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  I pause in the door, listening.

  “But I also think you are seventeen years old, and you have a long time before you have to find that person. Right now you have to focus on living your life. On growing. Oftentimes, growing comes after making mistakes. You could do a bit more of that, beyond the cliff jumping.”

  I walk back over to the bed and lean down and kiss her on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom,” I say. “That makes more sense than you know.”

  I am just standing up when I notice the blanket by her feet move.

  “Is that … ?” I begin.

  Within moments, Napoleon pops his head out.

  “I’m sorry you had to see this,” she says.

  “I thought he hated us all?”

  “Like I said, people are capable of change.” My mom shrugs. “Even Napoleon. He likes to burrow in by my feet.”

  Little Boots is one of the only decent places you can see live music on the west side of LA. It’s tiny, stifling at times depending on who is playing, which makes it even harder to be shoved in here and watch Elliot and Clara perform together. Luckily, I have Ava and Navid.

  “This place is cool,” he says, adjusting his glasses and looking happily around the room. “Reminds me of a speakeasy from the nineteen twenties or something.”

  “He is the dorkiest person you have ever dated,” I whisper to Ava when he’s not looking. She grins and giddily wraps an arm around his waist. He responds by smiling and leaning down to kiss her on the top of her head.

  “So, how do we know these people?” Navid asks.

  “Ava’s brother is the lead guitarist, and the drummer is—” Ava starts.

  “Is nobody,” I interrupt her.

  Navid throws Ava a look. “So somebody,” he says, and Ava shrugs. “I thought you were dating Will?” Navid asks.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I mutter, and just then the lights go dark as Look at Me, Look at Me takes the stage.

  Sam is positively radiating happiness as he pulls his guitar over his head. Lenny grabs the bass and picks away a few times, adjusting his amp, and Clara sidles up to the mic. She’s wearing a perfectly retro dress and her hair is long on the bottom, but tied up in braids around the top of her head.

  And just behind her, face serious and focused, sliding the stool out so he can sit behind the drums, is Elliot.

  Elliot looks out into the crowd, and it feels like he’s looking right at me. He smiles, and I shiver. Then he raises his arms over his head and counts off as he bangs the sticks together. 1-2-3.

  All that practicing in the garage must’ve paid off, because they sound flawless. Everyone is perfectly in sync, even Clara. I can almost pretend like she’s not there, or she’s not her. Like I’m not watching the guy I had feelings for and his ex-girlfriend reunite in literal perfect harmony. Instead, I’m just watching a great band play at Little Boots.

  Until the last song, when Clara takes the mic.

  “Many of you don’t know this, but I went away for a little while,” she speaks in a smooth, croon-y voice. “I had some thinking to do. But when the tide takes you away, it always brings you back again.”

  The crowd whistles, and Ava and I share a look. “Pretty sure she stole that from a Folgers Coffee commercial,” she says, and I snort.

  Clara blushes and whips her hair behind her head. “Anyway, I wrote this when I got back.” She glances behind her at Elliot, who watches her skeptically. “I hope you like it,” she says.

  The beat slows, and Clara gets close to the mic, like she wants to seduce it.

  I wandered the desert, I wandered the land

  I tried to reach out, to hold on to your hand

  I thought I was searching for something more

  But somehow I ended up back at your door.

  Elliot’s face is unreadable as he looks out over the audience, tapping a slow beat, but the one place he’s not looking is at Clara. Probably because he feels awkward that I’m here.

  And Clara just keeps on going.

  Back in your arms, hold me so tight

  Tell me you love me, I’ll treat you right

  You are the one, you’ll always be

  Perfect, oh, perfect, so perfect for me.

  Something overcomes me, and before I can think too much about it, I head straight for the door. I don’t want to hear what the next verse says. What it reveals about their perfect love. Why did I come here tonight? I should’ve known this would happen.

  Ava finds me outside, a pitying look on her face.

