unREASONable by Arya Matthews

Track 9

Marshall

The girls kidnap Alexandra for a day of fun and give me a break from our tedious rehearsals. I exercise, play video games, catch up with my financial accounts, and even check on the state of a couple of startups I invested in last year. More importantly, I try to compose. It’s been several months since I cranked out a song. CJ’s usually the one who takes charge of that aspect of our band. He’s fantastic, but I also have a trick or two in my arsenal. I’m not just the face and the voice of Project Viper. And I’m not as bad at singing as Alexandra says. I know what I’m doing.

The problem with the songwriting today is that the lyrics have an image that accompanies them—a petite, black-haired Russian girl with ice-blue eyes. The song centers on the refusal to allow a person to destroy one’s hard-earned peace, and I know I veer into the proper emo rock territory, but I have no choice. The song is devouring my mind. I want it out, I want it dark, and I can’t finish it.

Thoughts of Alexandra wreak havoc on my sanity. I think about her all the time, swinging between anger and curiosity. Why did The Label pick her? What’s her background? What’s the extent of her talents? Kiera praised her to the skies, but so far Alexandra hasn’t shown anything extraordinary.

When I wonder about what she likes, hates, or what her favorite show is, I strike those thoughts out with viciousness. No, no, and no. I will not be friends with her. I will not get to know her. She hasn’t earned my friendship or my interest. And I will never accept her.

When I see Alexandra the next morning, she’s already with CJ. The two of them jam with abandon in the rehearsal room. I watch them from around the doorway. CJ sounds good, as always, and I wish I could say Alexandra sounds dead awful, but she’s good too. Precise and relaxed. Is it because she’s only with CJ and no one else is watching her? That does not instill any confidence in her abilities to perform. Or is it because she is with CJ? Is she interested in my best friend? Does CJ feel anything back? He’s been spending an inordinate amount of time with her. They do everything together. He even takes her out on shopping trips, and I’m no longer relevant, his best friend.

“Good. Have you ever heard me play the bass part in syncopation during a live show? It’s different from what’s on the recording,” CJ asks Alexandra.

“Not well.”

His mouth drops. “Not well? Are you going to show me how it’s done then?”

Alexandra laughs. “Yeah.”

He starts the song over, and Alexandra performs a perfect accompaniment in syncopated rhythm. “Like this,” she says after they go through the section.

“You’re such a show-off.” CJ ruffles her hair.

She smiles with delight. “Only because you’ve been the best teacher.”

My chest burns, and I step away from the doorway to breathe the heat out. I’m jealous. I admit it. Sue me. I never expected to lose my best friend to someone we’ve barely met.

Zach walks down the hallway, finishing off a high-protein chocolate popsicle. Judging by his scrunched up nose, it’s not that fantastic.

“Alexandra’s found her groove, it seems.” Zach licks the popsicle stick one last time and stuffs it in his jeans pocket.

I have to agree no matter how much it pains me. “Yeah. She’s definitely not as bad as I expected.”

Zach claps me on the shoulder. “I think she just needed a bit of time to get used to us.”

Graham and Shane join us.

“We’re practicing in the hallway today?” Shane asks.

I chuckle at his half-baked joke, but this is exactly why I resist Alexandra’s addition so much. We are already a team. More than that. We are a family. And we allowed Kiera to bring a stranger into our midst. Someone who has no clue what it took us to get where we are today.

Memories flood my vision. Meeting CJ in seventh grade as we both trudged around the track behind the rest of our classmates. Nobody, not even the gym teacher, cared that we could barely drag our feet. All we got was a handful of mocking comments and a warning that if we didn’t hustle, we’d get a fail. We exchanged wordless glances, and by the end of that year CJ and I were always the first ones around the track, just out of sheer spite, and after some training. Once we realized we had similar backgrounds, it was more than a desire to prove others wrong that glued us together. We lived every day to show each other that we could thrive despite the circumstances.

Shane, Graham, and Zach go into the rehearsal room, diffusing my flashbacks, and I follow them.

“Morning, Zach!” Alexandra throws her arms out for a hug.

Zach squeezes her tight. I’m six feet, but he’s taller and has to lean down quite a bit for her. “I get the first greeting. Matryoshka likes me the best today! Hey, teach me some Russian so I can pick up cute girls like you.”

Alexandra pushes him away. “You’d best stick to music. Play them some Tchaikovsky. Don’t try to talk.”

Zach strides to his keyboard setup with a laugh. CJ watches the pianist with narrowed eyes, and I wonder again whether my best friend has feelings for Alexandra.

She greets the O’Neals one by one as well.

