easy. Back-to-back movie marathon.” I’ve surprised myself with how composed I’m being when my heart is racing in my chest. My thoughts, which were once hardly noticeable, pummel me. What are you doing, Raine? Why are you talking to this stranger? Why aren’t you going home?
My thoughts are telling me one thing, but my physical body is doing another.
“I think I’d go crazy,” the boy says, and he has no idea that ‘crazy’ is exactly how I’d describe what’s going on in my head right now. “I don’t care how many movies there are in the world. Eighty hours straight? I couldn’t do it. Not for Steview Wonder or Mariah Carey or anyone. Unless…” his words fade and I wait patiently for him to complete his thought, but he doesn’t.
“Unless what?”
“Unless…maybe you came with me.”
My brows lift. Is…is this boy flirting with me? I can hear my heart pounding in my ears now. He probably can sense that he’s thrown me off balance with that remark, because he changes the subject.
“Did you have to fly to get here?”
“I drove with my parents.”
His eyes fill with curiosity. “Where are you from?”
“Harler, Pennsylvania.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
That’s not at all surprising. Harler is kind of in the middle of nowhere. “Not a lot of people have…it’s kind of, small, but it’s beautiful—I’ve lived there my whole life. Well, until now.”
The boy tilts his head. “Did you like it better there”
“I did—” I say, dragging my shoe along the lines in the sidewalk. “But I’ve only been in Avenburgh for less than a day. I’m willing to give it a fair chance.”
“Less than a day?” The boy appears invested in every word that comes from my lips. It’s a nice surprise and may explain why I’m resisting the walk home.
“Mhm.” I start swinging the bag in my hand. “It was a long drive…nine hours.”
“That’s pretty far,” he says.
“How long have you lived here?” I ask.
“Since birth…I’ve never been anywhere else.” His brows furrow after he says this, as if it’s a truth that makes him uncomfortable.
“Not even out of state?”
“Not even out of the city,” he says, glancing at the ground. After a second, his eyes flicker back up to meet mine. “When I listen to music, I like to pretend I’m somewhere else.”
“Me too,” I say. “It’s kind of a habit for me.”
He stares at me for a moment, and I stare back, wishing I could know what he’s thinking.
“You’re really not in a hurry?” he asks, and I nod my head. He bends his knees and slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the pavement. For some reason this makes my heart pound even faster. Looking up at me, he pats the empty space next to him.
“I want to show you something,” he says.
I sit down next to him. A few minutes won’t hurt. If my parents were worried about me, they would have called. I watch closely as the boy angles his phone towards me, scrolling through his playlists. They have names like “late night runs”, “sunset drives,” “parties (real parties).” He asks me if I’ve heard of some of the songs on his playlists and the ones I haven’t heard eclipse the ones I have. He’s into pop, like me, but it’s more like sugar sprinkled over the rest of the genres.
He’s into rock, alternative, country, all of it. He plays a few of the songs for me and tells me how the artists rose to fame. He quickly talks about a few modern singers before shifting his attention to artists like Lionel Richie, Anita Baker, Bobby Brown. As he’s sharing the story of how Sade, one of his favorite soul singers, became a prominent figure in the industry, a police car speeds through the intersection. It’s red, white, and blue lights flash as it’s sirens echo through the air, making me jolt.
“You’ll get used to that,” the boy says. “If there’s one thing Avenburgh is good at, it’s giving people the illusion of safety.”
My gaze shifts to a group of boys across the street who are leaned against a building, their eyes in our direction. Shadows cover the majority of their faces, so I can’t make out many features. It is a bit unnerving, to say the least.
“You don’t think it’s safe here?”
“I think it’s complicated here,” he says, his golden eyes piercing mine. He keeps this strong, unwavering eye contact for several seconds and then: “You know, I still don’t know your name…”
“It’s Raine,” I say. “You?”
“Elliot.” He reaches his hand over the space between us, and I slowly place the palm of my hand over his, shaking gently.
I should go home, but I want to listen to Elliot go on about music, so I stay. We talk for a while, more than a few minutes. When he’s done sharing his playlists, I share mine. He has a smile on his face nearly the whole time, and I wonder if it’s because he likes my music choices or if it’s because he likes me—being around me, I mean, because not everyone does.
At my old school, I was the quiet girl. The girl who spoke up when spoken to, but stayed to herself otherwise. I had three friends I sat at lunch with every day, but they hadn’t called or texted to check up on me or anything. It’s my intention to break out of the old me and expose the next me now that I’m in a brand new place, and I suppose being here with Elliot is a good start. He’s clearly intelligent. I think if I didn’t have to head back home, we could sit here talking for hours just about music, and it wouldn’t feel strange, either—the fact that we’re just hanging out outside of a corner store—that we barely know anything about each other aside from our taste in music. As I’m thinking about that…about him—a boy I didn’t even know existed twenty minutes ago, I realize it hasn’t been twenty minutes since I first saw him. It’s been an hour. We’ve been talking for a whole hour.
