Page 53 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

I shrank from the question, knees up, down in my seat—the same position I’d met him in, I realized, tucked behind my desk, trying to hide myself behind a notebook.

“Oh I don’t know, a while.” I sipped my Coke, looking around the theater, trying to sound casual. Most of the audience was female, some in groups, others with their boyfriends or, if they were bit older, presumably, their husbands. This was Tyler’s third movie in five years. His first ever was a romantic comedy, which had done okay at the box office, his second an action/thriller that bombed, so they’d obviously decided to go back to what worked.

His fan base was undeniably mostly women, some who started listening to him in their teens, way back in the late sixties when he first hit it big, singing long-haired, silly love songs like Paul McCartney and the Beatles. But the Beatles had broken up and stopped singing. Tyler Vincent just rolled with the changes, reinventing himself. When MTV had debuted music videos in 1981, when I was about fourteen, his had been one of the first they played, a single from his new album.

And suddenly Tyler Vincent was a star again in his mid-thirties, with fourteen-year-old girl screaming at his concerts and a brand new fan base to run and see him on the big screen. They didn’t do close-ups—he was in his early forties now—but they still loved filming him shirtless, which made all the girls in the theater go crazy. Not that his age had ever mattered to me, then or now.

“Well you’re not alone—obviously.” Dale offered the popcorn to me again and I took a handful this time, just to keep my mouth full and avoid talking. “Probably twenty years’ worth of fans sitting in this theater.”

“True,” I agreed carefully. “Not many rock stars can say that.”

Dale shrugged. “Aerosmith’s making a comeback. What’s old is new. At least it’s not New Kids on the Block. I couldn’t stand it.”

o;I got you a Coke.” Dale sat, not across from me, but next to me, unpacking the food, sliding a Styrofoam tray of orange chicken and noodles in front of me. My stomach growled its thanks, and I grabbed a plastic fork, digging in happily. I hadn’t eaten like this in a long time. Not that any of it, the pizza and the fries and the Coke and Panda Express, were good for me, or anyone for that matter. It’s just that we never ate out. There was just no money for it. Not even McDonald’s. Food like this was exotic and painfully delicious to my palate, all the salt and sugar and fat concentrated in every bite. This stuff was like a party in my mouth when I was used to granola bars and peanut butter and jelly and dry cereal because the milk had run out and we didn’t have the money to buy more.

Most importantly, my body seemed to know it was Dale who was feeding me and rejoiced with every bite, was like it was turning this junk food into fuel for the fire I already had burning in my belly for him.

“So Aimee’s at the academy because she was in treatment last year?” Dale picked up our conversation where we’d left off, spooning fried rice into his mouth at a dizzying pace.

“Yeah.” I frowned, remembering. “Our friendship almost ended over it. I was the one who told her mom. Aimee forgave me… eventually.”

Dale nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “You did the right thing. She’s obviously better now.”

“Better, yes.” I shrugged. “Not completely, maybe not ever. She still has her issues with food and dieting and stuff. But she’s not eighty pounds anymore.”

He gave a low whistle. “That’s emaciated.”

“She was pretty sick,” I agreed. I didn’t like to think about it. She’d fooled everyone for so long, wearing big clothes to hide it. If I hadn’t walked in on her in the bathroom one morning after a sleepover—she’d locked the door, but it hadn’t closed all the way and had just pushed open—she might have ended up in the cemetery instead of a treatment center.

“So how did you end up at the academy?”

I couldn’t tell him even though I wanted to. He wasn’t asking because it was perfunctory. This wasn’t just making casual conversation. He was genuinely interested in me. He just wanted to know. But I still couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t reveal something so dark, so sinister. Not to this bright, dazzling, amazing guy sitting across from me. What would he think of me then? It would ruin everything.

Some part of me said, “Go ahead. Tell him.” That part of me wanted to sabotage the fragile bud beginning to bloom between us. If I told him now, he’d never talk to me again. Then I would be free once more to pursue my crazy but persistent obsession with Tyler Vincent. I could move to Maine and go to college there without any guilt or remorse. Telling him would force him to reject me. I knew it’s what I should do. It’s what my head told me was the smartest, most logical thing in the world I could do.

“You tell me first,” I said through a mouthful of noodles, grabbing my Coke and taking a long sip.

“I dropped out in my senior year. Three years ago.” Dale sipped his Coke too, looking at me over the rim. He had a way of seeing into me that was disconcerting. I felt naked in front of him.

“Let me guess? You wanted to make it in the music business?”

“My parents were having problems.” He sat back in his chair, picking at his food. “My mom left. Me and my dad moved to Seattle. That’s when I really started getting serious about music.”

“And your dad was okay with you quitting school?”

He snorted. “No. But I didn’t give him a say. I moved out.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“I told you. He got a job at Rutgers.” He seemed far away now, distant. I didn’t like it.

“But you weren’t living with him?”

Dale shrugged. “He asked me to come with him. Said he’d pay for everything, let me live with him, and I could pursue my music as long as I was working on getting my diploma.”

I nodded. “So the academy is your compromise.”

“Well, I knew about the Battle of the Bands before we moved.” He flashed me a brief smile. God, that dimple. “MTV did them last year in New York, and I had it on good authority they were going to do them again this year. I figured I’d have time to put a band together and give it a shot.”

---