I take my spot at the microphone and pull it out of the stand to check if it’s on.

Alexandra turns to me with a beaming smile. “Good morning, Marshall. What song should we start with?”

I drop the microphone at that smile and her eyes piercing right into my soul. I have no weapon against that. How can I stay mad at her when she looks at me with such… I can’t even decipher her expression. Joy? But when has Alexandra looked at me with anything but a silent prayer to gods that I’d disappear?

“You pick,” I say.

Her eyes sparkle with even more excitement. “All Your Broken Promises.”

Zach plays the intro and garbles it. “Hmph. Haven’t played this in a while. What brought it up? We never play it at any of the shows.”

“You should! It’s my favorite. Do I get to pick a song for the next setlist? If so, I want that one.”

I put my brains together enough to replace the microphone. It’s a little surprising that she likes that song. While it’s reasonably popular with our fanbase, it’s not too prominent. And it’s one of the songs I wrote, not CJ. And it’s her favorite. I’ve got to stop dwelling on that. “It’s usually fan favorites and a couple of our choosing—”

“Well, I’m a fan and us all at once. Convenient, isn’t it?” She starts playing the bridge from All Your Broken Promises. Confident, fluid, perfect. Impossible.

“You’re so sneaky,” CJ says with a pleased note to his tone.

Alexandra pauses to look at him over her shoulder. “I am Russian. Can we at least warm up with it?”

I clear my throat. “Sure.”

Alexandra does a little jump on the spot, like an excited kid, and I can’t help thinking again that her bass is too big for her.

She has no trouble playing at all this time. It probably helps that we’re playing her favorite song. She must have practiced it a lot.

I, on the other hand, feel rusty. After we finish the song, Graham re-drums the chorus once more, then another time, each time using a slightly different sequence. “Which one is it?”

“The first one,” Alexandra replies without hesitation then turns to me. “Also, it’s not ‘everything consumed by dust,’ it’s ‘everything consumed by rust.’”

“It’s dust,” I object. “Dust.”

“Rust,” she insists.

We argue, but it doesn’t feel like we’re fighting. She’s still smiling.

“What do you want to bet that it isn’t?” I ask.

Alexandra takes off the bass and puts it on the stand, then pulls out her phone. “If I’m right, you’ll sign my bass. If I’m wrong, you pick.”

I like her confidence, but I won’t lose. “Deal.”

Alexandra swipes through her phone, long dark hair hanging over her shoulders, its ends brushing her hands. I want to reach out and push it out of her way.

What in the…?

A moment later, my voice fills the room. I hate listening to myself on recordings, and this particular time I hate it more. She was right. It’s rust. What’s more, she shows me her phone screen with a Google result of my lyrics. Rust again. I forgot my own song.

Graham chuckles from behind the drums. “Good job, Marshall. Bested by a fan.?”

The rest of the rehearsal is full of jokes, all at my expense. I let them have their fun. I’ve earned the mockery.

Alexandra waits until after dinner to claim her reward. She finds me in my room, carrying her P-Bass and a Sharpie. “Don’t think you can hide from me here.”

“I’m not hiding.” I just need to catch up on some assignments for college.

She comes in and places the bass on my bed. I tuck the iPad with my reading under my pillows before she sees anything.

“What were you reading?”

“A bit of Tolstoy.” She’s not going to believe it.

Alexandra rolls her eyes. “Right, Tolstoy.”

Called it.

“You don’t think I’d enjoy Tolstoy?” I don’t actually, but I have to read him for my Russian Literature class. I only have this one class this semester, thank everything. We’ve been so busy with Alexandra, I’ve had no time for homework. I’m going to have to pass to register for the spring semester.

“I really don’t think he’s up your alley,” she says.

“What else do you think about me?”

Alexandra grins. “You don’t want to know.”

This conversation is odd. Not the words themselves, but the fact that she’s talking to me at all. I’ve caught Alexandra watching me many times, but as soon as she realizes I’m onto her, she retreats. Shy? Or maybe she hates me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

“Do you want to know what I think about you?” Will she retreat this time too?

“I already do.” Alexandra looks around my room.

I can’t help wondering what she makes out of my shelves stuffed with art books, a massive collection of CDs I’ve procured from every musician I’ve met over the years, and the black bedding, black curtains, and black rug. Black is a good color. Constant and soothing.

“So, what do I think about you?”

Alexandra’s eyes snap back to me. “Ty dumaesh’, chto ty slishkom prityagatel’nyi i krutoi, chtoby delit’ stsenu s kem-to kak ya.”

You think you’re too hot and awesome to share a stage with someone like me.

