I've Never Lit a Match

Layla hadn’t been very impressed by any of the three stops in arid, miserable, too-big Texas. When they finally reached Anaheim, California, however, her anticlimactic trip through the lone-star state was promptly forgotten. After emerging out the western end of Texas and making a few more southwestern tour stops in Arizona and New Mexico, they made it to southern California, where Layla saw the original Disneyland and swam in the Pacific Ocean. This was something worth making a fuss about.

Layla knew Anaheim as the birthplace of No Doubt, a band she had grown up on. She wondered how her formative years may have been different, if this was the music scene she called home. Would her music be more beachy and colorful, reminiscent of ‘90s garage rock?

Skimming record shop aisles with Zack and Rian on their second morning in the pacific city, Layla realized that – no – just because her idea of Anaheim was trapped in the ‘90s with Gwen Stefani and Everclear, that didn’t mean the actual city was stuck there too. Still, southern California had her thinking of the bright, guitar-driven kind of music you play while driving with the windows down, perfectly succinct looped choruses making up songs that only last two minutes and thirty seconds, tops. You had to blame the thought on her current position, though, looking through used LPs in a record shop that was walking distance from a boardwalk that jutted out into the Pacific Ocean.

Layla wanted to live there. Not the record shop, necessarily, which actually had a relatively subpar selection and a bit of an odd smell to it, but Anaheim itself. She wanted to live in the city where Gwen Stefani had first experimented with lipstick and taken the stage alongside a band her older brother had formed. She wanted to play in the waves with Alex like children, like they had done for hours the evening before. She wanted to write songs on the beach, work in a small local recording studio and help make things. Anaheim seemed to offer the peaceful carefree-music-making lifestyle she had had in mind when rejecting offers from both Kris and Alex. She imagined an easy sunshining existence in Anaheim. It managed to give her love affair with classic ol’ Nashville a run for its money.

“Hey, Ri, c’mere,” Layla called to Rian, who stood a few feet down from her, sorting through a milk crate full of comic books. “Should I get it for Alex?”

Rian looked her way and laughed. Layla was holding a used Hilary Duff CD, repackaged and marked at three dollars. The past few days, Alex had taken to singing the song “So Yesterday” whenever the moment struck him – which was often – and now the entire All Time Low band and crew seemed to be stuck with it in their heads. Alex had even been suggesting that they cover the song in one of their upcoming sets. For the most part, it was a joke, though Layla actually kind of thought the end result might be interesting.

“Please don’t add fuel to the fire,” Rian responded, chuckling as he shook his head. When Alex had first taken up the sudden Hilary Duff kick, it had been funny. The joke had, however, outstayed its welcome by at least a few days.

“Whatcha got there?” Zack emerged from the back of the store, walking towards his friends with his shorts hanging loose around his chiseled hips. He wore a black Red Hot Chili Peppers tank that left his thick, muscled arms uncovered. In addition, his right arm was left slightly, casually flexed because of how he had it held, hiding something behind his back. The unintentional – but impressive – flexing, paired with his worn sandals and shaggy sand-colored hair, gave Layla the impression that Zack was kind of like a modern-day pop-punk Hercules.

“Used Hilary Duff,” Layla held up the Metamorphosis album as an explanation.

Zack, laughing, just took the CD from Layla’s hand and set it back down in the stacks. He let the gesture represent an unspoken “let’s not go there.”

“What’ve you got?” Layla wondered and, in rely, Zack pulled a white baseball hat from behind his back.

“Made me think of you,” he told her, setting it atop her head. The hat was plain white and on the front, where there would usually be a sports team logo, was the Hole band logo from the Live Through This album artwork – white letters in Mattel Barbie font inside their usual pink bubble. Layla had told him a few times about how much she liked Courtney Love and how Love’s band Hole was one of her favorites.

“Oh my god, that’s so cool,” Layla took it in her hands to look over the patch on the front.

