Strange Girl Read Online Free PDF

sky can send
No need to weep
Even when you’re buried deep
That’s just the way life ends
    I let my voice trail off and repeated, “That’s just the way life ends.” I’d made up the last line on the spot.
    The room was silent a long time. Mike spoke first. “Hey, that’s some pretty great shit. I like it.”
    Shelly nodded. “It needs editing but it’s hot.”
    Dale spoke last. “I agree with Shelly. It’s great, in spots. But . . .”
    “You can tell me. I can take it,” I said.
    “There’s a lot of darkness in that song,” Dale said.
    “Dark is good,” Mike said. “Gives it energy.”
    Dale was watching me. “We’ll work on it.”
    Dale wasn’t talking about the song. I knew him too well, or else he knew me even better. He was talking about me. That I needed to work on my head.
    • • •
    Dale’s remark stayed with me as I rode my bike home. Here I was, seventeen and couldn’t afford four wheels. The few times I’d gone out with Nicole, Janet had loaned me her car. What little money I’d saved, from gigs and what I earned at the store, I’d put into equipment. It embarrassed me the band was still paying for my brand-new Gibson guitar. But the others were cool about it. They said it was an investment in our future.
    That phrase, “our future,” freaked me out because it was so loaded with lies—or worse, childish dreams—that the band as a whole never really talked about. The truth was, I was the only one who had enough talent to have even a remote chance of succeeding in the marketplace. That sounded arrogant, I know, but it was a fact. Janet and Dale knew it without having to be told. And Mike—he didn’t dwell much on the future; it was enough he enjoyed hitting his drums.
    It was Shelly who was most troubling. Clearly she wanted to succeed to please her father, as well as to impress me. Just as bad, she’d grown up watching American Idol and X Factor and The Voice reruns and had it ingrained in her psyche that she had to be a celebrity to be someone. I often wondered if it was her need to succeed that blocked her creative juices. The girl never relaxed when she played; she was exhausted after every show.
    Still, the bottom line was that everyone in the band was working toward a goal I was pretty sure they all secretly knew was only a possibility for me.
    It was no wonder I felt depressed as I rode my bike home.
    It was late, after one, and my parents were asleep. But my mom, bless her, had left lemon-and-pepper chicken and saffron rice in the oven. I was starved. I hadn’t eaten since that afternoon with Aja and obviously that meal hadn’t counted because I’d been completely unaware of my food.
    I took my dinner and a bottle of apple juice up to my room and flipped on my computer. At home I often ate while logged on, although I wasn’t addicted to surfing the Internet. I felt the anonymity of the Net gave the public too much freedom to be rude to people. Whenever I spent over an hour online, I inevitably got a headache.
    The first thing I did on my computer was look up what Aja had been trying to say with her cryptic Portuguese remark— Ninguém do nada . I spelled it wrong a dozen times before Google’s translators finally told me what it meant: “No one from nowhere.” I wondered why Aja had said such a thing. She had acted happy enough.
    Next I checked my e-mail and was surprised to see a note from Janet. Normally she’d text me. She’d sent it an hour ago and reading it caused my heart to skip a beat.
Dear Fred,
Forgot to mention. I didn’t get Aja’s number but . . .
I gave her yours.
Try sleeping on that one.
Love, Jumpin’ Jack Jan
    “Damn you,” I said. What was I supposed to do now? If I wanted to appear cool I’d have to wait for Aja to call me. The only problem was she might not call. Indeed, the chances were a hundred to one she wouldn’t. Janet, who was my best friend, and who was probably thinking she’d just done me a favor, had snatched my