Breakout (18 page)

“I’m going to go talk to Valerie,” I tell Keenan.

“Don’t let Skye see,” he says.

“Whatever. I’m allowed to talk to my bandmate.”

“Sure,” says Keenan, like I’m taking my life in my hands. It’s not like Skye and I are anything, except she’s been flirty, and I guess I have too. She’s definitely been possessive lately.

But I need to talk to Valerie. I need to know what she thinks about the song, about everything. I make my way along the wall toward the drink table. I don’t like this corner of the gym. Not just because it’s the den of the sweet sugar sirens of death, but also because it’s where I got dumped last year. So there should be sinister cellos playing the closer I get.

The floor is sticky with spilled punch. I arrive and tap Valerie on the shoulder. She turns around and has to push her straight black hair back out of the way because she has it down today, which is rare. It looks good but I’ve noticed that she’s been having to push it out of her eyes a lot and I can tell it’s bugging her.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi,” she replies. She’s wearing a skirt and stripey tights and a yellow shirt and the colors are bright and crazy but it all works for her. I think I should tell her that she looks good, but then our vibe is weird again and we’re closer to the radio now so the Danger Twins are … destroying … me.…

“Sorry you had to go through that with us yesterday,” I say, leaning toward her ear and nearly shouting.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Valerie shouts back. She kinda grimaces at me, which gives her a big dimple on one side of her round face. “I’m sorry it didn’t go your way.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It sucked. What did your parents say?”

“Not much. To tell you to change it. But they didn’t think it was that big a deal.” She says this like she thinks it is. “Have you thought about what to do?”

“Not really,” I say, even though I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. “What do you think I should do?”

I think this is the question I really wanted to ask her.

Valerie looks at me and the dimple of sorrow gets bigger. “Well, I mean … don’t you have to change it?”

I shrug. “Or not play.”

“I really want to play,” she says. “It will be my first gig ever.”

Whoa. I’d never thought about that. “Right …” I feel like I could almost just agree that we are definitely going to change it, just on hearing this.…

But I still have to ask: “You don’t like the ending, do you?”

Valerie shrugs sheepishly. “Not so much.”

“Is it the f-bombs?”

“Sort of?” says Valerie. “It’s kind of a gross word.”

“I feel like it’s not as bad as other swears,” I say. “It’s not, like, a slur or something. And everybody uses it, like all the time.”

Valerie’s brow scrunches. “Yeah, but it’s kind of … violent? And about sex.”

“But I’m not using it in the sex way.”

“I know.” Valerie looks really uncomfortable. Kind of like how I feel. Then she says, “But that’s the definition. Actually that’s the first definition, and the second definition is to ruin or damage something and that seems messed up.” She rolls her eyes. “I know, I’m a nerd and looked it up.”

“You’re not a nerd. I just didn’t … I don’t know.”

Valerie keeps going. “And like, how come when we want to get rid of something, or forget something or destroy it, we want to f*** it or screw it? Isn’t that weird?”

“Yeah. Um …” I have no idea what to say. I feel kinda stupid because I never really thought about the word like that, except I don’t think anyone else is really thinking about it that way either. And sure, it may have these meanings, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is the main word we use to express exactly what I was feeling … Suddenly I just want to leave.

“I just used that word because it felt true,” I say. “I mean, honest.”

“I know,” says Valerie. “It does sound honest.” She bites her lip. “It’s just not really my kind of thing.”

And then I have this terrifying realization: just because over three thousand people have listened to “Breakout” doesn’t mean that all of them have liked it. Maybe the only people who have liked it are the few people who have written comments. That’s like one hundred out of three thousand. What if the other two thousand nine hundred hate it? Maybe
the reason the song is getting so many listens is because people are laughing about it or angry about things like Valerie said.

But wait, no. Isn’t it the opposite?

“The end is everybody’s favorite part,” I say.

“Yeah, well …,” says Valerie. “I guess I’m not everybody.” She doesn’t sound happy about that. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you …” I don’t know what to say.