  “Where’s Navid?” I ask, my head resting back against the stucco siding of the building, as my eyes stare up at the sky.

  “He could tell we needed a sec,” she said, and leans a shoulder against the wall, looking at me. “You really like him,” she says.

  I look at her. “So?” I ask.

  “Why is it so hard for you to admit it?” she says.

  “Because he’s with Clara,” I say.

  “Don’t do that,” Ava says. “You have no idea if he is with Clara.”

  “Because he drives me insane!” I blurt. “And he’s all wrong for me. I’m supposed to be with someone like Will. Someone who shows up on time and acts like he wants to be there. Someone who won’t hurt me like Elliot can.”

  “But, Annabelle, I don’t show up on time. I’m kind of a mess. And Navid likes me anyway.”

  “But Navid can trust you with his heart,” I say.

  Ava frowns. “And why do you think you can’t trust Elliot with yours?”

  “Because if Elliot isn’t sure about anything, how can he be sure about me?” I blurt out.

  Ava nods slowly. “I see. That’s what you are afraid of,” she says. “You’re afraid you might fall for him, really fall for him, and you don’t feel safe.”

  I look down at my feet. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He has Clara.”

  “He doesn’t have Clara,” Ava says. “Listen to me, I’m the one-dimensional sidekick, and I know better. And you’re being stupid.”

  Ava goes to head back inside, and when the door swings open, there is Elliot. My breath stops for a second.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Oh!” Ava says. “I was just … You did a …” She pats him on the shoulder as she walks by, then looks back at me open-mouthed and is still giggling when the door swings closed.

  “I was just heading off,” I say.

  “Annabelle,” he starts. The door swings open into the club and a pack of girls are there, peering out at Elliot.

  “Looks like you have people waiting.” I start to turn, and Elliot grabs my arm.

  “Stop!” he says. “You are driving me nuts. Are you really still this angry at me about what happened at the beach?”

  I look at him and want to cry. If he really has to ask, it shows how little it all really meant. I am too afraid to speak right now so I don’t say anything.

  “Annabelle. Listen, we had a fight. That doesn’t mean this has to be over. Fights are something to talk about and work through. But you won’t let me. Unless it’s more than that. Unless you regret everything that happened. And if that’s the case, fine. It sucks, but I can take it. Just don’t be weird, okay? I don’t like life when you aren’t in it.”

  The door swings open again, and this time Clara peers out.

  “You said I was an itch that needed scratching,” I manage to say.

  “E?” Clara calls as the door swings back shut.

  “I was angry.” Elliot has never looked more serious in his life. “And … I was wrong. I’m so sorry, Annabelle.”

  The door swings open again and some people exit onto the street.

  “Was it for you?” Elliot says. “An itch?”

  Just as I am about to open my mouth, a stranger taps Elliot on the shoulder. He’s older, around thirty, wearing a leather jacket with a plaid shirt underneath and black jeans.

  “Elliot, hey. Great show, man,” the guy starts.

  “Thanks,” Elliot says without looking a
t him, still waiting for my response.

  “Do you have a moment?” the guy asks.

  “We just need a minute,” Elliot says, still looking at me.

  “Of course, my bad.” The guy backs off. “I’m Jay Jermaine, by the way. Just wanted to say I’m a big fan.”

  Elliot’s head whips around. “JJ Jermaine? KCRW JJ Jermaine?” he asks.

  Jay grins. “Big fan, like I said. I’d love to talk to you when you have a second.”

  “Your radio show is my life,” Elliot whispers.

  JJ outright laughs. “Look, I can see you are busy, but I’d love to chat because I just got signed on to do the soundtrack for a big new blockbuster—it’s that author Lucy Keating? Not sure if you’ve heard, but Across the Sea is being made into a movie, and they’re looking for really original stuff, and I think you guys would be a good fit for at least two tracks.”

  Elliot looks back at me helplessly, but it’s not him I’m mad at now. It’s her.

  23

  Having Fun Yet?

