3 8

double time

noun. playing a measure twice as fast as originally written.

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DO I SEEM LIKE A camping girl?

No? That's what I thought also.

Callum insisted on keeping our first date a secret—he needed over a week to 'plan' and 'gather supplies' which troubled me. My only instruction was to meet him at his house, after I ate dinner on Friday, dressed comfortably and warmly. So I walked over, and he drove us through the main road of Halston, onto the highway on-ramp traveling inland, and finally onto successively wilder roads in the forest.

Callum drives with the sunset on his cheek, rays of sun squeezing through his matted hair, around his angular jawline, like a crown of light. The air conditioner warms the car and I choose an acoustic indie folk album to background the ride. He's oblivious while driving—periodically taking my hand and kissing the back of it—to my awe, my gratitude. How did this happen? How did I end up with him?

He let me choose the music, and we bounced conversation on the journey, but when the roads turned from butter-smooth into potholed asphalt to gravel roads and then to trodden dirt paths fringed by trees, I said, "Either we're camping or this whole year has been your grand plan to dispose of me once and for all. No-one's ever going to find my body."

"How did you know?"

"Kill me, please," I responded.

"Come on, baby," Callum cajoled, "it'll be fun. I promise."

For a second I thought Callum didn't know me at all, but when we arrived at the campsite (a network of clearings in the woods, one information kiosk—displaying the walking trails and descriptions of native flora and fauna—with a water tap on the side of the building and one long drop toilet down an uncomfortably spongy path) Callum told me, "You have two great loves, Bay. Music and ingesting substances."

Popping open the trunk, Callum brought out the picnic basket, which contained bags of Doritos, a packet of sugar-coated gummy worms (which I later discovered were edibles), a bottle of champagne, and a ziploc bag fulled to rotundness with weed. My mouth dropped open, and my eyes ignited with a hunger on the last item.

"I have never loved you more," I whispered. Callum tipped his head back and laughed, setting the basket down to start unpacking the other contents of the trunk.

Now, I'm sitting on the lip of the trunk, watching Callum try to set up the tent by himself. "Let me help," I sigh, when the tent pole pops out of its sleeve before Callum can arch the fabric and hammer the pegs into the ground.

Callum protests, "It's our first date."

Sliding into a Southern Belle accent, I say, "And my constitution is so poor that I'll collapse from exhaustion if I attempt any manual labor?"

"Yes," Callum doesn't miss a beat, adopting the same affectation, "so sit there and look pretty. You already have the second part down."

I roll my eyes. "Give me the hammer." Callum holds on tighter when I try to wrestle the tool from his fist, but eventually I steal it away and crouch down at one corner of the square, two-person tent.

We pitch the tent, throw the pillows and sleeping bags inside, polyester rustling. Then Callum withdraws something else from the trunk that makes me break down in laughter. "You're so suburban," I chuckle. "Who the hell brings an air mattress camping?"

Callum, unfazed, shoots me a smirk. "You can sleep on the ground if you want?"

Asshole.

Fixing a withering glare on him, I set to grinding and rolling joints while Callum repeatedly stamps on the foot air pump he brought along (seriously, how much can he fit in that car?), which looks simply like a bellows without handles. By the time we're done, the set-up actually looks sumptuous. The air mattress big enough for two, with plush pillows and sleeping bags unzipped and splayed flat in multiple layers.

Playing soft music on his Bluetooth speaker, Callum and I smoke while the sky darkens above the treetops. When he catches a stray ember between his fingers, I quip, "Only you can prevent forest fires," and he smiles wryly without glancing in my direction. Delinquent college couple starts Massachusetts blaze while blazing up.

Callum is dressed for the occasion, a hunter green fleece jacket covered by a black down vest. His hair has grown longer over this year, falling into his eyes in tangled blond ringlets. God, he's so beautiful.

Once my head is spinning, Callum and I plop down in the tent. We open the front flap and sit on the edge of the air mattress, heads craning back as we passed the champagne bottle between us. Above, the Milky Way splashed across the sky. The largest stars had room to grow colors—light yellow, reddish tints, pale greens and blues—and the smallest stars reminded me of running my thumb across the bristles of a dry paintbrush dipped in white paint. An artist's work.

How did I go my whole life and never realize Massachusetts could look like this?

I'd grown up in broken cities, and then I came to Halston—a quintessential university town with red brick historic sites that had been scooped hollow and filled with modern interiors—and at no point had I thought, I'm lucky to be here.

Because I didn't think anything was lucky about my life. But I'd been safe. There was something in me some would call talent. There was more in me most would call resilience. I met Renata. I met Callum. I was stargazing while every other soul was sleeping, and the bug lantern zapped when a poor mosquito flew into it, and a light breeze brought the stinging scent of the weed right to my nose.

I have a lot to be grateful for.

"I should name a star after you," Callum says, a delicious scratch in his throat from all the smoke.

"Naming stars is such an imperialist practice," I respond. Callum looks over and raises his eyebrows. "These are cosmic bodies billions of years older than us. The Western middle class has started buying and selling certificates to do what indigenous peoples have already done, earlier and better than we ever could." Then I remember that we're not enemies anymore, that this is a first date, that I should be nice, and I cough. "I mean, that sounds so romantic. You can name a star after me."

