The second I laid eyes on Mace, I knew he was it for me. My one and only. My true love. My heart swelled, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I’d never feel for any other boy the way I felt for him.
Unfortunately, while I was quickly falling head over heels for the first time in my young life, the boy holding my heart in his hands looked at me as nothing more than his best friend’s annoying little sister who had a habit of embarrassing herself on a regular basis.
For three years, I harbored those feelings, my unrequited love slowly crushing me with every girl he brought around. And there were many.
My brother had been part of a garage band with three friends he’d grown up with, Garrett, Declan, and Killian. When Mace moved to our town at fifteen, it hadn’t taken long for his talent on the guitar to outshine my brother’s mediocre musical skills. Will had been happy to step back, more interested in building cars than making music. They shuffled, and Mace found his place as lead guitarist for their band, Civil Corruption. I used to sit and watch them for hours, entranced by the way his fingers plucked at the strings of his prized Gibson with incredible speed, creating the most enchanting melodies. He cherished that guitar, given to him by his grandfather, like it was the most valuable thing he’d ever have the privilege of owning.
Word eventually got out, the guys’ talent became well known, and the girls practically threw themselves at them. Of course my brother’s friends were all too happy to take advantage, bringing random chicks over to show off in our garage.
The only one I’d bothered getting to know during those years was Declan’s best-friend-turned-girlfriend, Tatum Valentine. She was kind and funny. It was obvious she was in love with Declan, and he was just as crazy about her. Despite the five-year age gap between us, she never made me feel like a pathetic little girl trailing behind them. True, I was only thirteen, and they were all set to graduate high school soon, but she’d quickly become a close friend, taking me under her wing and giving me a feeling of belonging in their little circle.
Will might have been the typical big brother at times, picking on me whenever he was in the mood and being a general pain in the butt, but he never made me feel unwanted. It was because of him and Tate that I became an official part of the Civil Corruption family. I grew to love each and every one of them in my own way, but it was always Mace who held the largest chunk of my heart. However, being a thirteen-year-old in love with a boy who was quickly becoming a man meant I’d already been dealt a fair share of heartache.
Still, I was a glutton for punishment. I couldn’t get enough, and that day as I sat on the crate that had become known as “my seat” over the past three years, I listened to them talk about their plans for after graduation, and a little piece of me died inside.
Tate sat on the taped-up box beside me that held all our Christmas decorations and bumped my shoulder with hers. “Hey,” she said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the song the guys were playing. “You’ve been quiet today. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I replied with a shrug, my lie made obvious by the pouty look on my face.
“Ah, ah,” she chided, giving me another bump. “You’ve been sitting here moping for the past hour, so don’t bother lying. Tell me the truth.”
I turned and looked up at her, feeling inferior as I took her in. I adored Tate, but I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious whenever she was around. With the swell of her hips and her round behind, the way her glossy, fiery hair draped over her full breasts, she was everything I wasn’t. She was built like a woman while I was still in that awkward, boney phase between child and teenager.
“I can’t wait until I look like you,” I whined. “I can’t wait to get boobs so I don’t look like an ugly little boy anymore.”
She let out a tinkling giggle that reminded me of wind chimes. “Is that what’s got you all sour-faced today? Ly, babe, you’re beautiful just how you are. You’re thirteen. Give yourself some time. Don’t be in such a rush to grow up.”
That was easy for her to say. She was the same age as the rest of the guys, which meant that when they left in a few months, she’d be going with them. “Yeah, well you aren’t the one being left behind,” I grumbled, my melancholy growing worse and worse.
“Oh, I get it now,” she murmured knowingly.
“You’re all gonna graduate and take off, and I’ll be left here alone.”
Crap. I was going to cry. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Tate and the guys. If Will or any of the others suspected how I felt about Mace, I’d most likely die of mortification. I might’ve been young, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew I didn’t stand a chance with him until I was older, so until then, I had to keep it a secret.
“We won’t be gone forever, Ly,” Tate stated sympathetically. “It’s only for six months. It’ll be over before you know it. And who knows, maybe by then you’ll have met a boy you really like and won’t even notice we’re gone.”
Not likely. There was no other boy but Mace. Not for me. And those six months they planned to be gone, touring up and down California, were probably going to be the most miserable months of my life. Tate would be gone. The guys would be gone. And Will would be working. Everyone was growing up and moving on. Everyone but me, that was.
“If you say so,” I muttered sullenly.
“I do,” she replied, trying her best to sound cheerful. “Because I’m right.”
It was then that Declan called for a break, pulling Tate and me from our conversation. She might have been convinced that everything she’d just said was true, but it hadn’t done anything to make me feel better.
Four months later
The music and laughter filtered up from the backyard through my bedroom window, driving the knife deeper into my chest. My brother had asked me to come down and join the party. Even Tate and Garrett had knocked on my door asking why I was locked in my room instead of downstairs with everyone else. I gave them all them all the same excuse—I had a headache and just wanted to sleep it off.
The truth was I couldn’t bring myself to join the celebration. To me, there was nothing to celebrate. They were leaving. My parents had grown into a second family to all the guys in the band, so my mom planned a big going away party for them and all their friends to, in her words, “send them off the fame the right way”. But I couldn’t do it. I hated having to say goodbye to all of them, but especially to Mace.
Instead, I laid in my bed, writing in my diary and doodling random, nonsensical patterns while wishing everything could be different. I didn’t hope the guys would fail on their trip. Honestly, I wanted them to succeed. I knew how hard they worked and how talented they were. I wanted them to end up rich and famous, to get everything they wanted. I just wished I was old enough to go with them.
A knock on my bedroom door startled me out of my melancholy. Lifting my head, I turned to find Mace standing in my open doorway, and my heart immediately lodged in my throat. “Uh, hi. What are you doing up here?”
“Came looking for you, Goldie.”
He’d taken to calling me that about two months ago, and the nickname never failed to create a riot of flutters in my belly.