Zack grinned, satisfied with his find. “Thought you’d like it,” he told her, taking the hat from her hands and walking towards the counter, where the sole record-store employee stood waiting bored behind the register.

The same guy had scoffed at Layla’s oversized black-and-white Walk the Line movie t-shirt when they first walked in, subtly implying that young girls weren’t real Johnny Cash fans just because they’d seen the movie about him. Layla had chosen not to validate his casual misogyny with a response; she didn’t need to justify her ability to wear the shirt by backing it up with the fact that she had grown up listening to Johnny Cash in the car with her mother. She didn’t need to justify a single thing about herself to the douchey record-store clerk who had trapped her in a boring conversation when they first walked into the store, a conversation that he had dominated with longwinded mansplaining and condescending remarks.

Zack placed the hat on the counter in front of Douchey Johnny Cash Mansplainer.

“What are you doing?” Layla squinted at him as he took his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Buying you the cool hat I found,” Zack shut down her attempts to offer him money. “It’s a present, like you got me that ketchup bottle keychain in Dallas,” he said.

“That was, like, a joke…” Layla offered, trailing the boys out the door and continuing to argue even after Zack had already paid.

“I like it, though,” he said, stopping for a moment to fit the new purchase onto Layla’s head before the three continued on down the street.

They had arrived in Anaheim the previous afternoon at around two o’clock. Without a show to play last night or any publicity-related obligations, they all went off in their separate directions to explore the city and take advantage of the day off. After getting lunch together, Layla and Alex wound up on the beach. They laid out on a blanket and jokingly compared their hairy legs, laughing about the cute baby hairs that had developed on Layla’s legs since she hadn’t been keeping up with shaving over the summer. Layla had lamented that she should get back to shaving, but Alex called her leg hairs cute and said she reminded him of Jane from Tarzan.

Later that afternoon, Alex bought them French fries at a concession stand and then fell asleep on the sand while Layla rolled over onto her stomach to write in her journal. When writing made her eyes tired, she laid her head down too. They had woken from their naps a while later, as the sun was slowly setting, and waded into the warm water to float in the waves like content children.

Now Layla walked along the sidewalk with Rian and Zack. Her sunburns had faded into a tan, her new hat was badass, and everything about her current surroundings was relaxed and beautiful. She was the same content child she had been last night, playing in the ocean with Alex as he kept trying to pick her up and toss her into deeper water.

“Kara says she hopes we’re enjoying the beaches out here,” Rian said, checking a text from his girlfriend. “She’s in rehearsal all day and the air conditioning in the studio went out.”

“Seriously?” Layla fell into stride beside him. “What’s the weather like in D.C.?”
“Probably high 80’s, at least,” Rian answered between sending reply texts to Kara. “Kara’s not a fainter, but she said a few girls already have.”

Layla imagined dealing with the possibility of fainting while trying to do your job, dancing all day in a windowless studio so stuffy it probably felt pretty near to the inside of a minivan left sitting in the sun. She imagined sweat-spotted leotards, bruised toes wrapped in pointe shoes, and determined girls passing around ice packs to hold underneath their too-tight ballet buns.

Layla had only met Kara very briefly when she’d been in Baltimore but they got along immediately. Layla had thought that Kara seemed very sweet, but also recognized that her semi-professional ballet career meant she was pretty tough. Layla respected that. Ballet was one of the most feminine ways to be a complete badass and Layla admired the passion and resilience that she knew it involved.

“Shit.” Layla responded, “Tell her I’m sending her relaxing beachy thoughts.”

Rian chuckled, “Will do.”

A few minutes later, the three arrived outside that night’s venue, walking past the hanging marquee that read July 1st All Time Low and around to the back of the building where Jack and some of the crew guys were playing four square in the lot. Under the shade from their parked tour bus, Alex had positioned one of those fold-out chairs meant for camping trips and was sitting by himself.

“Look at my new hat!” Layla called, jogging up ahead to greet Alex, as Zack and Rian shifted over to join the four-square group. She pointed to the hat, positioning her head and neck in various angles as a way of jokingly modeling it.

