Just One Step

I walked as fast as I could, but I didn’t go home. I went in the opposite direction, toward a subway that would take me to Central Park. Central Park was my safe haven, mostly because I lived nowhere near it, and therefore no one who knew me would be there and I could think. I walked into the subway station, glad to be out of the summer heat, and slid my metro card and walked through the gate. I saw a homeless man sitting on the side of the station. I walked over to him, reached into my pocket and pulled out a dollar and handed it to him. I may not have much, but I still had more then him. He thanked me and I walked toward the subway I wanted to take.

I got onto the subway, making sure not to hit anyone with my guitar. I held on to the pole in the middle, and the subway began to move. I had always loved subways. I used to go on them with my mother all the time. When I reached the station closest to central park, I got off and walked into the park. I made my way to the rocks. The rocks were exactly what they sounded like. Several large rocks, which lots of little kids liked to climb on. I walked up the rock in my beat up converse and lat down on the edge. I laid down my guitar case and leaned back on the butt of my hands.

I just sat there, thinking. How much I wished I didn’t have stage fright. If I could, I would love to be singing and performing, but I just can’t. Then my phone buzzed.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Dani!” Tay’s voice yelled, “I can’t believe you! You didn’t even call to see if you could stay at Jenna’s!”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause she showed up at the party like 10 minutes after you called me!”

“Okay, yeah. You know me and her don’t get along,” I told her.

“Well I thought maybe you too had worked it out…” Her voice trailed off. “Wait, so where did you stay?”

“Uncle Mark’s” I answered.

“And you didn’t tell me! You know I love your Uncle!” Yeah, I did. Tay had a thing for anyone that pissed off her dad. That was exactly why I didn’t invite her.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Okay,” she spoke sternly now, almost like a mother. “What’s wrong? I can hear you frowning,”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At Devin’s place, why?” Just what I had thought, good thing he lived like two blocks away from where I was.

“Meet me at central park and I’ll tell you,”

“Alright. Same spot as last time?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Be there in ten,” and she hung up. It wouldn’t be in ten. Knowing Tay, it was going to be about two, she liked getting places early.

“Damn you stage fright!” I yelled at the sky. Some mothers glared at me.

“If you don’t want people to cruse,” I yelled at one of them. “Don’t live in the city!”

“Well you sure told her,” Niall said. I turned around to see him laughing.

“How’d you find me?” I asked.

“I was done recording my part, so the rest of the boys sent me after you,” he answered, like following a girl around the city was perfectly normal.

“You followed me here?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Mark told me where you’d be.” Right, it was him who took me here as a kid, he knew exactly where I would be going.

“Look, I’d love to sing on that song with you guys, but I just can’t. Now, I’m meeting someone here in a few minutes, so could you please leave,”

“Oh?” he asked raising his eyebrows. “A boy?”

“No,” I said, turning red. Why was I turning red? He was cute, but so what. I prayed that Tay would not show up now. She didn’t. She showed up two seconds later. Great.

“OMG Dani!” she yelled, “You didn’t say you met a boy!”

“He wasn’t here when you called, Tay.” She turned to Niall and flashed him her signature smile.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Taylor,”

“I’m Niall,” he said, he seemed a little taken aback.

“Oooo,” she squealed turning to me. Then she spoke in a harsh stage whisper, that anyone standing in a ten feet distance could clearly here “He’s Irish!”

“Yes, I am…” he began to say, but Tay cut him off.

“So tell me what happened! Also, did you tell your granddad where you are? You know he hates it when he doesn’t know where you are,” Sometimes I worry about how much Tay is involved in my personal life.

“Well it’s his fault for locking me out,” I mumbled.

“He was at the hospital, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I shot back, me and Tay’s conversations always moved quickly.

“Well then you can’t blame him, can you?”

“I’m not, I’m just saying that if he’s going to look me out he shouldn’t care,” I complained.

“So you spent the night at Uncle Mark’s?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Wait, he’s your uncle?” Niall asked, sounding confused.

“No,” we both said at the same time. Then we grew quiet.

“Okay?” Niall sounded extremely confused now. “Can someone please explain what’s going on?”

“No,” we both said again.

“Come on, let’s go back to my place,” Tay said, turning on her heal. I followed after her, picking up my guitar as I went. After we got about 20 feet, she turned around and yelled,

“You coming Irish?” and we watched as the blonde boy ran to catch up with us.

***

Once we made it to Tay’s apartment we all sat around on her couch. The thing about Tay’s apartment was that it was only her apartment. Her dad owned an apartment building, and each of his kids got a floor of it for their 13th birthday. Tay was on the 10th floor; her oldest brother had then 16th, her sister the 14th and her little brother the 6th. Her parents lived in the penthouse on the 21st floor. I had borrowed some clothes from her. I needed to get out of the sweaty clothes I'd been wearing for the past 24 hours. I just grabbed some skinny jeans and a band shirt. She insisted that I wear her black knit hat and two of her blush brand braclets, saying what's the point of dressing if you're not going to accessorize.

“Okay,” Tay looked at me, “Explain from the beginning,”

“Fine,” I said, and then began, “I was walking back from work, I got home, the door was locked, and then I called you,” she nodded and I kept going. “So I went to Uncle Mark’s, and he said I could crash there for the night, but we couldn’t hang out ‘cause he had a client he had to prepare for the next day. I woke up the next morning and figured I was the only one there, and I would have to wait till Mark got back, if I didn’t want to set off the alarm by opening the door. So I took out my guitar, I had taken it to the music store so I could get new strings so I had it with me, and I started playing. Then four boys walked in, and they saw me singing…” she interrupted me then.

“Wait?” she asked, “There are three more of him?”

“Four more actually,” he commented, laughing slightly.

“But she said four,”

“He wasn’t there yet,” I told her.

“Oh,” she said. We were all quiet for a second. “Go on,”

“Basically they saw me singing and wanted me to sing on their new song,”

“Oh I get it, you want to but you can’t,” she said and then came over and gave me a hug.

“Okay, well I don’t get half of your story, but you actually want to? I thought you were just, you know, being nice”

“Nope, she really wants to,” Tay told him. “She loves music, but massive stage fright,”

“So that’s what you were yelling about,” Niall said finally starting to get it.

“Yeah,” I said.

“So, if I could help you out with your stage fright, you would sing the song,”

“Yeah I guess, but good luck, I’ve tried,”

“Well I haven’t,” he said with a smile I didn’t know if I trusted or not.

“Fine,”

“Well, we better get going then,” he said getting up, “Nice meeting you Tay,”

“You too Niall,” she said. He began walking to the door; I followed him then ask him where we were going

“Back to Uncle Mark’s,” he said with that same smile. It was awful cute, but I still didn’t know. We walked together to the elevator and he helped make sure my guitar didn't bang into the doors. He pressed the 'street' button and once we got to the bottom, we walked outside, and went to walk toward the subway.

"Where ya going?" he asked.

"The subway," I said. "Where else?"

"Oh, I was gonna get a cab. I've never been on a subway, tunnels freak me out,"

"Well if you're going to help me with stage fright, I will have to help you learn to love the joys of the subway,"

"Fine," he said.