16

ANITA’S GOING TO kill me. Anita’s going to kill me. Anita’s going to kill me.

For the past hour and a half, I have been lying on my bed with my arms over my eyes, replaying the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad interview that just went down and the mixed expression of surprise, satisfaction, and even admiration from Jaded Jase as she scooped up her bag and left my hotel room. “See you at the shoot tomorrow,” she called smugly as the door slammed closed behind her. She’s probably on her way to the Rolling Stone offices right now, taking notes on how all the haters are right about me.

I look over at my own iPad on the bed next to me and feel tears well up in my eyes. I made the mistake of Googling “Bird Barrett Hate Sites,” and there were so many that I got upset all over again. People hate me. People literally hate me. They don’t even know me, but they want me to die or drink their urine or get blown up in the next terrorist attack. Who are these people? What did I ever do to them?

Tears stream down the sides of my face before I can stop them.

And my music. I work so hard on my music.

“Bird?” Adam calls from the living room.

Quickly, I sit up and wipe my face with my shirtsleeve. “What are you doing here?” I call.

“I came back for a heavier coat,” he says, walking toward the bedroom, “but I must’ve grabbed the wrong key card earlier. I somehow got yours.”

“Oh.”

“We called and texted, but finally Stella and Dylan just went ahead and got in line and I thought I’d come back and pull you away—” He stops short when he sees my face, and his own looks really worried as he sits down on the bed beside me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

I start crying full out and lean against his chest, his arms wrapping around me immediately. “I messed up, Adam,” I sob. “I just messed up so bad and Anita’s going to kill me and Dan’s going to be so mad and my fans—” I stop, taking a deep breath, before just crying harder. “My fans are going to hate me!”

“Bird,” he whispers. He shushes me, rocks me, and runs his fingers through my hair as I cry against his chest. “When you can,” he says quietly, “tell me what happened.”

I sniff, lean back, and reach over for a box of tissues. I hate that I’m crying like this in front of Adam, but at the same time, I love that he’s here. “Ugh, I feel so stupid,” I say. “I let her get to me. It was just like when I lost my temper with Kayelee on New Year’s, and I’m so mad at myself. I try so hard to be nice to everybody, but when somebody pushes me and pushes me and pushes me, I explode.”

He nods.

“And this reporter,” I spit out. I blow my nose and shake my head. “She acted so cool this whole time. I’m following her on Instagram and everything, and I thought, you know, we might even stay in touch. But it’s like she was just reeling me in. Like, ‘This isn’t an interview, Bird, you idiot. This is just a bunch of friends hanging out on tour for a few days.’ And then, bam! She sits me down a while ago and shows me all these hate sites about me and mean tweets and memes and—” I exhale loudly. I take a shaky breath and go on. “I know I shouldn’t care what people think about me, but I do. It hurts. They don’t know how hard I work and how much I care about my music or what it was like to lose my brother and then ask my family to give up the one thing that kept us together during the worst time of our lives. They don’t know anything, but they spew all this venom and—I don’t get it.”

Adam nods, his eyes filled with real concern.

“Why?” I ask, my eyes filling with fresh tears. “Why do they hate me, Adam?”

He gives me a small grin and kisses my temple. “Nobody hates you, Lady Bird,” he says sweetly. “You’re un-hate-able.”

I scoff. “Not according to the I Hate Bird Barrett Facebook page,” I say bitterly.

“You can’t read that stuff,” he says when I reach for my iPad. He turns it facedown and grabs my hands. “You can’t let pathetic trolls—cowards who hide behind their computer screens at night—do this to you. You just can’t let them. There are people out there who are so miserable that they’re not happy unless someone else is miserable. They are broken and bruised and scarred, and the only way they can cope with the depressing lives they are forced to live is to try to bring other people down with them.”

He is staring at me so intently that I finally nod. “I know,” I say softly.

“You can’t let broken people break you.”

I sniff and reach for another tissue, letting his words sink in. “I like that,” I say. “You’re right.”

“Good,” he says. “Now what’s this reporter’s home address? I need to go egg her house.”

“Adam!”

“Come on,” he says, throwing an arm around my shoulders. He is grinning from ear to ear. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“It’d be awesome,” I admit.

I smile over at him, his face right next to mine, his impossibly long lashes low as his face softens. “I really want to kiss you right now, Lady Bird.”

I gulp. “You should,” I say quietly.

And so Adam leans in, his hand tightening around my shoulder as he draws closer, and I shut my eyes. His lips are so soft and perfect against mine that when our mouths meet my whole body melts into his as he pulls me near. It’s not our first kiss, but it’s gentle, it’s sweet, and it’s been a long time coming. My heart isn’t skipping; my pulse isn’t racing. My whole body is relaxed, comfortable, and content, like this is the person I was born to kiss. He pulls away a little, rubs his nose against the side of mine, and lays his forehead against my own. “Bird, I’ve wanted to do that again since that first time in my truck and every single time I’ve seen you since that day.”

I pull back some and look him right in the eyes. “I was hoping you’d give us another chance,” I admit softly. “With the tour and my schedule being so crazy—my life hasn’t gotten any less complicated—I wasn’t sure you’d want to try again.”

“Oh, I do want to try again,” he says, kissing me. “And again,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose. “And again.” He kisses both cheeks.

I laugh. “I was talking about ‘us,’ but this works, too.”

Then Adam scrunches up his face and pulls away. He licks his tongue on the sleeve of his shirt.

“Oh, there’s every girl’s dream come true,” I say sarcastically.

“No.” He laughs. “I love kissing you, Bird. It’s just—your makeup’s smudged all over your cheeks and that last kiss…”

I grab a tissue and stand up, horrified after I run to the bathroom mirror and see my reflection. “I look like a zombie!”

“A cute zombie,” he calls.

I turn on the water and grab my face wash, chagrined that Adam finally kissed me on the day I have mascara streaming down my cheeks and a runny nose. This is what Hollywood always gets wrong. The major moments are never flawless.

When I turn the water off, I hear music as I grab for a towel. I dry my face and apply some moisturizer, smiling as Adam picks out a melody on my guitar that I’ve never heard before.

“That’s pretty,” I remark, walking back to the bed.

He nods and grins up at me. “I think there may be a song in this room.” He stops playing and passes me my iPad. The only app open now is Notes, where he’s typed, “Broken People.”

“‘You can’t let broken people break you,’” I say, repeating what he told me earlier.

He starts to play again and I nod my head, feeling the notes wrap around me like a warm hug. I start typing quick phrases, images flooding my brain as he strums, and I feel power in responding to the hate that had me in its grip before Adam walked in. Adam: this boy who’s like my mirror image in so many ways.

There is a song in this room, one beating against my rib cage, one that we’re going to write together.