Valerie looks out across the room again. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to play the show.”

“No, I … I mean, we’ll change it,” I hear myself saying. Because if I’m honest … “I don’t want to not play either.”

Valerie nods. “I hate this music,” she says. She turns to Lena and says something I can’t hear. Then back to me: “I think we’re going to go to the library. Want to come?”

“Um.” I glance back at Keenan, and see that Skye, Katie, and Meron are back. Plus it feels too weird now. “Nah.”

“Okay,” Valerie says. “Well, see you later.”

“See ya.”

As I walk back over I see Skye watching Valerie go. “Talking to your drummer crush?”

“No,” I say, taking my position against the wall.

Skye and Meron are joking about the sad group of dancers, but I’m not listening.

How could she not like the song? And all that stuff about the f-word and sex …? What the hell? But Valerie’s different.… I try not to be upset, to tell myself,
Forget it, she’s just one person
.

But I am upset.

Maybe it mattered more to me if she liked it.

And I don’t know what to do now.

So we stand there and listen to the Danger Twins sing in Auto-Tuned perfection about falling in love while rock climbing in brand-name shoes, singing words I know by heart, and I watch the idiots dance and let the stupid minutes of this stupid scene tick by and basically hate everything.

When the dance and the school day are finally over, we all head for mochas.

“We need to not have to go to one of those dances ever again,” says Skye. It’s cold and sunny today and she’s wearing a deep green scarf that matches her eyes. Her smile is bright and kind of a relief.

“There’s going to be one every quarter,” says Keenan. “We’ll never make it.” He tries to rub a hand through his hair but it kinda gets stuck because he’s got like a bucket of putty junk in it. And today he’s added skinny black jeans with this weird woven pattern on the back pockets and if I wasn’t in such a bad mood, I’d totally get on him for those looking like girl jeans, but who cares, he might as well enjoy it while he can. Our glory days are almost over. We’re almost has-beens and we barely even got to
be
.

As we walk, Skye brushes up close to me and her arm is against my arm and it makes me think of Valerie not liking the song ending. “So,” Skye says seriously, “have you thought any more about what you’re going to do?”

I don’t even feel like talking, but maybe it feels good to just rant a bit. “I don’t know. But, I mean, this is our only chance to play a show, shouldn’t that matter most? So I’ll probably just change the lyrics. Whatever, it’s just a couple words and who even cares at this point? The song online will still be the same.”

And we are right in the middle of the road when suddenly
ninja!
Skye is flipping down from a light pole. “No!” she snaps, and she grabs me by my sweatshirt sleeve. “Come on.”

“Ow! What?” I say, but she just yanks me along across the street and right into Starbucks. Keenan, Meron, and Katie trail behind us.

Skye pushes me into one of the maroon chairs by the door. She sits on the edge of the chair directly across from me and looks at me like I am an idiot or something.

“Anthony,” she says, practically yelling, “what are you talking about? The words are
everything
! You can’t change them. That’s why everyone loves the song. Didn’t you see what happened when I played it at lunch?”

“The words are great,” Katie agrees as the others sit down on the couch beside us.

“Mmm,” says Meron, and then quickly turns to Keenan. “So’s the bass.”

Skye throws her arms up. “It makes me so mad!” she shouts, like she can’t believe the injustices of the world, which is kinda funny because I’m still thinking, what are we doing in a Starbucks? Wasn’t this place the target of the thrown-up arms last week?

Skye goes on. “It’s so completely hypocritical for the school to not let you express yourself as an artist.” She sounds like she should be on one of those cable news channels. “The words are
the point
.”

“Yeah,” I say, “but then isn’t the f-bomb a weird word? Like how it’s about sex? And kinda violent?”

“What?” Skye looks at me like I’m crazy. “That’s not what you’re talking about in the song.”

“No, I know …”

Skye waves her hand like she’s swatting away whatever I’m talking about. “What matters most is that you said what everyone always wants to say. How we all feel.”

