The Next Song You Write About Me

"I bought this in June," she said. "I thought it would be good to have if you stayed over at some point." Steve looked up at her. She looked down at him. "I'm going to be in my en suite. I need to hurl too."

***

He couldn't think of what to tell his family about where he went after the concert. He texted Annie.

703-902-xxxx: Situation is all fucked up. We are physically okay, but don't wait up for us. We need a minute. Can you relay that to my family? Jamie is under no circumstances allowed to come to save the day.

615-344-xxxx: 10-4. Love ya, dude. We're here the minute ya need anything.

It took them about two hours to get themselves fully cleaned up. Roxie changed into pajamas and wiped the make-up off her face. Steve cleaned up both bathrooms. Another hour passed before Roxie was able to ask Steve if he wanted some toast or saltines.

They ate the bland food, savoring the opportunity to do something other than just sit in silence, avoiding one another's gaze.

Around one a.m., Steve stood up. He walked over to Roxie who flinched back in her chair. He put out his hand, palm up, hanging in the air in front of her.

"My disgust with myself has transformed into fury at my dad," he said. "Can you touch my hand, just once, so we can prove it won't kill us and we can talk?"

Her eyes went wide. She nodded and laid her palm on top of his. When their skin connected, nothing went up in flames. It was just a touch. Steve pulled away and sat back down, exhaling a breath it felt like he'd been holding for hours.

Once they started talking, they couldn't stop. Steve couldn't decide which metaphor he liked better. It felt good sometimes, like a fire hydrant had burst and every thought, feeling, or insecurity they had about each other or themselves came out to play in the spray. It felt terrible the rest of the time, like a liquidation sale for a store going out of business where everything had to go.

Each had a million questions for the other, but many of them couldn't be answered without George Byrd and Judy Cortland in the room. Steve and Roxie agreed that they weren't ready for that group to hang out anytime soon.

"We can piece together a little bit though," Roxie said. "I was born in April '96. You were born in October '95."

"So my dad cheated on my mom sometime in the summer of '95," Steve said. "She was like six months into a high-risk pregnancy."

"He's a bastard, isn't he?"

"He always treated Sperry and me better than anyone else. Maybe it was guilt over an affair? It's his brand of fucked up that he did this DNA thing and never told us." They were silent for a while. Steve took out his phone and started searching the Internet for something. "All right, the big hits that summer were 'Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman' and 'Waterfalls.'"

"Why on Earth would you look that up?"

"I don't know, Roxie, I'm working without a net right now," he said, exhaustion evident in his voice and the slumped, boneless posture he'd assumed on her sofa. "Some stuff is starting to make sense."

"Like what?"

"Remember when we met? It was a full-on collision. I remember thinking that it was the most natural thing in the world to be near you. I just thought it was, you know, how boys feel about girls. But that immediate comfort with one another? I only ever felt that with one other person and that's Sperry."

"So I'm like a sister to you?" She didn't mean it as a joke, but once it escaped they both took it as one. They laughed. It was tentative, but a laugh nonetheless. "I felt the same way though. I felt like I could immediately trust you. Even when we fought. Oh god, our fights have been so bad."

"Yeah," Steve said, a grim look on his face. "You didn't grow up with siblings though. That's how siblings fight. You say the worst things imaginable to them -- things where if anyone else were to say them you'd punch them in the teeth -- and then come sit around the table later like nothing happened."

"Can you imagine if the district lines hadn't shifted and we ended up at the same high school?"

"No, I mentally and emotionally cannot."

"You know," she said, thoughtfully, "it's a crazy good thing we never officially dated."

Steve looked over at the sincere expression on her face. He felt sick again.

***

Steve snapped out of a trance around five in the morning. He was on one end of the sofa. Roxie was asleep on the other end. She was so tired she passed out with her head over the arm of the sofa, resting on the end table.

Steve got up and stretched. He went back to her bedroom and pulled the covers down. When he returned to the living room, he saw her there, sleeping peacefully, and felt a surge of goodwill towards her. He was glad for that because he wasn't prepared to never see her again.