“Pretty rad,” Alex noted. “You know I met Courtney Love once.”

Layla hesitated, skeptical but curious. “No you fucking didn’t.”

“Nah, but she replied to one of my tweets once. We’re in a mutual follow.”

“Oh,” Layla took a seat beside him on the pavement. “Well, tell her I say ‘hi’ sometime.”

“You don’t have to sit on the ground!” Alex stood up, scolding her.

Layla shrugged. “S’fine,” she told him.”

“Nah, get up. C’mon,” he told her. “Let’s go for walk.”

“So demanding…” Layla teased with a halfhearted scoff, following Alex back towards the street. He waved a quick goodbye to the rest of the group, as they all bickered in the sun about whether the ball bouncing onto the line meant it was in or out.

“Where we going?” Layla asked as they reached the street. She crossed and followed Alex in the direction of the ocean. She could see the waves lazily rolling in towards the shore at the bottom of the hill.

“I don’t know,” he answered with a shrug, then added, “I’m on vocal rest, remember? You talk.”

Layla remembered Alex was supposed to be on semi-vocal rest until the show tonight, something he was not particularly good at. “Talk about what?” she asked, not helping.

He gave a playful eye roll. “Don’t ask me questions. I can’t talk.” He chuckled, demanding, “Talk to me. Anything. Something interesting. Tell me a story. Go.”

“So demanding…” she chided. “Okay. Well…” she thought, coming up blank. It’s always when people ask you about yourself that you realize you are completely uninteresting. After another moment, she blurted, “Well, Kris has been texting me.”

Alex stopped, opening his mouth to speak. Then, realizing his mistake, he shut his mouth and gestured for Layla to continue, a curious eyebrow quirked in her direction.

“The first time was in Houston. He texted ‘hey’ and I said ‘hi’ and then he didn’t say anything back and then a few days later he texted asking how touring with you guys is going,” she explained. “We’ve had, like, two conversations in the past week and every time he texts me it’s always super casual. He never mentions anything that happened with us before, just like…like he’s trying to chit-chat with me like we’re friends or something.”

Alex scoffed, throwing an arm around Layla’s shoulders and leading her through another crosswalk. “What a dick,” was his comment. “He’s no good for my Layla Belle.”

Layla laughed, “I mean…yeah,” she hesitated. “I know it’s so dumb. I know he’s wicked shitty. But I’m also kinda of hoping that he won’t be shitty this time…because, I mean, when it was good, it was really good.”

“How good?” Alex asked, wiggling his eyebrows as an innuendo that he wasn’t sure Layla picked up on.

Layla just laughed. “I feel so stupid,” she told him. “But I just keep imagining situations where he gives me this big dramatic apology and everything works out and it’s great. I know it’s not gonna happen,” she confessed. “I know he’s a dick but… I don’t want him to be. It’s dumb. I know.” Towards the end, it was more like she was just talking to herself.

“It’s not dumb.” He hesitated, then added, “It’s normal.”

“I guess,” Layla shrugged, walking out of Alex’s embrace and taking a seat on a nearby bench.

“It is,” Alex assured her, continuing to walk down the street even after she had stopped. He left her on the bench, went ahead to a street vendor less than a block down, and came back with two hotdogs and lemonade to share.
When he returned to the bench, Layla was still sitting, distractedly flipping her phone open and shut. He passed her a hotdog and sat down, saying, “People are always make excuses when they like someone. You’re not being dumb,” he told her. “You’re being hopeful.”

“Misguided, but hopeful,” she said.

“It’ll pass.”

They sat on the bench and ate together. Layla thanked him for lunch and kids flew kites on the grass behind them. They watched locals in short shorts and beach cover-ups pass by on the sidewalk, while talking about something that involved too much stress and too many hurt feeling to fit into the carefree boardwalk vibe to which Layla wanted to return.

