yours is the first face that i saw
i think i was blind before i met you
now i don't know where i am
i don't know where i've been
but i know where i want to go
bright eyes
"Did you know that more people are Facebook fans of Lady Gaga than of music in general?"
I can hear Jessica flirting from here. I can tell she's flirting because all Jessica's flirts consist of are random facts that no one cares about, and a lot of well-timed stretching and squeezing. I have her cell phone cradled between my ear and shoulder as my eyes scan the crowd. It's just one mass of hipsters. It's impossible to tell whose apathy is whose.
"I know. Game's great. Might win. Steaks soon."
The key to imitating Charlie is the two word sentence. Any more than that and it gets suspicious.
As Tom, Jessica's dad, continues to talk about something about some game in some sport to someone he thinks cares, I'm still watching the crowd. He's tall. I could potentially see his face above everyone else's. Right?
"Know what I mean, man?"
A few well placed grunts here and there and Tom is practically ready to hang up.
"Make sure to take care of my baby Jessica tonight."
I make Charlie's cough-grunt-blush-embarrassed-mortified noise. I think I inherited it exactly. It's embarrassing.
"Bye now."
I snap the phone shut.
"I know! Mark Zuckerberg never even finished college. Isn't that insane? Now he's like a trillionaire." Hair twirl. Cough. Boob bounce. Chuckle. Arm slap. Eye flutter.
She finally notices me standing there, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
"Oh, Bella! Did you handle the situation?" She averts her eyes like me talking to her dad is some top secret ordeal that no one can hear about. Boy toy number two is staring at me like I have six heads. I realize he's not even standing up straight, and shift a few steps to the right in order to avoid direct vomit line of fire.
"Yeah. I handled it over by the bathrooms."
Great. Now I sound like I'm talking about my period or something. Thankfully, boy toy number two is too drunk to notice.
"This is Greg. He's an architect."
"I'm studying archeology," Greg slurs.
"That's what I said!" Arm slap. Giggle. Boob bounce.
Greg, Jessica and I find a spot on the grass a few yards behind the people standing up against the stage. Behind it, the sun is setting slowly, casting long shadows all around us. I start to get cold, and pull my shirt over my hands. Jessica's still in her skimpy ensemble. She's probably going to lose at least three toes before the night is over.
The sky looks like cardboard, white and grey and brown and yellow. The clouds are sparse. There are no stars. The two overpowering show lights behind the stage dance around the sky, crossing and waving and replacing the stars. I lay back on the grass, the coarse blades tickling the exposed skin on the back of my neck.
The crowd begins to roar. I watch people's feet as they walk past me, eager to get up to the stage. Greg is passed out already. He's drooling. Jessica doesn't seem to notice. She's too busy trying to save her extremities from the cold.
"I want to go but The Masens are starting." She's shivering and her teeth are chattering. This is the greatest dilemma that has occurred in her life thus far. "Can we at least go up to the crowd where it's warm?" she asks. "I can't miss this."
"Yeah, sure," I mumble half-heartedly, standing up and brushing the stray grass from my body.
It's only when we're halfway through the crowd that I remember who The Masens are. They are a band made of three brothers: Emmett, Jasper, and Edward Cullen. Emmett plays drums, Jasper bass, and Edward lead vocals with the occasional acoustic. Their songs are an eclectic mixture, from brooding and dark to fast-paced with a heavy beat. Their music is commonly played not only on the popular radio stations, but at events and parties as well.
Basically, they're Kings of Leon except not really, really annoying. To further specify, they're Mumford and Sons, but more attractive and less British.
"Come on, we have to get the front," I screech, grabbing onto Jessica's arm like a vulture. She whines about it for a second and then follows me as I push through. People groan and grumble, but we eventually get to the point where there are only two heads in front of me. The bodyguards stand on the other side of the metal fence, their arms crossed over their beefy chests, stern expressions on their faces.
The thing about The Masens is that they are almost completely absent from pop culture. They never do interviews, press releases, or promotion events. They play large festivals, but no small shows. They do tours to gigantic venues, but never sign autographs after they play. Sure, they show up in magazines. But they are never featured. The only thing splashed across the covers of tabloids are paparazzi photos or the occasional professional shot from a festival.
The only exception are Edward's sexcapades. Yes, sexcapades. He dates models and playboy bunnies and actresses and even the occasional publicist. He's a man whore, and the tabloids eat it up. Of course, he never interviews about it. But his overactive libido doesn't exactly keep him out of the magazines, especially when ex-girlfriends are oh-so-willing to spill their guts about the relationship to make a quick buck. He was seriously dating someone—actress Rosalie Hale—but their break-up, only one or two weeks ago, was loud and messy.
In fact, this is their first show since. No one thought they were going to play.
But, here they all are. And it suits. Jesus, kill me now.
I stand on my tip toes to see.