Roxie stirred awake as he tried to pick her up. He couldn't get the angle right, so he stood her up and just walked her back to her bed. She was mumbling as they went. Steve helped her to bed and pulled the covers snugly around her. He grabbed an extra pillow and turned to go back to the couch.

"No," she said. Roxie had pulled the comforter over her head. "I don't trust anyone more than you. I don't like being near anyone more than you. Sleep here with me."

"Roxie, I don't think..."

"I'm not asking you to touch me," she said. "You need to stay on your side of the bed." She pulled the comforter down. "I just sleep best when you're in the room. It's always been that way."

"Okay," he said. Steve made his way around the other side, pulled off his shoes, and got into bed. He thought he'd lie there awake until she fell asleep and then start calling therapists, but he was gone the second his head hit the pillow.

***

Roxie was so warm. His arm fit so perfectly around her. His body felt entirely at ease as he drifted up out of the deep slumber.

She was moving against him. It wasn't teasing. She was just trying to get closer to his body, a place she always felt safe and loved.

"Roxie," he said through a yawn.

"Mmm?"

"We shouldn't be this close."

"No, it's not right," she said. She didn't move though. Neither did he. "We're touching each other though and nothing bad is happening. Can I turn over?

"Go for it."

She wriggled out from his arm enough to move and, with a little hop, flipped her body around. Their faces were close. Steve's hand ended up on the curve where her hip met her waist.

"Is this okay," he asked.

"It is."

They didn't speak for the next several minutes. It wasn't an awkward silence, but a searching one. Both tried to find answers in studying the face they knew better than any other, or in the eyes, they'd stared in a hundred times before.

"I like you as a person," Roxie said at long last. "I think I want you to know that as we deal with whatever is going to happen. If we didn't have a past and I met you tomorrow I'd still want to be your friend."

A weight lifted from Steve's chest. He felt more and more unburdened with each moment they stayed there together.

"You've always been special to me," Steve said. "You move through the world as if it belongs to you and I think you can do anything you care to try."

Roxie quickly leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She fell back to the pillow and her lip. Her cheeks flushed.

"Roxie..."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean anything...I just...we've dealt with our feelings one very specific way for a decade, Steve."

"I know," he said, shifting, coming closer to her. "I feel it too. My brain is telling me to get up and my body is--"

Her hand was on his chest. She leaned her face towards his. His hand reached around her waist and pulled her in.

Steve and Roxie kissed, gently, slowly, and completely. There was no performance this time. Neither was trying to one-up the other. They were simply there, present together in a moment.

Her hand moved to his stomach, down to his shorts. He was hard, as much as she'd ever felt. She reached in and wrapped her hand around him

"We shouldn't," she whispered. She moved her hand with light strokes up and down his length. "But if there is going to be a last time, I want to choose it."

Steve's eyes closed at the gentle pleasure flowing through him. He was consumed by her, which wasn't new in and of itself, but his mind was clear enough to wrap itself around her point.

"One more time," he said.

"One more time," she agreed. "I'm ready."

Roxie would normally roll over on him, but this time she didn't. She brought her face to Steve's and pulled him in for a kiss. She kept pulling him around, on top of her.

Steve struggled against the blankets, but he finally was able to push his shorts down. Roxie mirrored his motions and kicked off her pajama bottoms. They laughed into one another's mouths.

Steve lowered himself and felt his cock brush against her. She was soaking wet. Her hand reached for him again and guided him to her waiting pussy.

Steve slid inside her. She arched her back under him as she took its entire length. He waited inside, letting her adjust. Steve looked into Roxie's hazel eyes, realizing for the first time that they were the same shade as his own.

Roxie wrapped her legs around Steve's waist and began moving against him. He took the hint. Steve drew in and out of her in time with their breathing. Their sex was delicate, but it reached into some instinctual place in their hearts never before explored.

It didn't last long.

"I need to stop, Roxie," Steve said, softly moaning.

"Don't stop," she replied. He looked at her with shame in his eyes. She looked back with nothing but warmth. "I'm on the pill. I have Plan B." She was so matter-of-fact about it that it seemed cute. "One...more...time."

