Kevin Emerson: Exile

I duck back but I know it’s too late. The last thing I see is him starting at seeing me.

And then from beyond the door I hear. “Ahh shit!”

Silence—

Then a crash.

I lean back out. Caleb has vanished. The guitar cable has pulled out of the amp and is draped over the wall. I hear a long, pained exhale from the other side.

“Oh!” I rush out. “Are you okay?”

I run to the wall and try to hoist myself up, but it’s been a long time since those Saturdays at gymnastics, so instead I sprint down the ramp and around to a line of Dumpsters. I peer over the lip of the one nearest the wall to find Caleb lying on a pile of black trash bags, his cheek resting against an unidentifiable pile of something like dust or hair, it’s hard to tell. The smell is unreal but the bags seem to have held. He’s holding his guitar up above his chest.

He stares blankly at the sky, blinks, then finally takes a big breath. He examines the guitar. “Okay, it’s fine.”

“What about you?” I ask.

Caleb sits up, taking in his surroundings. “I suppose it would be a pretty lame cliché to say that this fits my current situation.”

A little laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Yeah, please don’t.”

He unplugs the cable and holds out the guitar. “Can you take this?” For a moment, his eyes lock on mine. Dark brown, like murder-mystery dark, especially in the shadow of his shaggy hair. Soft features that just seem to get out of the way of those eyes . . . oh, boy.

I take the guitar carefully. “Got it.”

Caleb pulls himself out and brushes off. “How do I look?”

“Less like you just Dumpster dived than you could have.”

“I didn’t think anyone would hear me out here,” he says, coiling the guitar cable as we walk back around.

“I almost didn’t,” I say. “Why weren’t you up at the concert?”

“Long story.” He turns off the amp, unplugs it from the extension cord, and stuffs the amp’s power cord into the back.

“You mean the long story of how you blew up your old band and now you’re Least Likely to Get a Hug from a PopArts Kid?”

Caleb looks up at me. “Word gets around, huh?”

“That’s the point of words. They get around.” I hope that sounds witty. Then I worry it sounds dumb. But then I hate that I’m worried or trying to sound witty just because I’m around some band boy. Okay, a hot, dreamy, great-singing, possibly-with-a-deep-dark-side band boy. But still.

Caleb lifts the amp and starts toward the door. It seems like he might just walk off, but then he pauses for me to catch up. “So why aren’t you at the concert?” he asks.

I smile. “Long story.”

We head inside. He bends, straining to grab the extension cord around the bulk of the amp, but I step in front of him and start looping it around my palm and elbow as we go.

“Very professional,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“So, long story like the band you totally broke to the world dumped you and now you can’t stand being around bands?”

“There go the words,” I say. “Getting around. But, actually, I came looking for you.”

“It’s Summer, right? We were in chem lecture last year. I’m Caleb.”

“I know. And yeah, I think we were.”

“No, we definitely were. And in Spanish class sophomore year. You sat in front.”

This is impressive and maybe has me a bit with the fluttery nerves. “ Si, senor . Aren’t you going to ask why I came looking for you?”

We arrive back in the Green Room. Caleb slides the practice amp into a closet and locks it. “No,” he says, moving to the case racks on the far wall. “I don’t want to spoil it.”

“What do you mean?”

Caleb pulls out his case, kneels and lays his guitar on the bed of burgundy fur inside. “Because you’ll say that you’re wondering if I’m going to put a new band together, because the ones you just saw up there weren’t good enough. . . .”

“Which is just past confident and maybe slightly cocky of you to think.”

Caleb shakes his head. “Just being honest. I used to care what sounded confident or cocky . . .”

“But now?”

“But now I’ll just tell you that I’m not going to put a band together. No one would have me anyway.”

“Well, that might be true, but . . . why not? I heard you out there just now. It was good. Though I guess you know that.”

“Really?” Suddenly he sounds like my opinion matters. “No, I mean, sure I can sing and play and stuff, but that song just now, I was out there because I didn’t want anyone to hear it.”

“Why not?”

“Same reason I’m not forming a band.”

The bell rings. End of lunch. Time for sixth period, which for me is calc.

Caleb stashes his guitar. We start out the door just as the first PopArts kids are pushing in and they all have a glare for Caleb, and by extension me.

Out in the hall, Caleb stops before heading in the other direction. Streams form on either side of us.

“So,” I say, “you’re gonna do the loner thing.”

Caleb frowns and glances away. “Not that simple.”

“Okay. What happened then? What happened on August fourteenth”—just the mention of his Twitter-nuking date makes his eyes flash back to me and they’ve cooled and I can tell we’ve entered shark-infested waters—“that turned you into an—”

“Exile,” says Caleb. He just looks at me.

A second passes and it’s weird. “What?”

He looks at the ceiling. Back to me. He’s not smiling, exactly, more like studying, but . . . damn those eyes. “You want to know?”

I give him a courtesy eye roll. “We covered that topic already when I asked what happened .”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to go out with me.”

“What?” I wonder if I heard him right while knowing of course I heard him right and thinking this is one of the most backward pickup’s I’ve ever heard of, but also I think my pulse just hit a hundred. “You’re asking me out?”

“Yes.”

I don’t want to say yes, but I don’t want to say no, and then just to say something I hear myself ask, “When?”

Caleb’s eyes stay dead on me. “Now.”

I probably kind of gape at him. “Now.”

“Now.” He glances at the pair of doors that lead out toward the parking lots.

“I have class,” I say.

Caleb sighs. “So do I. Everyone has class. There will always be class. Come with me anyway. And I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you everything.” He steps closer. It feels dangerous, like maybe he’s being too forward, or like maybe I might just reach out and touch him, and I’m having no luck figuring out which, because my senses and my heartbeat and my thoughts are all a blur.

“I thought you were going with the nobody-understands-me thing.”

“I was, until five minutes ago. But one thing I learned this summer is that life can change pretty fast in five minutes.”

I remember a five-minute stretch in July where I learned the same thing. “I’m not gonna lie; you’re making a good case here.”

“Summer,” he says.

What is it about someone calling you by name? How rarely does that actually happen? To hear your name in close confines.

“Um . . .” None of this is what I’m used to people saying to me. Summer . . . but what the hell? I just spent the vast majority of two months rehashing and regretting all things band boy! Did I not just do this? Is this not just me going in another circle? The cute singer boy who says the big things, all mysterious and poetic? And we remember how that turned out and yet, YET, Caleb isn’t Ethan , I find myself thinking, and I want to know. I want to know.

Dammit dammit dammit.