You Belong With Me

Taylor’s P.O.V.

Fifteen years later, Alex and I are still as close as ever. We have never been apart for more than a few days at a time. Whenever one of us needs to talk, we would pick up the phone and call the person, no matter what time it is. He is the only person I have not kept any secrets from, the only person that truly knows me inside and out. We even have keys to each other’s houses so that we can come and go as we please. Sure, we have our occasional arguments, but usually one of us apologizes in one way or another five minutes later. We can never stay mad at each other for long, no matter how hard we try. Don’t get me wrong, Alex and I definitely had our differences. For example, my parents grew up in the south, so I was brought up on Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, and Tim McGraw. He grew up on Green Day, Led Zeppelin, and Blink-182. I almost never curse, but every other word that comes out of his mouth is a cuss word. Somehow, we learned to put aside our differences and just accept each other for who we were.

I was running around my room attempting to get ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow would be a big day for Alex and me: the first day of our senior year of high school. What a scary thought. Being the girly girl I was, I of course had to make sure I had the perfect first-day-of-school outfit. Clothes were all over my queen-size bed. I like to lay my outfits out so that I can see how the shirt goes with the pants or skirt or how a dress would look. I stood over my bed with my hand under my chin trying to decide which outfit to wear. Eventually, I gave up and walked over to the big window to the side of my bed.

When we had first settled into this house, my parents let me choose which room I wanted to have. I went into each room and weighed the advantages and disadvantages. When they brought me into this room, the first thing I had noticed was the window and what I could see out of it. The first time I looked out of it, I saw Alex playing with Eric next door. They must have sensed that I was looking at them, so they both looked out their window and smiled at me. I knew I wanted that room right away; if I couldn’t always be with Alex, at least I would always be able to see him.

As I looked out the window now, I saw that he was trying to pack his backpack for school tomorrow. From the way he was walking, he seemed to be stressed about something. I went over to my desk and took out my laser and white marker board. I flashed the bright laser two times towards his window. That was our signal. We found that this was a good way to grab someone’s attention, so whenever one of us needed to talk, he or I would just flash some kind of a bright light two times across the way. When he saw the flashing light, he looked over at me.

Is everything ok? You seem stressed, I wrote on the white marker board. I turned it over so that he could see what I wrote.

He went over to his desk to get his white board and wrote, Yeah, I just can’t find my cell phone. Call it for me?

I took my cell phone out of my pocket and found his number. I laughed as he realized that it was on his nightstand the whole time.

“I’m such an idiot,” he said answering the phone.

“Yeah you kind of are,” I laughed. “I have a favour to ask you though.”

“And why should I help you after you just insulted me?”

“Hey you admitted that you were an idiot. The only thing I did was agree with you. And of course you should help me because I’m your best friend and best friends help each other.”

“Yeah whatever.” He pretended to be offended, but I could always tell when he was serious or when he was kidding. “What do you need?”

“Can you come over and help me pick out my outfit? I don’t know what to wear.”
When I said this, he burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You make it sound like I’m one of the girls and that I’m going to come over and we’re going to do our nails and hair and makeup and then go stare at ourselves in the mirror.”

“What? You are the closest thing I have to a brother and my parents aren’t home, so I really do not have anyone else to turn to. I need opinions! Plus, you usually give me pretty good fashion advice.”

“If you promise me that you will never say that sentence out loud again, then I will come over.”

“Ok, I promise not to tell you that you have good fashion sense” I replied laughing.

“Good. That sentence could very easily have brought down my manly pride. See you soon.” He hung up his phone and exited his room. Two minutes later, I heard my front door open and he came up the stairs. “Ok so what are our choices?” he asked as he came into my room and walked over to my bed.

“I was thinking maybe this brown dress that’s above the knee with my brown wedge sandals or maybe this purple ruffled shirt with black pants and black sandals. There’s also this blue skirt with a white shirt or tank top and white sandals. What do you think?” I showed him each outfit as I described it.

Instead of answering me right away, he walked over to my closet and started looking through it. He pulled out the exact same ruffled shirt, but this time it was in blue. “You should go with the shirt and pants, but instead of purple, you should wear blue. It brings out your bright blue eyes. The white shirt and blue skirt are too summery for school and the brown dress is too formal. You would look like you’re trying too hard.”

