Martin and Chris must have forced him to break up with me, I decided. One of them probably had some hot chick they wanted to impress, and they were planning on offering to let her take my place in the band, once I was out of the picture. That had to be it!
But now that I knew it, what was I supposed to do with that knowledge? I couldn’t very well go up to Keith and say, “Hey, I read in this book I found that you still liked me, so why don’t we both tell the stupid band to go screw itself so we can go out?” If he missed me so much that he couldn’t stand to be in Martin’s basement, though, maybe just seeing me would be enough to make him do all the work for me.
Of course, I couldn’t just go over to his house, not without some sort of an excuse. I sighed, eyes wandering around my room while I tried to think of one, until they landed on the stack of Keith’s CDs sitting by my CD book. Perfect.
I started to stand, only to pause over the book for a moment. Should I look forward, and see if this was a good idea? Maybe just a peek, to be sure? Would there even be an answer there? I hadn’t gotten far enough into the book to know if there was anything in it past that day; even if there was, would looking at it, especially if it told me that going to see Keith now was a bad plan, change things? If that changed things, had my looking at the part that told what happened in the basement while I wasn’t there done anything?
Honestly, thinking like that made my head hurt, and wasn’t getting me anywhere. I slipped a bookmark in, then closed the book and stashed it back in my desk drawer. There was only one more of the cookies Lela had made me left, so I decided to eat it for good luck, and resolved to call her back – she’d left me a few voice-mails that afternoon that I’d ignored – and apologize when I got home.
“I’m going for a walk!” I called towards the kitchen after quickly changing into some normal, slightly nice, clothes. “I’ll be back in time for dinner!” I didn’t wait for an answer.
I noticed my hands were shaking when I opened the door, so I put my earbuds back in and started playing the music from that CD again to try and calm down. I’d have to remember to ask Keith where he’d gotten it, or at the very least, what group it was.
A block or so away, my car pulled up next to me. “Where are you going?” my mom asked through the window.
“Just going for a walk,” I told her.
“Do you want a ride?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be back for dinner.”
She nodded, pulled back out into the street. I watched her drive away, then continued on towards Keith’s house, turning the volume on my MP3 player up a little to try to cover up the sound of my heart thumping in my chest.