  UP UNTIL this point, I think it’s fair to say my relationship with Lucy Keating has been complicated. I resented her deeply for butting in to my world, but I also didn’t hate her guts.

  Now, however, I am going to make her pay.

  What kind of sick individual manipulates the life of a perfectly happy teenage girl, and messes it all up for her own professional gain? She wants to give me happiness, she says, but all she is doing is causing me is pain. She continues to create conflict after conflict, giving me low after emotional low, and for what? Just to better her story?

  It’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting in Sam’s car, which I borrowed despite his protest, in front of Will’s house, waiting for him to come outside. I texted him fifteen minutes ago and said to meet me, and as I wait, I let my mind wander briefly to what is probably happening at the club right now. Elliot is surrounded by women, and Clara has her body draped over his. He’s probably playing hard to get with her, but their spirits are lifted, happy they’re going to license two songs to Lucy’s movie. Maybe she’ll lean in for a congratulatory hug. And that congratulatory hug will last a moment too long. And as they pull away, foggy and beer-filled, they’ll look at each other—

  Maybe I am not so bad at creative writing after all, I think, and then lean forward and rest my head against the steering wheel.

  The thing is, as long as Lucy Keating is around, there will always be a drumstick or a Clara, an A&R guy, and a broken-down car. I am going to put a stop to this once and for all, and nobody is going to get in my way

  “This chick is going down,” I say as the passenger door opens and Will’s adorable face is there. He looks exhausted.

  “What is it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes as he climbs in.

  “We’re going on an adventure,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah? Where?” he asks.

  “We’re going to get to the bottom of this Lucy Keating thing once and for all. We’re going to see her in person. Because no matter how much we try to change our own stories, how many cliffs we jump off of or bathrooms we talk in, there’s only really one person who can fix it.”

  “I like it,” Will says. “But do we really have to go right now?”

  “We have to go now,” I say. “There’s a chance she’s asleep. And if she’s asleep, then she can’t see us coming.”

  “Genius,” Will breathes. “Can we get coffee first?”

  We stop at an all-night diner so Will can get some coffee, and I get a milkshake. It may be one A.M., but I’m so high on adrenaline, I don’t need anything else. We are finally going to fix this, I can feel it.

  “So, just one more question,” Will asks as we buckle up back into the car. “Minor detail, really.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, taking one last gulp of chocolate goodness and setting it in the cup holder, feeling like a superhero who runs on ice cream.

  “How exactly do we plan to get there? Did you ask Epstein for her address?” he says.

  I shake my head. “There was no time for that, and I didn’t want to risk her figuring it out.”

  “So …” Will says.

  “So, I’m just going to feel it.”

  “Annabelle Burns, the most practical person on earth, is going to feel out direction to a destination where she has never been before… .” Will does not try to hide his skepticism.

  “She made us, Will. I’m her main character. You’re her heartthrob. I can feel this in my bones. I can’t tell you the street or the number, but it’s in here.” I tap my skull. “I just have to follow my instincts.”

  “Okay, I trust you I guess,” Will agrees. “As long as I make it to nine A.M. calculus tomorrow at school.”

  I wince. “Still working hard at that bad boy thing, huh?” I ask him as I start the ignition.

  Will shrugs, taking a sip of coffee. “I am as Lucy made me,” he says.

  The roads are nice and clear so early in the morning, a miracle by LA standards, and I actually do have a general idea where I’m headed. Somewhere up in Laurel Canyon Lucy is waiting for us. I can feel it. Everything is going according to plan.

  But then, just as I’m about to take a right on Sunset Boulevard, waiting for the light to turn green, it turns yellow instead.

  “That’s weird,” I say. “Lights don’t go yellow once they turn red.”

  “It must be broken,” Will tells me. “Just go anyway and take it slowly. It’s still proceed with caution, even if it’s not coming after green, and nobody is out here anyway.”

  But just as I’m inching the car forward, the light changes again. And this time it’s blue.