“I should head home,” I say, standing up quickly. Elliot stands up, too, closing the gap between us by a few inches. He’s tall, but not to much that I have to crane my neck to look at him. Our eyes are level enough that eye contact feels easy.
“Raine, if you ever need—”
“—Elliot!” I hear his name being shouted. Not by one, or two, but by three or four people. Elliot flinches at the sound. He breaks eye contact with me and gazes in the direction of the sidewalk where a group of tall boys are walking toward us—the same group of boys who’d been leaned up against the building across the street in darkness. I can see them better now. Each of them has a different hair cut, but they all wear white shirts with blue collars. The one in the middle catches my attention first because his muscles bulge beneath his shirt, and he’s looking at me more than he’s looking at Elliot. A chill runs down my back as my eyes settle on the rest of the boys—the red-headed one who’s slightly shorter than the others, the blonde one who’s gazing intensely at Elliot. All of a sudden, I feel sweat prickling the back of my neck.
Elliot turns to face me.
“You should go,” he says, and the tone of his voice is different now. It’s more stern, like he’s warning me to go. Not just telling me. I nod my head and start toward the intersection without another word, not knowing if I’ll see him again. The light for the walking signal is green now, so I hurry across the intersection, resisting the urge to look back.
I make it back home in half the time. Probably because I was walking triple speed. The pain in my side had seemed to disappear completely when I was with Elliot, but the moment I enter through the front door of the house, my awareness of it returns.
There are open boxes scattered across the foyer and I step over them to make my way towards the staircase.
“Raine?” Mom’s gentle voice calls out. “Where were you?”
“I was at the store.” Mom emerges from the end of the hallway that leads to the kitchen. Her curly brown hair has been pulled up into a high bun and she’s sweated most of her makeup off. I gaze into her eyes, lifting the plastic bag in my hand. “I just needed some bandages.”
She places her hand on her hip. “What happened?”
“Nothing. It’s just a small cut.”
Her eyes widen as she takes a step closer to me. “You’ve bled through your shirt.”
I look down, and she’s right. At my side, there’s a damp patch of blood. I suppose the band aids could only hold up for so long.
“I think we have some alcohol wipes,” Mom says, and she goes over to the boxes laid out across the floor, searching through them. About a minute later, she hands me a pack of wipes, and I thank her before heading up to my room. It’s exactly the way I’d left it, except Mom or Dad have dropped off a few more of my bags, which they’ve left against the wall. I go into the bathroom and remove the band aids, tossing them into a trash bag, before dabbing the area with an alcohol wipe. After tht, I pull one of the bandages from the box and wrap it carefully around my waist. When it’s snug and tight, I lay down on the floor to catch my breath.
I inhale and exhale, my mind replaying what just happened. Elliot. His name repeats in my mind, and I think back to his perfect face. His eyes. The way he’d looked at me. I grab my phone, shoot Phoebe a quick picture of my room—because she’s a visual person who wants to see everything—and then I create a playlist called: For Him. I consider naming it—For The Boy I’ll Never See Again—but it’s too long, and like to keep things simple, when I can. I fill the playlist with all the songs I would have shared with Elliot if we’d had more time. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry and if those tall, tough looking boys hadn’t shown up.
My chest clenches as Elliot’s face continues to flash in my mind. The way he’d looked at those boys, and the way they’d looked bak at him…it was unsettling. I try to push the memory to the farthest corner of my mind as I stand up and get back to work on my room. I spend two hours placing my clothes in the closet, hanging my posters on the wall, and making the place feel more like mine. When nearly every inch of the walls are covered, I feel like I can call it my room, without that lingering internal feeling of it being a falsehood.
By the time I’m done, it’s pretty late—but I stay up longer, helping Mom and Dad unpack boxes in the kitchen. They ask about the corner store, wondering if it will be their “go to place.” I tell them about the abundance of CDs, if that’s something they’re looking for. But Mom and Dad are more interested in finding a shade of paint that will make the dull grey walls of the kitchen more lively.
The conversation ends soon after that, and I say goodnight before heading back upstairs, retrieving an extra pillow and blanket from the master bedroom, and close my eyes, trying hard—really hard, not to think more about Elliot. He’s just a boy I met. A boy who listens to Marvin Gaye and the Temptations and can talk about Lionel Richie non-stop. A boy who seemed to like being around me. For the first time, in a long time, dance isn’t the primary subject of my thoughts.
I grip onto my pillow tightly, willing myself to slip into my New York daydream, and I do. But something’s different this time. The crowd isn’t just a collection of nameless faces. There’s someone in the first row that I recognize—a boy with light brown eyes, and wavy dark hair, smiling at me.
17Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXbTwtbSIOO
