Page 129 of Crazy for this Girl

I quickly discover that a lot of what I listen to is what Cal has too. From I Prevail, to The 1975, music seems to be one of the only things that didn’t change between us.

We continue to learn about each other through the years, how our temperaments were at different times, with the words that have filled in our emotions during all changes and courses of our life.

I’m deep in a new band I’ve never heard of called Bring Me The Horizon, when Cal taps at my forearm.

Pulling a headphone out of my ear, I glance over at him as he tilts my phone so I can see that the playlist he’s listening to is called Bestie Vibes.

I can feel heat rise to my face as I try to play faux innocence because I created that playlist in one of my deep and bleak moods while he was gone. When life felt so hopeless of moving on in a relationship because there was only one I wanted to fully commit to.

My love for Cal ran so fucking deep that I saw no light at the end of the tunnel on that road. It was desolate and scary, taunting me that I would nevereverbe the same after him. No man would ever be able to compete, and I would always be stuck with a hole in my heart the size of the whole state of California.

“What?” I ask as coolly as I can, forcing myself to relax and for my heart to stop slamming frantically in my chest.

“You kept a playlist of us?” The look on his face holds so much conviction for my so-call not caring about us anymore attitude.

It also illuminates a charge of hope and amusement.

He can read me like a book. I don’t want him to. He’s going to interpret that playlist just fine. And that part terrifies me.

I push my lips out as if I have to think about it and I obviously don’t. I’m just grateful that I didn’t name it The One That Got Away or I Hate His Freaking Guts.

That would’ve portrayed a little more of my state of mind than I would’ve never wanted him to know. “I must’ve made it in high school.”

“Huh…” He pushes out his bottom lip with his tongue as if pondering the thought to be true. “It’s just funny…you have every single song I remember giving you in my letters. And, you know, Spotify didn’t come out until like 2011, right?”

Shit.

“Blue, Laynee.”

My brows knit. “What?”

“Blue.” His gaze is persistent and self-assured as continues to stare at me expectedly. “Surely, you haven’t forgotten…”

The best friend bond we made.

He would.

If there was anything Cal could pull on me besides catching me in my room dancing like nobody was supposed to be watching, it’d be this.

“What do you want me to say, Mr. Harper? That’s reserved for my best friend.”

“And he’s sitting right next to you.”

Being the petty little human being I am, I glance around the surrounding space. “Really? Where?”

“Laynee…”

“Yes, Mr. Harper?” My eyes fall on the back of the seats opposite of us because this is ludicrous.

“Look at me.” I inwardly sigh at his command and do as he asks, meeting sharp green eyes filled with seriousness. “You’ve always been mine. And you always will be.”

My stomach flips as one of his wireless earbuds is unceremoniously put into my ear, and he hits play on my phone.

Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional strums faithfully in my ear, a song I’ve played so many times I could sing it backward. When he was away and I was alone, always on my mind, always wondering where he was and why he couldn’t be with me or vice versa.

A time that I’d never want to duplicate for as long as I live.

Shoot, I wouldn’t even wish it on the bitchy stewardess because it was twisting agony to not know anything that was happening but expecting to keep faith that one day Cal would tell me.

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