“You would’ve never said that if you thought I could understand you, would you?” I barely manage to keep laughter out of my voice.

“Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t.” Alexandra smiles, pleased with herself, assuming I have no clue.

I chuckle. “Wow.”

Hot and awesome? Does Alexandra feel attracted to me? No way. She’s just mocking me.

And if she isn’t—

No, she is. She definitely is.

“A thought for a thought,” Alexandra says. “What do I think about you?”

“You’re crazy pleased you beat me at my own song, that’s what. Don’t deny it.” I take her bass and flip it over so that the strings rest on my lap.

“Guilty as charged.” She looks at the foot of my bed and shakes her head as if she’s considered sitting down but thought better of it. “You have a lot of art books.”

It seems she does want to talk to me after all. I’m still unsure how I feel about that, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for us to get to know each other. A little.

“Do you miss Russia?” This is the most neutral question I manage to come up with.

“Yes.” Alexandra’s voice is calm and even, but she hugs herself with one arm and crosses the room to stand at the window.

I try to imagine what it would be like to miss home. I never really had a place I could call my own, not until the Tangs took me in. Even six years later, I feel like a guest here now and then.

“Do you get to talk to your parents often? How do they feel about what you’re doing here?”

Alexandra grips the windowsill and looks out the window. “We don’t talk. If we did, if we could…” She draws a heavy breath before forcing out a smile. “They’d say I’m crazy.”

I always thought explaining my family situation to others was a pain, but Alexandra’s life back home also sounds complicated. She wouldn’t be here, halfway across the globe from her home if things were peachy.

“You are crazy.” I give her a warm smile, making sure she knows I’m joking.

“Probably.” She turns around and taps the marker against her palm.

My neck prickles with the knowledge that I should say something comforting or encouraging to her, but my tongue refuses to move, and I don’t force it. Alexandra couldn’t have expected us to wait for her with our arms wide open. Except maybe Zach.

“Do you remember your parents at all?” Alexandra asks.

The marker keeps bouncing against her hand, and she won’t look at me. I wait until she does to answer. “No. Do you want to sit down?” I nod at the edge of my bed.

She reluctantly sits on the corner.

“Remember, Charlie told you I don’t bite.”

Alexandra falls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. “She lied.”

“You’re not going to make it easy for me, are you?”

“Will you make it easy for me?” She keeps avoiding eye contact, making me wonder if that’s how she finds strength to tell me things she otherwise wouldn’t.

“Easy has no value.” The dry wisdom rings hollow on my tongue. I might as well not have said anything.

Alexandra rolls onto her side, props her head on her hand, and finally looks at me. Knees bent, her other hand resting on the quilt, she appears comfortable and relaxed, the way a girlfriend would.

“What happened to your parents? Why did you end up, as you guys say, in the system?”

A dig for a dig. I see. I made her uncomfortable, so she’ll return the favor.

“I don’t know what happened to them, and I don’t remember. I was three. One night they just disappeared.” I wrap my fist in my shirt sleeve and rub the dull spot on Alexandra’s bass. “The neighbor found me sitting in the apartment door, crying and calling for them. Or something like that. I don’t even know if that’s the real story. How do they explain to a three-year-old where their parents went off to? Maybe they were involved in something criminal and were snatched and murdered, or they ran, or they fell off the bridge into the river. Who knows?”

“You don’t have any grandparents? Aunts? Uncles forty-five times removed?”

I laugh. “No. The fun thing about my parents is Dean and Kelly Jones never existed. I have an authentic birth certificate, but all information about them is false. Their work records were also full of lies, so the government couldn’t find their next of kin.”

To my surprise, Alexandra smiles. “They were spies. And I’m sure they didn’t want to leave you.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say with a shrug. I hate thinking about them, giving all the whys and what-ifs space in my brain and power over my heart. In the end, I survived. “Now, what do you want me to write?”

A minute later, Alexandra heads out, holding her bass like it’s the biggest treasure she has ever had.

“Goodnight, Marshall,” she sings from the doorway.

I’ve heard her sing, of course, but this time her voice is not overshadowed by mine. Smooth. My name’s like velvet when she sings it.

“Sing something else,” I blurt out.

Alexandra narrows her eyes at me. Everything I say and do plants suspicions in her, it seems.

“No.”

“Then leave already. I’ve got to finish my Tolstoy.” I do my best to glower at her, but she giggles.

“Enjoy.”

Once she’s gone, I take out the iPad but can’t focus anymore. I rest my head on the pillows. She made me write, “Alexandra is the bass goddess,” and sign underneath. She is a goddess, all right. Of mischief and torture, sent to plague me.