Instead, Callum leans over. He cups my chin in one hand, bringing my face up to his and kisses the corner of my mouth. "You're so fucking sexy when you're disillusioned," he murmurs against me.

"You're so sexy when you glamp like a middle-aged divorcée," I respond, patting the air mattress with affection. He truly has prepared everything; food, tunes, sleeping gear. There's a bug lamp by our feet, and an amber torch hangs at the zenith of the tent's interior, like Callum has bottled the sun and coaxed out a drop of it to dance around the small enclosure.

Callum scoffs, but the sound dissolves into laughter. "So when are you going to cuff me?"

My cheeks twinge painfully, and it's then I realize I've been grinning like an idiot since who knows when. "Oh, Callum. Would you please be my boyfriend? I know your husband took everything in the divorce, even the yacht, but I really can't live without you, and I would show you how it feels to be loved again."

"You are so full of shit."

"You love me."

"Obviously."

I reach for his hand. My fingers skim over his, light, gentle, a small acknowledgment of the moment. Those brown eyes, those deep pupils are blown wide open in the small pool of light behind us, telling me something, everything.

When Callum finally, properly kisses me, my eyes fluttering shut, for the first time in my life I let happiness grab me by the throat and drag me under.

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"It's too late to earn credit for band participation," Keller tells me. "I can't re-enroll you."

I'm in her office on the third floor of the Music Department's main building, hands tucked under my thighs as I ask for a second chance.

"I want to, but it's up to the magical enrollment software and not me." Then Keller goes on a long winding rant about how, when she first started teaching, the faculty had control of their classes and students—now it's computers and online portals.

"I don't mind," I tell her, interrupting gently when she starts bemoaning artificial intelligence. "It's not for the credit. I just really want to come back."

I could care less about getting elective credits for pep band and HSO—I've just missed playing music, seeing all my fellow percussionists, sinking into the community and ambiance.

"So whatever personal issues you had are resolved?"

"It's an ongoing process," I answer. I see Florence regularly, and Renata and Callum are both extremely supportive. Everything else I am willing to produce from within, to invest myself. "But I have a lot of love around me."

Keller seems deeply pleased, but refrains from getting emotional on me. "That's good to hear," she says. Scribbling on her notepad, she decides, "Okay. You can re-join the ensembles, and, I mean, the drumline pieces are the same as ever. You'll pick it up easy as sneezing."

"Thank you, Keller." I grab my tote bag from the floor and move to leave.

Keller's voice stops me halfway to the door. "Should I let the section leader know," she wonders lightly, "or will you tell him?"

I turn around, meeting her faux innocent expression. Eyebrows raised over the tops of her glasses, blue irises shimmering with secrecy. I've been band director longer than you've been alive, kiddos, she said nearly a year ago. I know the dynamics.

Behind Keller, on the back wall, the marching band photograph from last season hangs in a position of centrality. It's high-definition and framed in black wood. If I examined it in close detail, Callum and I would be next to each other in the stands. I'm glad that, despite still being enemies on photo day, we'll be immortalized side by side in this little picture.

"I'll tell him," I say with my own clandestine smile.

Keller nods, making a satisfied hum. "See you at rehearsal, then. It's good to have you back."

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The drumline are all in the band room, preparing to play halftime at the Halston vs. Merrimack basketball game with the pep band.

God, it feels good to be back. The traditions, the sharp sting of competition in the air, the comforting weight of the snare drum hanging from my shoulders. While the other percussionists are pulling on their marching drums, with the drum key on one of Keller's many keychains, Callum is helping Maria re-tune her quint skins.

Once Maria slips into the quints and walks over to the rest of the tenors, Callum gives me a meaningful look and mutters, "We should tell them."

"Why do they have to know?" I protest noiselessly. I see no reason the rest of the percussion section needs to know we're dating. "They're not in the relationship."

"Because keeping it a secret means pretending to hate each other again, otherwise they would figure out something's going on," Callum reasons lowly, "and I don't want to hate you anymore." Then he lowers his chin and pouts at me, pale brown eyes like a puppy's.

Damn it.

"Fine. You can tell them," I relent.

But I'm not prepared when Callum walks to my side, cups my face in his hands, and kisses me hard on the mouth. He's standing side on to me so I don't hit him with my marching snare, and my only instinct is to reach a hand up to touch his warm cheek, shut my eyes, and kiss him back.

"Whoa, whoa," I instantly hear the rest of the drumline reacting, aghast. "What— Why—"

"What the fuck?" Robby screeches. In the background, I hear something slamming against the sliding door of the drum cupboard. "What the actual fuck?!"

"What is even happening right now?" Shane cries. "Break it up!" (The slamming sound was her body splaying against the wood, hand to her chest like someone having a heart attack.)

Callum pulls away, looking slightly dizzy. He blinks a couple times, running his thumb fondly across my bottom lip, then says simply, "No, we will not be answering questions at this time." Picking up his marching snare and pointing to the door, he yells, "Everyone, get out! We have a show to play."

