I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!
I kiss Grams on the cheek on the way out.
“Was that you yelling, darling?” she asks as I grab my bookbag from the kitchen chair and sling it over my shoulder.
“Nope! It was the radio!” I reply, checking the time on my phone; 11:57 p.m. Mick’s texted me four times already asking me where I am.
I’m about to be late for the first time in the history of time, that’s where I am.
I hurtle down the stairs two at a time and stumble toward the road, making my way toward the red blinking light in the sky. It takes at least ten minutes to get there. I’m so going to be late. And I have fans now! They’re expecting me!
Oh God, I have fans now.
They’re expecting me.
Fans.
Oh. Oh bless I just realized. I have fans. People who listen to me. Draw fan art. Dissect my shows and everything I say and—
Headlights flood the street in front of me from behind and I tense, somehow thinking it’s Heather. But the motor’s too loud to be a hybrid, and Heather is probably home by now. Why would she come this way anyway?
A guy pulls up beside me on his motorbike. “North!”
I don’t recognize him at first. For one, he’s wearing a salon cap—you know the plastic ones that you wear when you get your hair dyed and sit under those fancy dryers at salons? I have to do a double take before I actually recognize him. And he looks like he ran all the way from his mom’s salon and not, you know, motorbiked.
“Bless—Billie? What are you doing to your hair? And you’re . . . sweating.”
The worried look on his face melts into a grin. “Oh, yeah. Uh, my mom wanted to try something new. Plastic caps are all the rage these days.” That Golden Boy smile crosses his lips. Wide, honest. Why does my head seem to go gooey every time he smiles like that now? “You look like you’re late to something.”
“I—ah—no I was just, uh, walking. What are you doing on this side of town?”
He ignores the question. “Need a ride?”
I quickly look away. “Um, I think I’m good. I’m just, you know, walking.”
“Need some company, then?”
“Nah, I bet you have stuff to do.”
“C’monnnnnn North, I’m out here in a dying cap in the middle of the night. I have nothing to do,” he replies, and then begins to grin coyly. “You do have a secret boyfriend, don’t you? Gonna go meet him and kiss under the radio tower?”
I laugh. “I’m just walking! Is it a crime to walk? It’s a pretty night for a walk.” And to be late to my radio show. My radio show. The host is never late to her own show!
“You said walk three times in one breath. You’re hiding something. What are you hiding?” He begins to waddle-walk his bike beside me.
The headlight lights the street all the way to my destination. It looks so far away, and yet it’s so close.
Blocked by one Billie Bleaker.
Mick once asked me why I never told my friends about my radio show. There really isn’t a simple answer. I guess I can chalk it up to being selfish, but that’s not the whole truth. The truth of it is I don’t have to pretend to be anyone on the radio. I’m just myself, completely myself. Not living up to standards. Not fitting myself into a mold. I have no history over the airwaves, nothing that confines me, nothing that keeps me here. And that’s sort of sacred to me, that secret. I’m not Ingrid North, the DUFF of her beautiful friends. I’m not Ingrid North whose mom abandoned her when she was seven. I’m not Ingrid North, the sole guardian of her grandmother, now floating away.
I’m Niteowl, and no matter how close my real friends are, I don’t think I can ever expose the parts of me to them that are so easily heard on air. And I want to keep it that way. It’s easier.
Simple.
But this—losing Billie before I miss my show—is not simple.
Billie studies me for a long moment. “It’s not really a guy, is it?”
“Maybe it is,” I reply airily.
“You’d have told me.”
“Would I, though?” It’s a terrible comeback, but it does exactly what I need it to.
His face closes, so very suddenly, like a Venus flytrap. He quickly looks down at the ground. “Sorry, yeah. You’re right. Coming to Den’s tomorrow?” He doesn’t sound angry, just letdown. Hey, if he’s disappointed, then he should just get in line behind Micah.
“I’ll see you there,” I reply.
He kicks the clutch, and his bike roars to life. I don’t go into a full-tilt run until he turns down Corley Street, but then you better believe I make a break for the radio station like the hounds of hell are on my heels. I’m late. And you know what that means?
Mick’s doing my show.