unREASONable by Arya Matthews

Track 30

Alexandra

After a night of fitful sleep and zero messages from Marshall, I wake up with a realization that makes me scowl at myself. Marshall never agreed to go to the opera with me. The opposite, in fact.

Fiona knocks on my open bedroom door.

“Happy belated birthday. Kiera told me when she found out you couldn’t attend the opera. It’s from all of us—Kiera, me, Elise, Jules, and Charlie.” She sets an enormous basket of goodies at the foot of my bed.

I rise from the pillows. “You didn’t have to.”

Fiona takes a moment to look at me. To pity me. I’m still in my green gown. The minky fabric is soft and pleasant to the touch. I looked forward to appearing in something so lush and beautiful in public, but it has become pajamas.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Come on. You’ll feel better.”

I rifle through the cookies, lotions, bath bombs, hair masks, and makeup in the basket. “I don’t think I will.” I don’t want to feel better yet. My mind and body need to work their way through this hurt and develop a cure on their own.

Fiona sits on the bed next to me. “Why didn’t you actually go?”

“Marshall was supposed to go with me, not Zach.” The words spill, and I turn away, embarrassed.

“Something must’ve happened.”

My nose prickles with building tears. “No. He told me he didn’t want to go, in multiple roundabout ways, maybe even to spare my feelings. But since he never gave me an outright no, I decided he didn’t want to dress up and risk a boring evening. It never occurred to me he simply didn’t want to spend the evening with me.”

I suck in my lower lip. I won’t cry. Not again. Not about the bitter disappointment from missing out on seeing some of my favorite performers, not about breaking down in front of Zach, and not about Marshall Jones. Especially not about him.

“Alexandra, I’m sorry.” Fiona strokes my hair. “I know you don’t feel this way right now, but you will be fine eventually. Sometimes things don’t work out, and it’s a good thing everything ended between you before… You two didn’t, you know, didn’t, right?”

I strain to understand what she means. “You do remember English is my second language? When you speak in riddles, it’s even harder.”

Fiona lets out an exasperated sigh. “You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”

Yikes!

“No.” Well, I did, but it wasn’t like that. “I told you before. We barely had a thing.”

“Good. This way you won’t have regrets haunting you for the rest of your life.”

I don’t know about that. Right now I regret everything—agreeing to this madness with Project Viper, coming to the United States, talking to Fiona, and Zach, about Marshall.

“True,” I say all the same.

I climb out of bed, pull off the gown, and hang it on a padded hanger in my walk-in closet. Reluctant to face the guys today, I consider returning to bed, but I hate hiding from trouble. I’m not going to now.

“Feeling better?” CJ asks when I join them for breakfast.

“Much.” I feel a touch guilty for ruining his evening last night.

Marshall hasn’t come down yet. Zach and CJ won’t stop talking about the opera. That is, CJ does all the talking while Zach, for once, nods to the outpouring of CJ’s words. He took Fiona out to dinner afterward. It looks like I ruined nothing at all.

My heart burns as I listen to him. I should’ve gone. I should’ve stuck it to Marshall and celebrated my birthday with or without him.

“I take it you had fun.” Marshall enters the kitchen and goes straight for the counter with the food. He grabs a bowl, fills it with high-fiber cereal flakes, blueberries, and almond milk, and sits across from me. He stirs the cereal, runs his fingers through his bed-tousled hair, and stifles a yawn, laid back like nothing’s wrong at all.

“Yeah. Fiona and CJ had a pretty good time,” Zach says.

I glare at him, and he hurries to add, “Alexandra and I had a great night too.”

Shane’s head snaps toward me. Cereal drips off his spoon. “A great night?”

“Don’t twist his words,” I tell Shane and glare at Zach one more time. “And you, don’t give him anything to twist.”

My admonition has no effect. Zach and Shane chuckle together, as they often do, and carry on victorious.

“Did you like the opera?” Marshall digs through his breakfast with a neutral expression on his face.

I pick up my half-finished bowl of food and take it to the sink before taking off to the rehearsal room.

Breathe. Don’t say a word. Don’t react.

Too late. Already gave him a cold shoulder.

I chide myself for my reaction, but I’ve been justifying and excusing Marshall for months now. I’ve been putting on a patient face. No more. I don’t care about the insecurities Marshall supposedly has. He will not trample over my feelings anymore. I have them even if I prefer to hide them.

In the rehearsal room, I grab my P-Bass. Cord, plug, crank up the volume. Lightning strikes. Thunder roars. The rattle of the amp reverberates through my sternum and soothes like nothing else can. I grab a steel pick and unleash… I’m not even sure what I’m playing. It’s just pouring out of me. Angry, biting, dark. Mournful.

The pick falls out of my fingers, causing me to mess up a few notes, but I continue without it. Releasing emotions through music has always been akin to magic to me.

“Dang.” Shane manifests in the doorway as I start winding down.

I whirl around, sending the cord snapping against Graham’s bass drum.

“Sorry.” I rush to lower the volume on my amp.

Shane comes closer, twirling his phone in his fingers. “You sounded really good.”

“No. It’s awful. Offbeat and… You weren’t recording that, were you?” They always record every hum, every little snippet someone comes up with.

Smiling, Shane stuffs his phone in his shorts pocket, then takes a deep breath and motions for me to do the same.

I nod and breathe. Just in time. The rest of the Vipers file into the room. Marshall comes in last.

“Let’s get rolling,” he says.

The rehearsal starts out well enough, but soon things come apart at the seams. Even though I’m set on not letting Marshall get to me, his very presence unsettles me. Him keeping his eyes on me isn’t helping anything either.

I snap in the middle of the fifth song. “Jones, either stop glaring at me or tell me what I’m doing wrong. Again.”

“You’re not focused today. If you’re so tired after an evening of opera and whatever followed, you should’ve just told us and slept in.”

CJ jumps to my defense. “Alexandra didn’t go.”

For once, he’s entirely, painfully unhelpful.

“You didn’t go?” Marshall asks.

I drum my index finger against the top string, filling the room with subdued, rhythmic thumps of low E. “Zach and I decided to do something else.”

Marshall rests one hand on the microphone stand. Frustration simmers in his green eyes. “Then what’s the problem?”

He is mad at me?

My disappointment over missing the performance returns, along with a massive wave of indignance. This flammable mix of emotions sets me off. “I am. I know! I’m the problem. Everything I do is wrong. Every single time. I’m sorry, okay? For being such a nuisance. For ruining your perfect life. For being alive!”

The “being alive” part sucks all air out of my lungs. The room disappears, engulfed in ethereal flames. I jam the heels of my palms into my eyes, whispering to myself, “It’s not real. It’s not real. I’ve never seen it. I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay. Vsyo horosho.”

The Vipers stare at me through the veil of super-charged silence. Speechless Marshall, wide-eyed Shane, nail-biting Zach, frowning Graham, and gaping CJ. Adding a brokenhearted, mental Alexandra to them doesn’t work. Who thought it was a good idea to drop a grieving nineteen-year-old girl in the middle of five confident, strong young men?

Why did I think it was a good idea? It could never work.

I slide my hand across the top edge of my red bass, this symbol of how I can do anything. Can I? No. No, I can’t. I can try anything, but I can’t necessarily do it. I should just give up now, before I hurt myself more.

I look up at CJ.

He gives me a tentative smile and reaches for me. I fling the bass strap over my shoulder and stick the instrument into his hand. The weight of it sends his arm to the floor, and CJ barely manages to save the bass from thudding against the fancy wood planks.

“Alexandra!” he cries out in surprise.

I run out of the room.