I nod as she says this because I agree, although it makes me feel a little weird because it’s not like I
meant
to do that. Speak for everybody. I feel like if I was going to make some big
statement on behalf of teens across America, I should have put more thought into it, like, really planned it out. All I did was freak out on a Friday night.

But then again there’s the whole thing where you should just go with your inspiration, which I did. And so maybe that’s even better than planning it. Whatever, I can’t think about it more because Skye keeps going.

“It’s censorship,” she says. “You should sue them.”

“I’m not going to sue the stupid school!” I say.

“Well then, we’ll stage a protest. Or start a petition! We could make one online and—”

“I’m not starting a petition! I don’t want to deal with any of that.”

Skye looks at me as serious as she ever has. “You have to do something.”

I don’t understand why this is so important to her, but if nothing else, her serious face is super hot. “I know …,” I say.

When I don’t add anything else, Meron asks Keenan, “Are you really going to change the words?” She’s leaning on his arm now.

Keenan just looks at me. “I don’t know. We want to play.”

Now everyone is staring at me, and I don’t know what to think. After talking to Valerie, I thought,
change them
. But after talking to Skye I’m thinking
don’t
 …

“Guh!” I do my own arm-throwing now because
duh!
Of course the last thing I want to do is bow to the evil masters, but what choice do I have? “What good is having a song and a band if we can’t play?”

“But you
can’t
change the words,” Skye insists.

“So what am I going to do?” I am practically shouting. “Say I’m changing them and then not?”

Skye’s mouth falls open and she grabs my arm. “Oh my God! That’s it.”

Everyone looks at me, and I try to wrap my head around what I have just done.

But Skye does the wrapping for me, her hands whipping around like she’s composing a symphony. “It’s so obvious. You tell everyone you’re changing the lyrics, but then on Arts Night you sing the real ones.”

“Ooh,” says Keenan, his face lighting up, and he looks at Meron and her face lights up too, like they just made couple-brain first contact.

“But,” I start, “Mr. Darren—”

“Mr. Darren would be safe,” says Keenan. He leans forward, smiling all big. “If you tell him you’re going to change the words, then it won’t be his fault.”

“And, oh!” says Skye, her inner activist in full effect. “We’ll get everybody to go to Arts Night, and we’ll all be waiting, and then, when you sing the real words, we’ll all sing along! Like stand up and”—she raises her fist, acting it out—“it will
be this huge moment of solidarity! And we’ll all cheer and go nuts. Wait until we see the teachers’ faces … and we can get someone to tape it too! And post it everywhere. Anthony, you’ll be a hero.”

I try to form a thought or words but nothing is happening. Skye is right. I’d be a hero, and I’d have sung my song, the way it was meant to be. Still …

“I’d definitely get suspended,” I say. I turn to Keenan. “So would you, probably.” I think of Valerie, but we could just
not
tell her, and then she’d be safe. “And we’ll probably get kicked out of Rock Band Club.”

Keenan looks at the floor, thinking. “You know what, so what?” And for the first time since yesterday, his famous-Keenan voice is back. “It would be worth it. For the music. For the people. And we’d be heroes.”

“Infamous,” I say.

“Legendary,” Skye adds.

I like the sound of all that, except thinking about it makes my heart race and my stomach flip.

“It’s perfect,” says Skye again. “Anthony, this is going to be amazing.”

“I can’t wait,” says Meron.

I want to agree. Despite the blur of my speeding pulse, I try to imagine it:

The school auditorium is no music club or anything, but they do have a decent lighting system and Mr. Darren knows how to make it look good.

The red padded seats packed with kids …

The Rusty Soles starting the song with Valerie hitting the kick drum …

Everyone waiting, a spotlight on me, starting to sing …

Starting to sing the song that is known around the world …

And then letting those words loose, those
true
words, with so much energy it distorts the mic, and all the kids going crazy and singing along, and all of
them
looking around like in a panic …

The concrete walls blowing apart …