This Girl: A Novel

of all —
    To put the emphasis
    On life .
    COMPLETELY.
    Utterly.
    Frozen.
    My eyes drop to the table in front of me when she finishes. Her words are still sinking in.
    A boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.
    In love with?
    That’s what she said.
    In love with. As in present tense.
    She loves me. Layken Cohen loves me.
    “Hold up your scores, man,” the guy next to me says, forcing the scorecard into my hand. I look at it, then look up at the stage. She’s not up there anymore. I spin around and see her making her way toward the exit in a hurry.
    What the hell am I doing just sitting here? She’s waiting on me to acknowledge everything she just said, and I’m sitting here frozen like an idiot.
    I stand up when the judges to the right of me hold up their scorecards. Three of them gave her a nine, the other an 8.5. I round the front of the table and flip the scores on all of their cards to tens. The points may not be the point, but her poetry kicked ass. “She gets tens.”
    I turn around and jump onto the stage. I grab the microphone out of the emcee’s hands and he rolls his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air.
    “Not again,” he says, defeated.
    I spot her as soon as she swings the doors open to step outside. “That’s not a good idea,” I say into the microphone. She stops in her tracks, then slowly turns around to face the stage. “You shouldn’t leave before you get your scores.”
    She looks at the judges’ table, then back to me. When she makes eye contact, she smiles.
    I grip the microphone, hell bent on performing the piece I wrote for her, but the magnetic pull to jump off the stage and take her in my arms is overwhelming. I stand firm, wanting her to hear what I have to say first. “I’d like to perform a piece,” I say, looking at the emcee. “It’s an emergency.” He nods and takes a few steps back. I turn around to face Lake again. She’s standing in the center of the room now, staring up at me.
    “Three dollars,” someone yells from the crowd.
    Shit. I pat my pockets, realizing I left my wallet in my car. “I don’t have any cash,” I say to the emcee.
    His eyes shift to Lake and mine follow. She pulls out the two dollars in change from her fee and walks to the stage, slapping it down in front of us.
    “Still a dollar short,” he says.
    Jesus! It’s one freaking dollar!
    The silence in the room is interrupted as several chairs slide from under their tables. People from all over the floor walk toward the stage, surrounding Lake as they throw dollar bills onto the stage. Everyone quickly makes their way back to their seats and Lake eyes the money, dumbfounded.
    “Okay,” the emcee says, taking in the pile of cash at my feet. “I guess that covers it. What’s the name of your piece, Will?”
    I look down at Lake and smile right back at her. “Better than third.”
    She takes a few steps back from the stage and waits for me to begin. I take a deep breath and prepare to tell her everything I should have said to her three months ago.
    I met a girl.
    A beautiful girl
    And I fell for her.
    I fell hard .
    Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way .
    Life definitely got in my way.
    It got all up in my damn way,
    Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden two-by-fours nailed together and attached to a fifteen-inch concrete wall behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame that no matter how hard I shoved against it—
    It
    wouldn’t
    budge.
    Sometimes life doesn’t budge .
    It just gets all up in your damn way.
    It blocked my plans , my dreams , my desires , my wishes , my wants , my needs .
    It blocked out that beautiful girl
    That I fell so hard for.
    Life tries to tell you what’s best for you.
    What should be most important to you.
    What should come first
    Or second
    Or third .
    I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized, stacked in chronological order , everything in its perfect space , its perfect place .
    I thought that’s what life wanted me to do.
    This is what life needed for me to do.
    Right ?
    Keep it all in sequence ?
    Sometimes life gets in your way .
    It gets all up in your damn way .
    But it doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it wants you to just give up and let it take control . Life doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along .
    Life wants you to fight it.
    Learn how to make it your own .
    It wants you to