And then he has them.
Two rectangular pieces of paper, delicate and yellowed with age but so goddamn dear to my heart.
“Are these . . . ?”
“They’re tickets,” I say quickly. “Now give them back before something happens to them.”
“Hey, I remember this,” he says with a smile, looking at the top one.
Taylor Swift: Fearless Tour
Madison Square Garden
August 27, 2009
Luna and I were fifteen.
Tony was nineteen; Zee was eighteen.
And they were forced to take us to a concert for a country-pop star against their will.
Please don’t look at the second ticket, I think to myself.
Please, please, please.
But I’ve never had good luck.
So, when he sees my dad’s handwriting on the top ticket that reads Zoe’s ticket, his hand moves to look at the bottom one.
Zee’s ticket.
My dad has been cautious and careful with me my whole life—his only child, his little girl.
Despite hours and hours of pleading for him to just drop Luna and me off at the venue in New York, I knew even then there was no chance.
I thought my mom would take us.
But when Luna and I were pleading to see our favorite musician in concert, Mr. Davidson was over to watch some game on our big-screen TV.
“Make the boys take them,” he’d said. “That way, we don’t have to watch some girl race around and scream about boys.”
“You think the boys are old enough for that? To handle the girls?” my dad asked. I was sure the answer would be hell no, I was just kidding.
But Mr. Davidson had shrugged, staring at the TV, his mind only half in the conversation, I’d thought.
But my entire heart was invested.
“They’re mature. Got phones. And Zee knows if anything ever happens to his sister, I’ll hang him by his toes. So, yeah. They should be good.”
My dad shrugged, murmured an okay, and three months later, he was handing over four tickets to his best friend’s son.
“I labeled each of them, boys. Girls go in the middle, you two on the ends. Don’t want any strangers next to them, do you understand?”
The boys nodded, taking the slips of paper from him and stuffing them in a pocket.
I remember how, on the drive there, Zander was fielding texts from his bitchy high-school girlfriend, Marie, who wanted to spend her last weekend at home before going to college with her boyfriend, but instead, he was taking his little sister to a concert.
I remember Luna murmuring that her mom hated that girlfriend.
I remember Tony telling Zee that when he went away to school, it was only going to get worse.
I remember hoping that when I was old enough to date Zander, he wouldn’t be dating some bitchy woman.
I remember how, the way my dad wrote on the tickets, it was Tony, Luna, me, and then Zander.
I remember fighting the urge to sit through the whole concert, to ignore my idol on stage so that I could sit next to Zander the entire time. The urge to accidentally brush my elbow against his, to make a joke about how Luna was losing her mind, just to make him smile.
And I remember what happened about one-third of the concert in.
When she started to play “You Belong With Me,” Zander looked down and smiled at me.
He leaned down, because he was always tall and I hadn’t had my final growth spurt yet, and joked, “Is this song about Marie?” loud enough for me to hear.
And I remember smiling big and feeling confident and saying, “Only if that means I get to be Taylor.” I meant it but regretted it instantly.
It wasn’t cool to wish you were the singer in a song about a boy who has a shitty girlfriend and the singer wishes he were with her instead.
It revealed way too much.
But I remember the way his head tipped back and he laughed in a crowd of one hundred thousand people screaming along to a song, and I still could hear him.
I could hear that laugh anywhere.
And most of all, I remember how his hand tugged on my ponytail and he said, “Sure thing, pip.”
And even though that night was the first time I saw my idol in concert, the first time my dad let me get a hint of being a big kid, going somewhere without a grown-up present, even though it was a bonding experience for my best friend and me, I still remember that moment most of all.
Sure thing, pip.
It was the first time I’d been upgraded from pipsqueak to pip.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, reaching for the tickets.
I need them back.
I need them safe.
It sounds insane, but the idea of something happening to them has my blood rushing, panic flowing in my veins.
“You kept them?” he says, ignoring me and staring at them. He turns his body just a bit so I can’t take them from his hands.
“Give them back,” I say, not answering. “It’s not a big deal, just something silly.”
“Then why do you want them back?” he asks with a teasing smile.
“I just do, okay?” I say, grabbing onto the corner. He tugs just a bit and I panic, letting go.
“No, no! Don’t rip them!” My eyes go wide with terror.
“I thought they were no big deal,” Zander says, looking at me, trying to decode me. He’s always been good at that, pulling out the true meaning and intentions of what I say.
I stare at him, trying to decide how to answer without revealing everything.
“Pretend.” His word runs through my mind.
Does that include being honest about dumb shit I find embarrassing? Dumb shit that has the potential to give everything away?
I look into his eyes and know the answer.
“I lied. They’re important to me. Now give them back.” And when his eyes go warm and he hands them back, watching me carefully pin them back up, I know I made the right decision.
“I think about that night a lot, you know,” he says.
There’s no smile on his lips, just honesty in his eyes.
“Your dad pulled me aside before we left and threatened to kill me if anything happened to you. Said he’d make it look like an accident.”
My eyes go wide.
“No, he did not.”
“Swear to God. I’m sure now that he was joking, but I was eighteen and your dad looked like he meant it and I don’t know. It scared the shit out of me,” he says with a laugh. “I also remember that night Marie was so pissed off at me, bitching because she was leaving for school the next day and wanted to spend the night together. She said I was playing favorites of her versus my sister.”
“That girl had issues,” I blurt without filtering my thoughts. My hand covers my mouth, and my eyes go wide.
But he laughs again the way he did that night.
Magic.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a laugh like his, one that both brings me joy and calms my soul.
“She did,” he says.
Silence fills the car as I stare at those tickets, a cacophony of memories and thoughts coming to mind.
Then he breaks the silence.
“That’s the concert you’re going to tell your kids about, isn’t it?” I turn to him and smile, then I nod.
“I mean, yeah.” He smiles again, but it’s smaller. More tender.
“We’ll tell our kids about it.” My belly flips and flops, a strange mix of excitement and warmth and absolute panic.