Edward walks up to the microphone and smirk-smiles, eyes looking back and forth over the crowd. He clears his throat and straightens his skinny tie. He wasn't wearing that earlier, that's for sure.
I'm probably drooling.
Jessica is jumping up and down, squeezing my hand with such vengeance that I fear for my own blood circulation.
"Hello," Edward says quietly into the microphone. The crowd roars back, one collective play-the-music-before-we-combust-already scream. He smiles again, scratching his neck and turning around, saying something inaudible to Jasper. Jasper nods quickly.
And then they're playing.
It's insane. I'm being pushed and pulled and knocked and bumped. My feet aren't touching the ground, then they are, then they're not. Edward is crooning into the mic, his body contorted around the stand, his brow furrowed, his hair plastered across his forehead, dripping with sweat. They don't stop between songs. It's a mad rush to the finish. A mad rush to get all of these notes and these words out. The excitement is compacted into such a small amount of time that it is almost like a drug. A high. Hands are up and mouths are open and heads are shaking and arms are shaking and bodies are shaking and shaking and shaking.
But then he says, "This is our last song, folks."
He takes a sip of water. Everyone knows what song he's going to play. "Ride." It's off of their first album. It's the song that made them famous. It's heavy and loud with a beat so strong and a bass so loud you can feel it rattle your bones.
One last smirk smile and they're off.
I almost lose my grip on Jessica, the crowd is so mobile. I end up grabbing a fist full of poncho like a lifeline. The music is harsh and almost angry, the bass drum seeming to go faster and faster and faster. It's completely dark now. I can see the stage. The stage and the moon.
They strike out the last dissonant chord. It lingers even after the song has already finished, resonating out into the crowd. They wave, ironically timid. The crowd claps and screams as they leave the stage and the lights go off. Immediately, everyone begins to file toward the exit. I hook arms with Jessica. She's dead on her feet.
It takes us a while just to get back to the car, at which point her arm is draped over my shoulders and her entire body is limp.
Miraculously, she wakes up when I turn the car on.
"Heat!" she cries. "I'm frozen. I'm an icicle. I'm going to die."
"It's already blasting. Calm down."
I'm stuck in traffic and my ears are ringing. I'm stuck in traffic and I want to die. I'm stuck in traffic and everything is surreal.
Somehow, we make it back to my house. Charlie is already asleep, having thought I went to Jessica's. I plan to make up some thing about not having enough sleeping bags at her house in the morning.
"Jess," I whisper.
"Jess." I nudge her shoulder.
"Jess!" I scream, right next to her ear. She bolts upright and smacks her head against the roof of the car.
"Jesus!" she curses. "Hey, did you know my name is Jesus without the letter 'u'?"
"Fascinating," I reply, stumbling out of the car. She follows after me, making an inhuman amount of noise.
"Shut up," I whisper harshly. "Charlie's asleep."
We tip toe up the stairs and into my room. Jess doesn't even make it under the covers before she's asleep. She's still wearing the poncho. I walk into the bathroom and rub my eyes. I look in the mirror and Hell looks back. I stumble back to the bed, taking my pants off as I go.
I'm just about to crawl under the blankets when something smacks into my window. Loudly. Like an entire tree just fell across the roof of my house loudly.
I walk over to the window and tentatively look out.
Okay, there is definitely someone outside of my house. He is definitely staring at my window. And he is definitely Edward Cullen.
I push open the window. It groans and creaks. I don't think it's been opened since I was, like, twelve.
"What the hell?" I yell out the window.
He puts his fingers to his lips and beckons me over with the other hand.
"Why even bother being quiet now?" I scream. "Whatever you just threw at the side of my house sounded like cannon fire."
"I was trying to be subtle!" he yells back. "Can you please come down?" His voice is mildly desperate.
"Did you follow me home?" I yell.
"Maybe. Is that creepy?" he asks.
"Yes!"
"Can you come down anyway?"
I hesitate. It's probably around twelve degrees outside, my dad is sleeping in the other room, I somehow have to go to school tomorrow, and I'm exhausted. On the other hand, it's Edward Cullen. Okay. Settled.
"Hold on."
I turn around and pull on pants as quickly as possible, stumbling down the stairs. He's waiting in the same spot when I open the door. I'm not wearing shoes, and the grass is like ice beneath my feet. He's still wearing his suit from the show and oh, holy hell.
I practically throw myself on him which would be embarrassing except that, somehow, it's not.
He wraps his arms around my lower back and my lips are on his lips so desperately that it can't be normal, can't be real. I grip his hair so hard that he groans, tilting his head, pushing harder.
"Wait," he gasps, pulling back slightly. He's breathing heavily. Short, visible bursts of air.
"What?" I ask. When he's not touching me I feel cold. Too cold. Abnormally cold.
"What's your name?"
i got stuck in a rut but then i read stella luna sky's all at once and i wasn't anymore
it's cos her writing's awesome, in case you were wondering