Heart Shaped Rock (12 page)

I try to wipe my tears with my hands, but the volume of salty wetness is just too much. I pause the video and walk to the kitchen to grab a tissue box off the counter.

I return to my perch on the couch and press play.

“Now, honey, you’re the kid here, not the parent, and it’s not your job to make your dad all better. But there’s something fairly easy you can do for him that might make a real difference. For his birthday this year, I want you to make him his two favorites—chicken enchiladas and chocolate-fudge double chocolate chip Bundt cake. The cake is easy, just follow the recipe exactly. But the enchiladas, wooh! That’s a different story. I never follow that recipe exactly, baby, so it’s hard to tell you what to do. One thing, though, is that I always use twice as much chicken and green chiles as the recipe calls for.” I tilt my head back, smiling. I knew my enchiladas tasted different than Mom’s. “Those enchiladas might fill only one out of a million holes in your daddy’s heart right now, but filling one hole at a time is all we can do. And I’m betting that filling some of your dad’s heart-holes will make
you
feel just a little bit better, too.”

I dab my eyes with a tissue.

“So, that brings me to
you,
Shaynee-bug, my sweet baby girl.” Mom leans toward me, her face intense. “I. Love. You. And I’ll never, ever stop, even when I’m no longer flesh and bones. You are not alone. I will never leave you. Do you hear me? I’m still right here with you. In fact, I’m sitting in this same blue chair, right now, watching
you
watch this video.”

I look over at the blue chair. Goosebumps.

“Remember when Pierre died?” Pierre was the sky-blue parakeet my parents got me in fourth grade after I’d begged and pleaded for months. Initially, they’d refused adamantly, mostly because Mom said birds were “flying rodents.” But Mom ultimately relented and got me the bird after I sang her my heartfelt original ballad, “A Parakeet Would Be So Sweet” (which I performed while wearing homemade wings and a paper beak).

I loved that little blue bird with all my heart. He actually
cuddled
me. I’d take him out of his cage and perch him on my finger, and he’d sidestep across my hand and right up my arm, trying to get as close to me as possible. One morning, about four months after we’d first picked him out of a huge cage at the pet shop, I woke to find him lying stiffly at the bottom of his cage, his eyes frozen open. I flung open his cage door and scooped him up into my hand, but Pierre was already ice-cold. When Mom heard my hysterical shrieks, she bolted into my room, still in her pajamas, her eyes bulging with panic. The moment she saw the dead bird in my hand and the heartbreak on my face, she burst into tears.

We held a solemn funeral for Pierre in our backyard, his grave marked by a small blue pebble we’d found at the beach. I was too grief-stricken to speak at Pierre’s funeral, so Mom told the story of how I picked him out among at least thirty other birds at the pet store; he was just that special. She talked about how he always made my face light up and my heart go pitter-pat. She said Pierre and I had experienced true love, and that everyone should cherish love wherever they find it in life—even if it’s with a little, blue bird. She said Pierre had been a loyal and true friend to me all of his days, and for that, we all loved him very much and wished him peace in Bird Heaven.

For about a month after Pierre’s funeral, I didn’t sing or play my guitar even once. Every time I looked over at my guitar, I felt a blackness, a blankness, an emptiness I couldn’t understand or shake. I felt... dead inside. At first, Mom left me alone. But a couple weeks into my mourning, she began pestering me to play my guitar. “You’ve got to practice, Shaynee,” she nagged me. “Guitar’s all muscle-memory. Use it or lose it.” And when that didn’t work, she said, “You can’t move on until you let the feelings out. Keeping feelings bottled up inside makes them fester and grow like an infected wound. When you let the sad feelings out, they lose their power, and the wound can heal.” Finally, one day, she grabbed my guitar in one hand and my arm in the other, and she sat me down on the couch. “Play,” she said simply, pushing my guitar onto my lap. I looked at her, contemplating defiance. But then, wordlessly, I did what I was told.

And she was right. It helped.

After that, I never stopped playing again.

That is, until Mom died.

“Well, Shaynee, I’m here to tell you, again,” Mom is saying on the screen, “you’ve got to let the sad feelings out. They’ll poison you from the inside out if you don’t. I’ve given you plenty of time to work through your feelings, honey, but now it’s time to pick up that guitar and write a song about what’s inside you, whatever it is—good, bad, or ugly. Shaynee, just play.
Sing.
Let me hear your angelic voice again. Because I promise, I’m listening.”