  “What the hell?” Will says as I stop the car altogether. “Blue isn’t even a color traffic lights have.”

  And then, just like that, the blue flicks to purple. And then it starts flashing like a light show at a roller rink, blinking all the colors of the rainbow. We both take a beat.

  “She woke up,” I say. Will puts his head in his hands. “And she’s torturing us.”

  “Okay, screw it,” Will says, looking up with renewed determination. “She’s doing this to us because we play by the rules. She knows we are the only two people who could sit at a multicolored traffic light and not just go because it’s not green. Prove her wrong, Annabelle,” he says.

  I hesitate.

  “Annabelle!” Will urges me. “You can do this.”

  And so I do, taking a right onto Melrose beneath the techno lights as Will lets out a cheer.

  “But you know what this means,” I tell Will.

  “What?” he asks, suddenly nervous again.

  “It’s only going to get harder from here.”

  And Lucy makes sure of that. We spend four impossible hours detouring all around LA, stopped by everything from construction workers who come out of nowhere to street signs that aren’t even the right shape, let alone saying the right thing. One pink stop sign actually says HI THERE, and a sign for the 10 on-ramp just reads HAVING FUN YET?

  Eventually, when we go to take Crescent Heights Boulevard up north up to the Hollywood Hills, the street simply isn’t there.

  I mean actually, it doesn’t exist.

  “Okay, no,” I say. “That’s ridiculous. She cannot just eliminate the existence of geography, of historical landmarks in the city of Los Angeles. She’s not that kind of writer. She wouldn’t do that to her story.”

  And, as though somewhere Lucy is stubbornly agreeing with me, the brick wall to my left disappears, and Crescent Heights is right where it’s supposed to be, stretching all the way up to the canyons.

  Ten minutes later, Will and I are driving through what has to be the longest sunrise humanly possible. I was feeling tired, so he took over. The sky above us has been deep pink for about twenty minutes now.

  “She’s trying to butter us up,” I say from the passenger seat. “Set the stage for romance.”

  Will keeps driving, a look of calm on his face. He drives beautifully, smoothly, no starts and st
ops, weaving expertly around other cars. “I’m not complaining,” he says. “It’s pretty gorgeous.”

  “Most people think LA sunsets are so pretty because of the smog,” I tell him. “But that’s actually not the case.”

  “Explain,” Will says as he takes a right onto Fountain Avenue.

  “Well, when the sun is high in the sky, we see all the wavelengths evenly—red, orange, yellow, blue, violet. But as the sun moves across the sky, it’s farther away, and the atmosphere scatters the blue and violet wavelengths more, so we see more of the red, orange, and yellow.”

  I glance over at Will and can tell he’s listening intently. I like this fact about him. He’s not bored and already looking for something else to do. He wants to discuss.

  “Anyway, when the sun is setting, it’s the farthest distance from the Earth. Blue and violet are scattered almost completely, leaving the warmer tones.”

  “So what does this have to do with smog?” Will asks.

  “People think that the gases in smog scatter the shorter wavelengths even more, creating the pinker sunsets,” I say. “The truth is, though, that while natural gases do scatter wavelengths, all our man-made smog does is block everything. So the warm tones you are seeing have nothing to do with us.”

  When Will doesn’t say anything, I look over at him again, worried he’s now asleep at the wheel. Instead, he’s smiling.

  “I’m a nerd,” I acknowledge.

  “You’re awesome,” Will says, and he reaches over and rests his hand at the base of my neck. When I tense up under his touch, he removes it.

  Will sighs. “Annabelle—”

  But he’s distracted when the gas light on our dashboard turns on. He rolls his eyes. “You filled this three hours ago,” he said. “We’ve barely used two gallons.”

  I groan, and roll down the window to yell at the sky. “Do your worst! You can’t stop us!” To the right, two little old ladies in a gold Mercedes stare at me.

  “Good luck, honey,” one of them calls out. “I’ve been talking to God for years. Hasn’t listened yet.”