Steve couldn't have lasted longer if he tried. He kissed her again as he came, and fell on top of her once he was spent.

He rolled off with a moan, and she immediately snuggled into the space between his shoulder and chest. They lay quiet for a moment.

"Steve, are you freaked out?"

"Weirdly, no. But..."

"But?"

"I don't know that I need to ever do it again. I promise it's not personal. It's just like..."

"It was like kissing my brother," she said. They both laughed. "Yeah, I'm good too," she said, patting his chest.

July 2011

They were backstage in the main auditorium, waiting for their turn. All of the other students had been amazing and Steve appreciated the talent he was surrounded by. He felt ready to deliver.

He looked over at Roxie who was looking down at the ground and biting her nails. The lack of self-confidence unnerved him.

"Roxie, this is happening," he said. He put an arm around her. "It'll be over in like four minutes."

She didn't say anything. There wasn't time for a rousing speech. The students onstage finished to great applause and came off through the wing where they were standing. Once they cleared out, Steve pushed Roxie onstage and followed with his guitar.

The auditorium was packed with teachers, advisers, other nerd college students, and some family and friends who made the trip. Steve didn't have anyone there, but it wasn't really his show. Roxie pointed out her mom as the audience filled in. It surprised Steve how little alike they looked. It was hard to believe Roxie's mom was the short, fair blonde woman with rosy cheeks and bohemian style.

The audience quieted. Steve strummed his guitar to help guide her into the song. She opened her mouth and sang, but the words came out in a quiet, stuttering croak.

"Try not to...get worried, try not to turn on to...

problems that upset you. Don't you know that..."

She stopped dead in her tracks. She closed her eyes and started humming as if trying to remember the words. Steve had two lines to sing, and she hadn't even gotten to the handoff yet.

"Roxie," he said, simply, loud enough to carry over snickering and whispering from the audience. She looked up at him and he sang her next lines:

"Everything's all right, everything's fine."

A strange look passed over her face, one he hadn't seen yet in their friendship. For a second, it reminded him of the way Sperry's face changed when she finally understood something that was frustrating her.

Roxie smiled and walked over to Steve. She reached up with both hands to grab his head. She pulled him down and kissed him. When she let go, it was like watching the sun rush through broken clouds.

Roxie went back to her mic, grabbed it off the stand, and began singing. After a second or two of shock, Steve began his accompaniment.

"I don't know how to love him,

what to do, how to move him.

I've been changed, yes, really changed.

In these past few days

when I've seen myself

I seem like someone else...."

She brought the house down. She commanded the stage, hit every note, and left more than a few people crying in their seats.

Steve felt so much pride watching her perform. He hoped at that moment they'd be together forever.

August 2022

"Hey, Beanpole." She looked up from the email she was trying to draft to her father.

"Yeah?" He was making breakfast in the kitchen, even though it was two in the afternoon. They'd slept for hours. "What's up?"

"The next song you write about me is going to be so fucked up."

*****

Thank you for reading my story! More to come about some of the side characters in the future. Let me know who you want to hear more about: Lucy, Amy, Sperry, or Alison.

Huge credit to BrokenSpokes for The Rotors. This was an "ask for forgiveness, not permission" thing. You should go read all of their Blue Girl universe stories immediately.

As your treat for bearing with me, here are the track lists for Strawberry Street's first two records:

The Fan (EP), 2015

1. Craft Breweries
2. All One-Ways
3. Shins
4. Northeast Corridor
5. Annie Doesn't Talk about Scuffletown
6. Your Graduation (live) [Modern Baseball cover]
7. Joey (live) [Concrete Blonde cover]

Strawberry Street vs. Colossal Expectations, 2018

1. Floors
2. Lizzy Van Lew
3. Colossal Expectations
4. That is Why We Fought
5. Craft Breweries
6. Sometimes Girl
7. Faith/full of Shit
8. A Note on Politics
9. Basketball Town
10. No, Sounds Too Much like Canon in D
11. Annie Doesn't Ride Mechanical Bulls Anymore