I pick up a throw pillow that’s lying next to me on the couch and hug it to my chest.

“One last thing, Bug. Your whole life, even when you were itty bitty, you’ve always been good at being you. Do you know why? Because you know who you are. Trust in that now. As you go through life, when you have decisions to make, when you stop and wonder what I might’ve thought, or what I might’ve said to help you decide something... Just know
I
think what
you
think. As long as you follow your heart’s true desire, then I’ll always agree with whatever you decide. Because I believe in you.”

She lets out a big breath, and so do I.

“Well, that’s everything I wanted to tell you. Except, of course, that I love you. I can never say that enough. And, oh yeah, wear yellow, Shaynee-bug. Would you do that for me? You look so pretty in yellow. Oh, and happy birthday, which I guess I already said. And, I love you.” Mom blows me a kiss. She reaches toward the screen, touching a button on the camera. The screen goes black.

Chapter 11

The alarm blares. Sixty thirty again. Good God, I stayed up way too late last night watching Mom’s video.

I sit up in bed. I’m clutching Dean’s jacket like a teddy bear.

Dean.

I shuffle into the bathroom, take two Tylenol, and look closely at myself in the mirror. My eyes are puffy from all the crying I did last night, but I don’t care a lick about my stinkin’ eyes. All I see are the tiny freckles dotting my nose, the ones Dean said were “killing” him last night. And for the first time in my whole life, I’m glad I have them.
Your freckles are killing me right now.
I close my eyes, remembering the tingling sensation those words evoked in me when he said them. Or, rather, the ting-a-ling-a-ling-ling sensation.

I smile.

I lean forward and kiss my own reflection in the mirror, re-enacting my kiss to end all kisses with Dean from last night. I’m the biggest dork on the planet, but I don’t care. Somehow, I feel
lighter
than yesterday. Like I can breathe for the first time in forever. Hell, when my alarm went off a minute ago, I didn’t even feel like smashing the clock against the wall.

I walk into Lennox’s room and wake him up. Today, I’m a saint. I don’t shove him or shout at him to wake him; I caress his forehead and whisper his name, just like Mom always used to do. Lennox opens his big brown eyes and smiles, causing perfect dimples to appear on either side of his mouth, and, much to my shock, I don’t even want to smack those dimples clean off his face.

“You were out late last night,” he says.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“Where’d you go?”

“It’s none of your beeswax,” I say, but my tone is playful.

“I had the best dream last night.”

“So did I,” I reply. But I was awake when I had it.

Lennox looks surprised at my downright positivity.

“How’d you score the new iPod?” I ask, motioning to the nightstand.

Lennox looks apologetic. “Dad got it for me.”

“I’m glad. I’m sorry I trashed your old one.”

Lennox looks up and seems genuinely surprised by my attitude for the second time in twenty seconds. “It’s okay, Shay. I understand.”

There’s an awkward silence so I stand up. “Well, get your butt in gear,” I say, trying to muster my usual grumpiness.

“Has Dad already gone to work?” Lennox asks.

For some reason, I’m not even the slightest bit annoyed by his question, even though he undoubtedly knows the answer. “Yep,” I answer brightly as I breeze out of the room. What the hell is wrong with me this morning? I might as well be wearing a hoopskirt and tiara and singing
tra la la la.

Back in my room, I realize I never took my phone out of my purse when I got home last night. I pull it out to charge it briefly before heading to school and there’s a text from Tiffany: “
HOWZ IT GOING WITH MOTORCYCLE BOY?!?!?!?!”

I plug in my phone, chuckling, and start getting dressed.

Today, I’ve chosen an outfit designed to complement Dean’s leather jacket—denim mini-skirt, yellow tank top, and black, Converse high-tops. It’s as “bad girl” as my closet will allow, very
Westside Story
meets
Grease II
meets
High School Musical
(which are all the same movies, by the way). With this outfit, I’m declaring myself “Motorcycle Boy’s Girl.” I feel very much like the badass Dean seems to think I am.

My phone beeps with a new text. It’s another one from Tiffany:
“WTF? How was last night?”

