Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,54

fit any established terms—a pejorative cousin to whatchamacallit for inscrutable objects or schmutz for unidentifiable stains.

Shame was a heavy blanket to hide under. But it was not so heavy that it could keep the energy of every undisclosed desire in your heart at bay. That energy popped out in strange ways. For Gunner, it had come out as obsessive antagonism.

And for me?

For me, that energy took the form of the Immortals.

I passed Cirrus’s condo now. Her light was off.

The Immortals were fake. Cirrus, our one and only fan, was not.

Cirrus was the realest thing in my life.

Shred

Even though it was a Saturday, there were kids on campus. Kids in the lunch area, dancing in unison. Kids on the lawn, playacting. Kids in the main theater, singing. Kids everywhere, all getting their acts together for the talent show.

Three kids in the music room, plus one adult.

We had been practicing under Gray’s guidance for a week now.

Even though it was a Saturday, I did not change my routine. I still had to take the heinous ten-speed. Still had to go behind the Cernoseks’ junipers to change into a pair of Gray’s silver-black jeans and assassin hoodie, to avoid parental suspicion. I’d brought shirts for Jamal and Milo, too: Think of it as a dress rehearsal, I told them.

Gray again wore corporate leisure clonewear from some breakfast meeting earlier this morning. I could smell faint traces of tomato-y alcohol on his breath. It was strange to think of him drinking, especially before noon. But that was just me, hanging on to the teetotaling Gray I knew from before.

People change.

Gunner, for instance, came over to my house.

I know.

He sat in my room and simply looked through storage container after storage container, marveling at the contents of each. We got so sucked in that we didn’t even get around to playing through the Tomb of Horrors. Evening came, and I found myself inviting Gunner to stay for paella dinner. He would’ve, too, had it not been for another video review session with his dad.

“Next time,” Gunner had said.

“Sure,” I’d said, and discovered that I had meant it.

I had my first-ever conversation with Gunner’s sidekick, who was named Oggy, short for August. I was quietly floored to realize I had never known the kid’s name until now.

We talked about girls and cars.

Back in the music room, me and Milo and Jamal stood panting after yet another run through “Beauty Is Truth.”

“Pretty good,” said Gray. “You guys are at least fifty-five percent of the way to having a respectable performance. That’s more than halfway, nerds.”

“Please don’t call us nerds,” said Jamal.

“Ready, nerds, let’s go again.” Gray held up the iPod and hit the button.

We played along with Gray’s recording—scrambling to match every note of every guitar, every beat of every drum. I kept my vocals in tandem with his vocals, singing with the Gray from three years ago.

As we fought our way through all seven minutes of the song, Gray watched us closely. He pointed out our cues like a conductor. He adjusted my chin to stick to the mic better.

I sang, as powerfully as I could. My voice soared high like a faerie pinpoint of light into a night sky. I trilled and rolled and added every frilly bit of rococo ornament I could remember from my boys’ chorus days in middle school. I glanced at Gray, who was watching me with his palm clamped over his mouth in amazement. Pretty sure it was amazement at the time. Felt amazing to me, anyway.

Now the song was coming to an end, and I threw eyes all around to make sure we stuck the landing.

“Better,” said Gray, clapping now. “Sunny, you got this rock falsetto thing going on.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said, panting.

“Rock is full of men with high, sweet voices,” said Gray. “Freddie Mercury, Prince, Jeff Buckley, that guy from Muse.”

“So where does that put us?” I said. “Seventy percent?”

Gray inflated his cheeks, thinking. “Sixty,” he said finally, before moving on to Milo.

“You’re a natural drummer,” he told him. “Unselfconscious, spontaneous. But you need discipline. You need to play loose but tight. I’m giving you a click.”

“Loose but tight,” said Milo. “Loose but tight.”

“What’s a click?” said Jamal.

“No, but a click track, or click, is a cheat that turns drummers into mechanized automatons similar to the AI beats that come preloaded with GarageBand software,” I said.

“Yes, and it’s a metronome,” bellowed Gray. “Yes, and!”

I blinked. Did I say something wrong?

“You say No, but a lot,” said Gray.

“I