Maybe Once, Maybe Twice(15)

“No. He doesn’t. And I don’t…I like Craig,” I said, reminding myself.

I took a sip of my blueberry beer, hoping the sweetness would wash away the taste of Craig’s name—wet cardboard on my tongue.

Garrett shut the songbook and locked eyes with me. His hardened expression melted into a slow smile, one that softened his jaw for longer than it should. I could see Summer shaking her head at me out of the corner of my eye.

“Apologies to Craig,” Summer said.

Garrett lowered the mic stand with a devilish grin on me.

“Yeah…” I nodded, with my lips parted in the hazy air.

“Let’s make some noise for Miss Maggie May over there. Today’s her birthday,” Garrett said into the mic.

The room cheered. I rolled my eyes at him and playfully waved to the crowd around me.

Garrett covered the mic with his hand.

“Come sing with me,” he yelled down to me.

I wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed harmonizing with others. Most voices stomped all over mine, or tried to compete. And his voice was huge. I shook my head. He let his lips settle into a playful pout, one that tore apart every defiant bone in my body.

“Goddamnit,” I said.

I handed my beer to Summer and made my way through the packed crowd toward the ramp leading up to the stage, with the violet stage light shining behind Garrett. His smile reeled me in until his lips were inches from mine—only the mic between us. My favorite place. My favorite person.

I covered the mic with my hand and leaned toward him.

“You know I don’t sing with other people.”

Garrett sidled up closer to my body, his hard torso dangerously pressed against my pounding chest. He looked me straight in the eyes.

“Well, now you do.”

Garrett playfully danced one eyebrow upward. I could feel my heart thumping in my throat, as the swell of an electric guitar filled up the room. I gripped the mic in my fist, and adrenaline shot through my body.

“Everlong” was over four minutes in length. Our eyes didn’t find the crowd—not once—in those four minutes. We had both watched each other sing in every corner of Trader Joe’s for a year, and somehow our voices had never actually met, but they knew each other.

Garrett and I were trapped inside our own universe, irises locked, desperate voices gliding against each other with urgent wanting. It didn’t help that my senses were cross wired. Singing with Garrett was a cotton candy fever dream, and “Everlong” exploded behind my eyes like a purple and orange sunset. It left the taste of buttermilk frosting on my tongue. I didn’t want the sensation to end.

“And I wonder…If anything could ever be this good again.”



Good fucking question, Dave Grohl.

I was a solo act. I felt most confident and at ease when it was just myself and a guitar. But singing inches away from Garrett felt like I had injected an illegal substance into my veins. My voice had found its other half, without even trying.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to go back.

I didn’t think I wanted to.

After the song ended, Garrett jumped offstage and lifted his arms up to help me do the same—steadying my waist until my feet found the floor. I moved to back my body off his, but he held me tight. The feeling of his strong grip against my bones—one hand above my hip, the other hand in mine—was a scenario I had only closed my eyes on. My eyes were open, and his touch on my skin was very real. Garrett scanned my face with hungry eyes, and I felt the warmth of his mouth growing hotter and hotter against my lips. I felt his body thumping against mine—cotton shirt pressing on my strapless dress. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my maybe-boyfriend, Fucking Craig, parting through the crowd.

Fucking Craig.

“I…I can’t,” I said, the heat of the words echoing against Garrett’s lips.

I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. But not when it would hurt someone else. I didn’t want us to begin that way.

Garrett nodded and painted on an uncomfortable smile.

“Okay. I—I guess I misread…sorry.”

I shook my head, wanting to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, that he didn’t misread a thing. But I was frozen in the moment, unable to speak.

“I have an early morning, I should go.” He leaned toward my cheek, brushing his lips against it. “Happy birthday,” he whispered into my ear.

He turned away from me, parting the crowd and edging his body out the door.



* * *



IT TOOK ME EXACTLY FORTY minutes to find the right vowels to piece together kind sentences—sentences I used to break up with Craig. I decided to spare him the knowledge that I was in love with someone else, and instead went to the holy grail of breakup scapegoats: it’s not you, it’s me. Craig responded by showing me that he was not, in fact, perfect in person.

“This is what happens when you fuck an aimless twenty-three-year-old,” he said, shaking his head at me. I fought the urge to correct him with “I’m actually twenty-four.” He kept going. I was a “self-sabotager” who would “never be successful or happy.” Normally, these possible half-truths would swirl around in my chest and tug me down to the hardwood of my apartment until I was sure they were facts, until they turned into a brutal breakup song about why Maggie Vine was forever doomed. But Craig’s cruel turns of phrase didn’t break the surface. All I could think about while he was calling me out on my own bullshit was finishing what Garrett had started.