Read Online Where She Went by Gayle Forman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gayle Forman
Tags: United States, Fiction, General, People & Places, Juvenile Fiction, music, Social Issues, Interpersonal relations, Genres & Styles, New York (N.Y.), Performing Arts, Love & Romance, Rock Music, Musicians, Death & Dying, Emotional Problems of Teenagers, Emotional Problems, Emotions & Feelings, Interpersonal Relations in Adolescence, Violoncello
Ads: Link
program that helps street kids by teaching them to play musical instruments, he wound up becoming a conductor at sixteen. He was the conductor of the Prague Philharmonic at twenty-four, and now he’s the artistic director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and runs that very same program in Venezuela that gave him his start. He sort of breathes music. Same as you.”
Who says I breathe music? Who says I even breathe? “Wow,” I say, trying to push back against the jealousy I have no right to.
Mia looks up, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry. I forget sometimes that the entire world isn’t up on the minutiae of classical music. He’s pretty famous in our world.”
Yeah, well my girlfriend is really famous in the rest of the world , I think. But does she even know about Bryn and me? You’d have to have your head buried beneath a mountain not to have heard about us. Or you’d have to intentionally be avoiding any news of me. Or maybe you’d just have to be a classical cellist who doesn’t read tabloids. “He sounds swell ,” I say.
Even Mia doesn’t miss the sarcasm. “Not famous, like you, I mean,” she says, her gushiness petering into awkwardness.
I don’t answer. For a few seconds there’s no sound, save for the river of traffic on the street. And then Mia’s stomach gurgles again, reminding us that we’ve been waylaid in this garden. That we’re actually on our way someplace else.
SEVEN
In a weird twisted way, Bryn and I met because of Mia. Well, one degree of separation, I guess. It was really because of the singer-songwriter Brooke Vega. Shooting Star had been slated to open for Brooke’s former band, Bikini, the day of Mia’s accident. When I hadn’t been allowed to visit Mia in the ICU, Brooke had come to the hospital to try to create a diversion. She hadn’t been successful. And that had been the last I’d seen of Brooke until the crazy time after Collateral Damage went double platinum.
Shooting Star was in L.A. for the MTV Movie Awards. One of our previously recorded but never released songs had been put on the sound track for the movie Hello, Killer and was nominated for Best Song. We didn’t win.
It didn’t matter. The MTV Awards were just the latest in a string of ceremonies, and it had been a bumper crop in terms of awards. Just a few months earlier we’d picked up our Grammys for Best New Artist and Song of the Year for “Animate.”
It was weird. You’d think that a platinum record, a pair of Grammys, a couple of VMAs would make your world, but the more it all piled on, the more the scene was making my skin crawl. There were the girls, the drugs, the ass-kissing, plus the hype—the constant hype. People I didn’t know—and not groupies, but industry people—rushing up to me like they were my longtime friends, kissing me on both cheeks, calling me “babe,” slipping business cards into my hand, whispering about movie roles or ads for Japanese beer, one-day shoots that would pay a million bucks.
I couldn’t handle it, which was why once we’d finished doing our bit for the Movie Awards, I’d ducked out of the Gibson Amphitheater to the smokers’ area. I was planning my escape when I saw Brooke Vega striding toward me. Behind her was a pretty, vaguely familiarlooking girl with long black hair and green eyes the size of dinner plates.
“Adam Wilde as I live and breathe,” Brooke said, embracing me in a dervish hug. Brooke had recently gone solo and her debut album, Kiss This , had been racking up awards, too, so we’d been bumping into each other a lot at the various ceremonies. “Adam, this is Bryn Shraeder, but you probably know her as the fox nominated for The Best Kiss Award. Did you catch her fabulous smooch in The Way Girls Fall ?”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
“I lost to a vampire-werewolf kiss. Girl-on-girl action doesn’t have quite the same impact it used to,” Bryn deadpanned.
“You were robbed!” Brooke interjected. “Both of you. It’s a
Who says I breathe music? Who says I even breathe? “Wow,” I say, trying to push back against the jealousy I have no right to.
Mia looks up, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry. I forget sometimes that the entire world isn’t up on the minutiae of classical music. He’s pretty famous in our world.”
Yeah, well my girlfriend is really famous in the rest of the world , I think. But does she even know about Bryn and me? You’d have to have your head buried beneath a mountain not to have heard about us. Or you’d have to intentionally be avoiding any news of me. Or maybe you’d just have to be a classical cellist who doesn’t read tabloids. “He sounds swell ,” I say.
Even Mia doesn’t miss the sarcasm. “Not famous, like you, I mean,” she says, her gushiness petering into awkwardness.
I don’t answer. For a few seconds there’s no sound, save for the river of traffic on the street. And then Mia’s stomach gurgles again, reminding us that we’ve been waylaid in this garden. That we’re actually on our way someplace else.
SEVEN
In a weird twisted way, Bryn and I met because of Mia. Well, one degree of separation, I guess. It was really because of the singer-songwriter Brooke Vega. Shooting Star had been slated to open for Brooke’s former band, Bikini, the day of Mia’s accident. When I hadn’t been allowed to visit Mia in the ICU, Brooke had come to the hospital to try to create a diversion. She hadn’t been successful. And that had been the last I’d seen of Brooke until the crazy time after Collateral Damage went double platinum.
Shooting Star was in L.A. for the MTV Movie Awards. One of our previously recorded but never released songs had been put on the sound track for the movie Hello, Killer and was nominated for Best Song. We didn’t win.
It didn’t matter. The MTV Awards were just the latest in a string of ceremonies, and it had been a bumper crop in terms of awards. Just a few months earlier we’d picked up our Grammys for Best New Artist and Song of the Year for “Animate.”
It was weird. You’d think that a platinum record, a pair of Grammys, a couple of VMAs would make your world, but the more it all piled on, the more the scene was making my skin crawl. There were the girls, the drugs, the ass-kissing, plus the hype—the constant hype. People I didn’t know—and not groupies, but industry people—rushing up to me like they were my longtime friends, kissing me on both cheeks, calling me “babe,” slipping business cards into my hand, whispering about movie roles or ads for Japanese beer, one-day shoots that would pay a million bucks.
I couldn’t handle it, which was why once we’d finished doing our bit for the Movie Awards, I’d ducked out of the Gibson Amphitheater to the smokers’ area. I was planning my escape when I saw Brooke Vega striding toward me. Behind her was a pretty, vaguely familiarlooking girl with long black hair and green eyes the size of dinner plates.
“Adam Wilde as I live and breathe,” Brooke said, embracing me in a dervish hug. Brooke had recently gone solo and her debut album, Kiss This , had been racking up awards, too, so we’d been bumping into each other a lot at the various ceremonies. “Adam, this is Bryn Shraeder, but you probably know her as the fox nominated for The Best Kiss Award. Did you catch her fabulous smooch in The Way Girls Fall ?”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
“I lost to a vampire-werewolf kiss. Girl-on-girl action doesn’t have quite the same impact it used to,” Bryn deadpanned.
“You were robbed!” Brooke interjected. “Both of you. It’s a
Similar Books
