Courtney is great at keeping my mind off things and we eat a heap load of junk food and she tells me about all the gossip from home. We settle in and decide on a HP movie marathon, and then we get out her HP trump cards and play a silly game of top trumps. I knew I could rely on Courtney to make me laugh and make me forget about my troubles. She is always so upbeat and your mood can’t help but lift when she is around you.
It’s at night though when I’m lying in my bed and Courtney is snoring away that my emotions crash and down on me and I cry silently in bed. This is all my own fault. I opened my heart to a player and I’ve been played. Even Paige had warned me he’d get bored eventually and all it takes is some leggy blonde from a rich family to show him interest and he’d cheated on me. I’m not sure my heart can take any more pain. There’s been so much of it over these last two years. My foundation had been ripped away from me, and two of the people I relied most on in this world had left me behind to go it alone. There were days when I hated Shaun for what he had done, for leaving me the way he did. It was stupid; I know. He was sick and wasn’t thinking like a rational, healthy person, but today was one of those days when I was angry with him. I need him and my mum and neither of them were here for me.
I toss and turn all night and my dreams are plagued with Grayson. I wake up early and lie there in the pull-up bed for some time, staring at the ceiling until I hear Courtney stir.
“Urgh, is it only eight-thirty?” she groans, throwing her head back down on her pillow. She turns on her side so that she can face me and smiles. “Hey, how you holding up?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m managing,” I reply with a sigh. “I’m dreading turning on my phone today, but I need to check in with my dad.”
Courtney sits up and holds out her hand. “Give it to me. I’ll turn it on and get rid of any messages and alerts.”
I reach down to the floor beside me and grabbing my phone; I pass it to her. She turns it on and notification after notification beeps on my phone.
“Jesus, someone’s persistent,” she says, frowning at my screen.
“Grayson?”
She nods her head. “There’s a tonne of missed calls and eight messages from him. You want to know what they say?”
I shake my head firmly. “No, just leave them in my inbox.”
Courtney’s phone buzzes, and she smiles as she reads her screen.
“Would that smile have anything to do with Jake?” I ask her grinning and she plays it down by rolling her eyes at me.
“He’s practicing with his band today in the garage and he’s asked if we want to come and watch.”
“He’s in a band?” I ask, surprised.
Courtney waggles her eyebrows. “He is a guy of many talents.”
I chuckle and I throw my scrunchie at her. “I don’t want to know about those kind of talents, thank you very much.”
“I’ll tell him no, you need retail therapy today,” she says as she types a reply on her phone.
I reach out and snag the phone out of her hand and delete her message, changing it to say she would be there.
“You’d better not be writing anything embarrassing on there, Taylor!” She warns me as she grapples the phone out of my hands. She reads my message and looks at me with a slight frown of concern. “Are you sure? We don’t have to?”
I grin and bump shoulders with her. “Just because my love life is a wreck doesn’t mean yours has to be.”
“We’ll just stay an hour,” she insists, before she heads to her wardrobe to decide what to wear.
AN HOUR TURNS INTO three. Jake and his band are great. Jake is lead vocals and then there is Cam on drums, and Jack and Lucas on guitar. Courtney has been staring all starry-eyed at Jake when he sings, and I have to nudge her a few times and remind her to reign in her drooling.
Jake finishes singing their rendition of a well-known Killers song, and Courtney and I both applaud them.
“You guys are really good,” I tell him.
He grins in response, adjusting his mic stand.
“You know Courtney can sing,” I say.
I feel her eyes like daggers from the side of my vision.
“Really?” Jake tilts his head, looking at her in surprise.
Courtney shrugs. “She’s exaggerating, I’m mediocre.”
I scoff and they both look my way.
“She’s super good, and she’s being far too modest.”
Jake nods, observing her, and she flushes a cute shade of red. “How about a duet?”
Courtney shakes her head, so I jump up and grab the spare microphone and shove it in her hand. “Come on Court, show them what you’ve got.”
She gives me a look that tells me she will be having serious words with me later but she takes the mic and moves to stand beside Jake.
“How about ‘Just Give me a Reason’ You know it?”
Courtney nods and I can tell she’s nervous, as she can’t keep still on her feet. The guys start to play and Courtney sings and I watch with a smile on my face as Jake falls further under her spell. He stands there stunned to silence as he takes in her melodic voice.
I smile to myself as they sing together. The lyrics about broken love weave their way into my mind and my heart physically twinges. We’d
