Everyone in the small town of Hull knows two things. One: Jill Williams doesn't date, and two: Carson Blue is addicted to drugs.
When Carson decides to clean up his act and apply at Jill's family restaurant, she's less than enthused. Between school...
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BY THE TIME Friday rolls around, I'm eager for a night off work, but I don't want to spend it at Shae Evans's party. Too bad for me—I told Val I'd go, and there's no way I'm ditching her. In the desk chair of her bedroom, I spin around and around and watch her posters fly by until they create a seamless blur of white against purple paint.
"I swear these things are magic," Val says.
I come to a full stop. Dizzy. Val stands in front of her full-body mirror and eyes herself up. Her (sister's) black jeans have gold hems and some sort of built-in superpower that makes her butt look like she squats five times a week.
"Uh-huh, Jacobi will never know what hit him." I keep spinning. Val's room is a wreck—clothes vomit out of the laundry basket and all over the hardwood, but this place has always been my home away from home. Her mom and dad are arguing in the kitchen, and the savory smell of ropa vieja leaks through the crack in the door.
I pick up a Beanie Baby and toss it at Val's ass. "Are you going to help me film or what?"
She groans and touches up her eyeliner. "Come on, we did a video last week."
"That was last month. And this is a whole new song. I barely have time to practice these days, let alone film." I hate begging, but my YouTube subscribers are asking for more content, and I've finalized the song I've been working on. Val faces me with her hands on her hips.
"Fine,but don't be a perfectionist. I'll do one take, got it?"
"Deal. I have a good feeling about this one."
Crawling onto Val's bed, I rest my back against the wall and prop my guitar on my lap. Stickers line the body of my acoustic: daisies, clothing brands, and one of Led Zeppelin from when it belonged to my dad. I try not to think of him when I play. Keyword: try. It's been hard considering today, March 22nd, is his forty-fifth birthday.
The years are piling up since he left us. I'd say I wonder what he looks like now, but I already know. Judas Cradle is on tour in Europe right now and their pictures are all over Google. Dad looks exactly the same, just a little greyer, a little wrinklier. No surprise there; not even time has the strength to change a man like him.
I can say all the bad things in the world about my dad, but if I had to thank Graham Grant for one thing, it would be this: he's a killer musician, and some of that passed down to me. Singing and playing guitar have always come as naturally to me as breathing.
Val gets on her knees in front of the bed and positions the camera on the tripod, angling it right. When the red recording dot appears, I close my eyes and allow the song to flow through me. I trickle my fingers along the strings and sing high and clear and sad and hopeful all at once. I'm known for stuff like this on my channel; melancholic and slow, acoustic and quiet. Some call it depressing, and maybe that's true—but it's honest. It all comes from the heart.
