Page 18 of Your Echo
I step ahead of her, turning around to walk backwards so we’re face to face.
“You don’t have to drink to go out. You should enjoy the vibrant paradise of Montreal while you’re young.”
She stares at me like I’m crazy. “Have you ever actually hung out around drunk people while sober?”
I have to stop and think about that. My hesitation seems to be the only answer she needs.
“Didn’t think so. I wouldn’t be giving sober people advice on how to enjoy Montreal if I were you.”
I turn around and line myself up between her and the edge of the sidewalk again.
“Wait, so what do you do?” I ask. “At night and on the weekends and stuff?”
She outright laughs at that. “Well, at night I usually sleep. You know, like a normal person. On the weekends, I work most of the day. I didn’t know you’d been famous long enough to forget that life isn’t just one big party.”
I stop dead in my tracks and pretend to be shocked. “Lifeisn’tjust one big party?”
She stops too, staring me right in the face. She’s taller than I realized, all endless legs and willowy arms.
“I’m trying to figure out if you really are as shallow as you pretend to be.”
I can hear the noise of Saint-Laurent from where we are: the car horns blaring at wayward pedestrians, the cacophony of clinking cutlery in the dozens of restaurants. Underneath it all there’s the thumping bass getting pumped out of nightclubs that won’t fill up for another few hours, a steadylub-dubbeat that pulses in time with all the dark hearts in this city. There’s not a sticky staircase on that street I haven’t stumbled up at some unholy hour of the night, alcohol burning at the back of my throat and in my veins.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to figure that out too.”
I didn’t really mean to sound serious, but even in the darkness, I see the pity in her eyes, and I wish she’d laughed instead.
“Would you believe me if I told you it gets better?” she asks.
I see it then, what everyone else must see when they look at her: a beautiful girl with a sweet face and a sunny disposition, a girl who wears pink Keds and volunteers in her spare time, a girl who can’t see someone else’s pain without wanting to help them fix it. She’s the kind of girl you forget to put up walls around, like stumbling upon a safe house in the middle of fighting a war.
She’s as disarming as a white flag in the breeze, and that’s how she arms herself.
“I’d believe you if you told me itmight,” I answer. “I’m kind of cautious when it comes to optimism.”
She stares for a moment longer and then throws her head back to laugh.
“Mon dieu, it’s like everything you say is trying to be a depressing rock song.”
I didn’t notice the coiled tension in the air until it snapped with the sound of her laughter.
“Hey,” I tell her, “there’s a reason I’ve been called a ‘lyrical genius’ more times than I can remember.”
“Lyrical genius?” she scoffs. “You have a song called ‘Adam the Dickhead.’”
Now that’s a surprise.
“You know about ‘Adam the Dickhead?’” I question. “I forgot we actually recorded that. It didn’t even make it onto our first demo.”
If she’s secretly some kind of super fan, it’ll be the biggest curveball I’ve ever been hit with.
Stéphanie shrugs. “My roommate is a little bit obsessed with your band. I just remember that song because of how much it sucked.”
I can’t argue with that.
“In my defense, Adam reallywasa dickhead. He was some guy my girlfriend cheated on me with.”
“So why not call it ‘Adam and My Ex-Girlfriend Are Dickheads?’”