“Hmmm, you know that’s not a bad idea! Thanks a lot, Garth!”

“No problem, Swifter.”

Ok so you’re probably wondering where the hell those nicknames came from. Let me explain. One day, I was at his house and we were watching “Wayne’s World” on TV. You know you are in trouble when your mother screams your full name. Apparently, Alex had forgotten to clean his room, so Melanie got angry and yelled at him. While he was upstairs cleaning, I was watching the movie and thinking that if you take the “ask” out of “Gaskarth”, you are simply left with “Garth”. Not to mention the fact that Alex loved wearing flannel just like Garth Algar. When he came back downstairs, I told him of my realization and he laughed. Next thing we knew, it was time for commercials and the first one that came on was a commercial for swifter wet-jets. Hence you have the names Garth and Swifter.

I laid the outfit on my chair so that it would not get mixed up with other clothing and he helped me to put the rest of my clothes away. Once my room was clean once again, he threw himself onto my bed and let out a long, exasperated sigh. I lay down beside him and turned to face him. “Are you sure you’re ok?” I asked. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

He let out another long sigh before answering. “I don’t really know what it is. For some reason, I’m really fucking nervous for school tomorrow and I don’t know why.”

“I know what you mean,” I responded. “I’m pretty nervous too. I can’t seem to stop thinking about what comes after high school. I constantly ask myself what I want to do. Do I want to go to college and, if so, where do I want to go? What if I make the wrong decision? The whole situation is stressful and scary.”

“I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to be Peter Pan, just to be a kid forever and have no worries or responsibilities. He had Wendy, Tinker Bell, and he had the Lost Boys. They were all he needed to be happy. That would be the best kind of life anyone could ask for.”

“Yes, but you are leaving out one very important fact. At the end of the movie, Wendy and the Lost Boys went home. She decided to grow up and left Peter Pan and her childhood out in the dust. The only one he had left was Tinker Bell. He needed her to make him fly.”

“Good point. Will you do me a favour, then?”

“Whatever you need.”

“Will you be my Tinker Bell? I don’t think I can fly without you.”

“As long as you are my Peter Pan.”

“Deal,” he said smiling at me. Even though a lot of time has passed since I first met him, his looks really have not changed that much. He still had those big puppy dog brown eyes that were so easy to stare into indefinitely and his brown hair was still a mess on top of his head. The only real difference in his appearance was that he grew to be very tall and now he wore a lot of flannel shirts and skinny jeans and a beanie to cover up his messy hair when he did not feel like straightening it. Sometimes, I just wanted to take that beanie and throw it out the window because he wore it so damn much. It’s a good thing I had a strong sense of self control.

All this talk of the future began to make me feel anxious.

“Hey, Alex?”

“Mmmm?”

“What if our dreams don’t come true? What will we do?”

*FLASHBACK*

“Quiet down please, class,” Mr. Mertha, the music teacher, yelled over us as we all found our seats. Alex and I had this class together and there was no assigned seating, so we always made sure to sit together in the same two seats in the back and close to the window every day.

The teacher waited until the class finally grew silent before he spoke again; eighth graders could be pretty damn talkative. “Today, we will begin to learn how to play the guitar.” That one simple sentence was all it took for the class to start chattering excitedly again; this had been the day everyone had been waiting for. We would finally get to play an instrument hands-on. Again, he waited for us to become silent and then he instructed us to go pick out which guitar we wanted. Of course, the only guitars available were acoustic, so it’s not like we had much choice in the matter anyway. Once we all returned to our seats, he told us the correct way to hold the guitar. Then, he proceeded to tell us the names of the different strings and demonstrated how different each one sounded. For the last ten minutes of class, he let us strum random melodies on the guitar so that we would have the opportunity to experiment.

Before that day, music had just been another class to me, nothing special. After that day, it was all I could ever think about. The guitar held a strong interest to me. I couldn’t even find the right words to explain it. Every time I played, I had this feeling in my stomach like this is what I was meant to do in some way or another. Mr. Mertha always used me as an example in class because I seemed to be the one that was catching on the quickest.