“I should just ignore him,” Layla decided out loud. “Nothing’s gonna happen with us anyways, right? I mean, like, I don’t even know what he’s trying to do. Why would he randomly fricken’ text me, like…what does he want?”

Alex snorted.

“What?” Layla asked suddenly, leaning forward to demand her answer.

“We know what he wants,” Alex offered, snickering.

“We do?” she asked, getting a little frustrated.

Layla didn’t want to be talking to Alex about Kris; not that she felt like she couldn’t or anything, she just didn’t want to right now. Part of the reason was that she and Alex had a very fun friendship developed that was a lot more “stupid jokes” and a less lot “whining about ex-boyfriends” and she wanted to keep it upbeat and goofy. Another part was that, even though Alex knew the basic details of what had happened with Kris, they hadn’t ever really had an in-depth talk about him. And that was because Layla had been long-past having mopey heart-to-hearts about Kris by the time she met Alex. She wasn’t attracted to the idea of regressing back to that. (There was a part of her that was also very unattracted to how matter-of-factly Alex spoke about Kris. That was just the tiny, embarrassing part of her that was hopeful things might work out.)

“What do you mean we know what he wants?” Layla reiterated.

She watched Alex as he took his time before answering her, he was looking for the right words and the confusion played on his face. “Yeah,” he said. “He wants you.”

“Yeah, but not really,” she argued. She struggled to articulate her feelings, but attempted to explain how she knew that Kris only half-way wanted her. Kris didn’t want to date her anymore, she understood, he only thought of her when he was bored and now he was trying to keep tabs. She imagined that he was a little jealous now too, wondering about her summer with the guys in All Time Low and how she had wound up doing what he had always been encouraging her to try. “He doesn’t really ‘want’ me,” Layla rolled her eyes.

Alex just laughed at her. “He wants to get you back in bed.”

“Back in bed?” Layla muttered under her breath, still loud enough for Alex to catch.

“Yeah,” Alex said. He was about to tell Layla how Kris wasn’t worth her time, how he felt bad that she had ever had to experience his bullshit, and then finish up the little spiel by mentioning that, hey, at least it all still turned out okay. If not for Kris – he would finish up by saying – then, he and Layla never would’ve met and wound up together in Anaheim that day. Before Alex could do any of that, though, Layla said something that startled him.

“I know,” she said, her cheeks starting to blush. “But he never really got me into bed so…” The words had come up without any thought. Layla didn’t know why she said it. It wasn’t at all relevant to what Alex was saying, she thought, beginning to panic in her head a little.

Alex coughed up some of the lemonade that they were sharing. “Um,” he wheezed, coughing again to try and clear his throat. “What?”

Layla just looked at him, her green eyes kind of begging him to finish the thought so she didn’t have to.

“You did, like, ya know…with him,” Alex felt really creepy asking, “right?”

Layla looked at her feet for a second, wondering how to fix this impossibly awkward situation she had accidentally created. After a moment, she looked up at Alex, biting her lip nervously and saying nothing.

“No?” he asked.

“Nope,” Layla answered, wincing with an awkward little laugh.

“Ever?”

“Nope,” she repeated, popping the ‘p’ sound between her lips.

“Okay,” Alex nodded, clapping his hands onto his thighs. “So, like, just never with him? Or never with anybody?”

After an extended pause, Layla answered, “Never…ever.”

Alex looked at her, thinking she looked like a nervous little puppy with her pink lips all twisted in concern and her big green eyes scanning him, waiting for a response. Alex looked at her – his silly little friend who he frequently forgot was only seventeen – and he just laughed. To him, the only thing awkward about that moment was how out-of-the-blue it had been. He chuckled the moment a way and they walked off with his arm draped across her back, Alex teasing her the whole walk back about how she had spit out the detail without the slightest bit of warning. It was abrupt but not entirely unpredictable. Layla was – he kept forgetting – only seventeen, after all.

And – though it wasn’t exactly strange that Layla had never had sex – it was a possibility that had never occurred to him. For the next few days, however, it remained just about the only thing that occurred to him.