After being a third wheel with Tiffany and Kellan for so many months, it’s exhilarating to be the one with a juicy story to tell. But for some reason, I want to stay alone with Dean in our magical world just a little while longer. I put the phone down without responding to Tiffany’s text.

Even before first period, Tiffany’s on me like white on rice, jumping up and down like a toddler demanding candy, begging for details.

“I’ll tell you everything at lunch,” I assure her.

“Why are you making me wait?” Tiffany whines. But when I walk away, smiling and shrugging my shoulders, she yells after me, “You better tell me everything.”

I waltz into first period Art History and take my seat, “That’s
Amore
” playing on repeat inside my head. Or maybe I only
think
it’s playing inside my head, because when I see Delaney Ballard giggling and staring at me from the next desk over, I realize I’m humming the song out loud.

“Well, someone’s in a good mood today,” Delaney chirps.

I’m so shocked to be addressed by someone other than Tiffany—and especially by a queen bee like Delaney Ballard—I can’t speak. But Delaney doesn’t seem to notice I’m tongue-tied. “I love your jacket,” she coos. “Is it vintage?” She reaches over and touches the worn leather of Dean’s jacket with obvious appreciation of its pedigree.

“It’s not mine,” I say, mustering my voice.” I got it from... a friend.” And then, because the word “friend” makes me think of Dean’s lips pressed against mine, and the husky sound of his voice when he told me my freckles were killing him and the twinkle in his eye when he said “ting-a-ling-a-ling,” my face bursts into the shade of a vine-ripened tomato.

Delaney grins at me as if I’ve said something salacious. She nods in apparent understanding. “Very cool,” she whispers, retrieving her hand from the jacket. She giggles again.

For the rest of the class, I can feel Delaney attempting to catch my eye whenever Mrs. Ramert does that funny curling thing with her lip. I know she’s watching me, trying to share a “moment,” but I don’t give it to her. Instead, I keep my head down, furiously scribbling notes. At the end of class, as I’m putting my notes into my three-ring binder, Delaney sings out, “See ya later, Shaynee” as she sashays past me, and then, of course, she giggles yet again.

“Yeah, see ya later,” I say calmly without even a hint of a giggle seeping into my tone. I need to make it clear right now: Shaynee Sullivan does
not
giggle. But then, dang it, Delaney flashes me a smile that’s so warm and sparkling and genuine, I can’t help but respond with a broad smile in return. Delaney’s face instantly lights up, as if I’ve just asked her to prom.

At lunch, I find Tiffany sitting with Kellan at our usual table in the back of the cafeteria. It’s not uncommon for Kellan to join us at our table, but most days, especially on game days, Kellan sits at The Fun Table with his rowdy teammates from whichever sport is going on at the moment. On those days, I notice Tiffany’s eyes drifting longingly over to him, taking in the boisterous conversation going on over there, and I know she wishes the two of us would join Kellan’s group like we used to, back in the old days. She never presses me, though, and I never offer.

I plop myself down at the table.

“He won’t leave,” Tiffany says, feigning annoyance. “I told him to eat with his boyfriends today, but he wants to hear all about your date with Motorcycle Boy, too.”

I’m about to say, “It wasn’t a date.” But then I realize, in a flash of glee, that, yes, it was. I suppress the urge to cackle uproariously.

“Our little Shaynee’s growing up,” Kellan laughs. “I want to know all about the boy who’s stolen my little sis’s heart.”

I’m about to say, “I don’t have a heart for him to steal,” but then I realize... much to my shock... yes, I do. I must have regrown one, like how a maimed starfish re-grows a brand new arm? Shaynee’s Heart, Edition 2.0 may not be as whole as my original heart used to be... but, holy crap. It’s there. I’m sure of it.

“Well?” Tiffany says, sounding like she’s about to burst. “How’d it go?”

For the hundredth time today, I think about how delicious it felt when Dean pressed his lips—and his body—against mine. Despite myself, a girly giggle bursts out my mouth.

Tiffany and Kellan look at each other, flabbergasted.

“Oh my, my,” Tiffany says, raising her eyebrows, “it went that well, huh?”

“It was one of the best nights of my life, actually,” I reply, and my giggling turns into a full-throated laugh.

Kellan whistles. “What the hell did that guy do to you? Maybe he can teach me a thing or two.”