The only one besides Alex, I mean. He seemed to enjoy playing it just as much as I did. Every time he would learn a good tune, his whole face would light up. I could tell that this one little instrument and its beautiful sounds made him just as happy as it did me. One day, we even asked Mr. Mertha if we could come after school just to play. By the end of the school year, we were better than some students who had been playing the guitar for years.
That winter, we both begged our parents to buy us acoustic guitars for Christmas. Luckily, we both got our wish and opened brand shiny new acoustic guitars for the holidays. Every day after that, we would pick a house to meet at and practice playing different songs. The first song we taught ourselves was “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” by Green Day. Since we were only beginners, it took us about two weeks straight to learn the song perfectly.

One day, Alex and I were playing the song through for about the billionth time. Without realizing what I was doing, I began to sing the song. He was looking down at his hands playing the instrument, but, when he heard the sound of my voice, he looked up with amazement in his eyes.

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right-

Wait, Alex, why are you staring at me like that?” I stopped playing and singing abruptly as I caught sight of his face. It looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

“Tay, your voice is absolutely amazing. You need to sing more.”

“Nah, that could not have been good. I have never even practiced that before and my voice is all messed up from when I was sick last week.”

“No, seriously, Taylor, that was unbelievable.”

“Oh, well uh thanks,” I awkwardly replied. I could not stop myself from blushing.

“You should really sing for your parents and see what they say.”

“No, I don’t think so. I generally don’t sing in front of people. I kind of forgot you were here and just started singing.”

“Sing that verse for me again.”

“Alex-“ I whined.

“Taylor, your voice is beautiful. I’m not going to let you waste your talent just because you are afraid to sing in front of people. I’m your best friend, which means that you get to do things in front of me that you would not do in front of other people. I promise, I won’t let you down. Now, please sing for me,” he pleaded.

“Ok fine, but under one condition: you have to sing with me.”

“Fine. If that’s what it takes to get you to sing, I’ll do it. One, two, three,” he counted off.

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life,” I sang.

I left the next verse to Alex.

“So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.”

We finished out the song together with the mix of our voices creating a beautiful harmony.

“It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.”

When the song was over, we just silently stared at each other in bewilderment. Neither of us had any idea of the kind of magic our voices could create together. It gave me chills up and down my arms.

“That was... that was... I don’t even know how to describe it,” he finally said.

“I know,” I agreed breathlessly.

After that, every single time we played a song, we sang it together too. A few months later, Mr. Mertha held auditions to perform at the eighth grade graduation. Against my will, Alex signed us up for an audition; he was not going to take no for an answer. The teacher immediately told us that we would be performing and I felt my stomach start to get queasy. The thought of singing in front of all my family and friends and people I didn’t know made me feel sick. Of course Alex noticed my anxiousness, so he kept on reminding me that he was going to be right there by my side the whole time and that, if I made a mistake, he would be there to make up for it. He was not going to let me fail. Nothing I did or said could talk him out of the performance though.

I got absolutely no sleep the night before our graduation, which was to be expected. When it was time to wake up, I went straight to the toilet to throw up my nerves. Surprisingly, after my temporary illness, I felt somewhat better. If I wasn’t going to get up there and perform for myself, I was at least going to do it for Alex because that’s what he wanted. Alex was the most important person in my life and I would do anything for that boy.

Of course, Alex’s and my family drove over together, all seven of us stuffed into Robert’s van. It was a family affair, after all. Robert dropped Alex and I off before going to park the car with the rest of the family because we had to be there early to get ready. Alex grabbed my hand and squeezed it as we entered the building.

One hour later, Alex and I overheard Mr. Mertha introducing us to the crowd. “We can do this,” Alex whispered in my ear as we began to walk on to the stage. We picked up the guitars that were left for us and sat down in the chairs they had set up for us near the microphones in the centre of the stage. I gulped loudly then leaned closer to the microphone, making sure to keep my eyes glued to Alex’s encouraging smile. I took a deep breath and began to sing. The song went on without a hitch and Alex and I continued to make beautiful music together. Arguably one of the best moments of my life was when the last cord of the song faded out. I finally turned my face to the audience. At first, there was complete silence, but then, one by one, people stood up clapping and cheering for us; we got a standing ovation. I think that was the moment when Alex and I realized that we wanted to do this for the rest of our lives.

*END OF FLASHBACK*

“If our dreams don’t come true, then at least we will have each other,” he said. “We will always have each other and that’s all that matters.” He pulled me closer and held me in his arms. After a few minutes, I fell asleep in his arms.