I cover my mouth with my hand, speechless and a little turned on. My face is flushed and heated, throat tightened up. I try to get my breath under control.

Staring at the idiot strolling toward the front door, I want to hate Callum for making the announcement so gracelessly, but at least it was like a ripping a band-aid. Painful, quick. The bandcest condemnations rain down on us immediately, everyone clamoring and speculating and some even saying they 'called it'. They absolutely did not.

Shane walks out of the band room and points a finger at me on her way past, as if to say we are going to have words. I nod, smiling ruefully. I didn't expect anything less.

When I fall into line with the snares and pass Callum, holding the door open and waiting to lock it, I glower, "You meant tell them right now?"

"You know me," he shrugs, unrepentant, gorgeous, lips rosy from my kiss. "I seize the day."

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Being Callum's girlfriend is not easy.

I didn't think it would be; nothing about us has come easy, so why would a relationship? We're happy, of course, so radiantly happy that sometimes when I return to my dorm room, Renata will fake a gag. (I know she's happy that I'm happy.)

But we're different people with different flaws. Here are some examples: once I accepted my PTSD, I told Callum and he felt sad that I didn't lean on him in the earlier parts of the diagnostic process. He felt excluded, but I felt like disclosing my PTSD earlier in our relationship would have made him go easier on me. I wanted to work for his trust and his love on my own, without the pity points that a mental illness can garner. "Like, even now I wouldn't tell you if I starting detaching or feeling numb again. I would sort it out on my own because I don't need you to baby me."

"What the— I don't want to baby you. I want to be there for you."

"There's no difference, really, consequentially speaking."

We had a big argument about things that a person is entitled to keep to themselves, always, and things that should be shared with romantic partners—because they affect the partner—and where to draw the line.

(After much dialogue, Callum and I now agree that there should always be pockets of a person they can keep completely private, but if such pockets start affecting how they treat other people who love them, they should try to at least give some warning. It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation.)

Another time, Callum begged me to attend his twenty-second birthday dinner with his family. To him it was a celebration, to me it was a minefield. Why couldn't I celebrate and give him his gift (a new pair of custom engraved drumsticks) in private? Why do I have to meet his family? Callum said that it's important to him that all the people he loves get along, and it's his special day, and I said I felt like he was rushing me into a social situation I wasn't prepared for—birthday or not. My brain is a skeptical, anxious place.

(When he realized I wasn't trying to isolate myself, I was genuinely distressed, he apologized and said he could do multiple birthday celebrations. One for family, one with friends, and a quiet night in with me. "More attention for me, anyway," he reasoned.)

Both of us struggle with our previous enmity.

To me, when we argue, it feels like this prickle on the back of my neck telling me to dominate the conversation, use every concept and clever word in my arsenal, before he can turn the tables and steal the victory from under my feet. I'm working really hard to kill that habit.

Callum tells me (after a session of vigorous make-up sex) that to him, it feels like I'm starting to throw walls up and disengage, which makes him pursue ground even more intensely, which only makes me run away faster. "I realize I'm really bad at giving you space when you need it," he admits, "because I want to be around you all the time. I'm working on that."

"Are we toxic?" I ask, curled up against his chest. Against the shell of my ear, his heart thunders double time.

Callum laughs. He is genuinely not worried, how can he be so optimistic? The thought has never crossed his mind, even though our history has so much bad blood, and our present hasn't been entirely smooth sailing. Just hearing him laugh like that—classic, pessimistic Bay—is like having mud slicked off my body by a strong rain, and I fall a little more in love.

(Okay, a lot more in love.)

"No. We're hammering out the weak spots," Callum says, stroking my hair. He lowers his head to kiss my forehead. "We're getting stronger."

True, the arguments are getting less frequent and less explosive the longer we stay together, the more we settle into each other's souls. He is teaching me the art of the calculated risk, embarking on all the adventures that are either victories or lessons without fearing the outcome. I'm not going to graduate school after all. I'm not even going to apply. I never really wanted to go, anyway, I just wanted to stay in the safe harbor of college for a little while longer.

And I can tell how Callum's feeling before he even knows about it. When he finally figures it out I'm the first person he comes to, the usual one to hear his hour-long vents as he explores his inner world with new eyes. Plus, there's the Talking Stick. (Any drumstick we have lying on hand. It's juvenile, I know, to defuse arguments by manually divvying up the talking and listening time, but it works for us.)

Headaches and disagreements aside, what we have is special. It's new and it's growing, fast, and that is stressful, but Callum and I are a good team. Instead of being against each other, we're on each other's side, always, and I thank my lucky stars, suns, and moons every day.

I don't want sedative numbness or sadness or loneliness anymore. I don't need my life to be perfect or painless—I need it to be real.

And I think it finally is.

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a / n :

thanks for coming on this journey with me, everyone! i especially appreciate those who picked up Double Time in the early chapters and gave so much support throughout. this was a special passion project for all the (ex-)band geeks, music lovers, philosophizers, sad girlies, and self-doubters. we are all capable of doing life and doing love x

epilogue to come soon, and then this story will be submitted for the Wattys!

lots of love,

aimee x