Carter put her new cd into her cd player and let the music thump through her bedroom. While she listened, she pulled on a long black skirt and a tight, lavendar, sleeveless shirt.
"Give me one good reason to why you're so blind. I covered your back again. Now you'd better cover mine. If I turned and walked away would you stick your knives in me? How much longer till you break? Until I walk away, walk away from you? Give me one good reason to why you're so unkind. You know I believe, believe it's true. You know I believed in you. If I turned and walked away would you stick your knives in me? How much longer till you break? Until I walk away, walk away from you?"
"What is with the angry music?" Taylor asked as he walked into her room.
"It's not angry music. It's Fuel." Carter grumbled and grabbed her purple metallic messenger bag from the corner of her bedroom floor and pulled it over her head. "And do you know what your fist is for?"
Taylor blushed. "Uhm... well... uhm..."
"No, dammit. No that. It's for knocking. Try it next time." Carter turned off her stereo and pushed past Taylor, leaving him alone in her bedroom, utterly confused as to why she was mad at him again. But then again, she was always mad at him. As long as he was breathing, there would always be a reason to be mad at him.
Two hours later Carter found herself sitting in an uncomfortable office chair with her legs crossed and her hands in her lap. She sighed and turned around with a start when she heard the door open. "What are you doing here?" She asked, almost glaring at the tall person standing next to her. He had pale, creamy skin, and purple hair.
"Supporting you." Todd Dillie sat down in the chair next to her. "Why isn't your boyfriend here?"
"Because he doesn't know about this and I don't want him to know about it until I can give him something concrete." She sighed and put her elbow on the desk, resting her chin in her hand. "Where is he anyway?"
"Just finishing up some things." Todd was about to say something else to her when the door opened and his father walked in carrying something small and flat in his hand.
Carter stood up and grinned as he handed it to her. "Well, here it is. Now just remember, it's rough and not finished. But you said you wanted it as soon as possible."
Todd shook his head. "And nobody knows you've been doing this?"
"No. And I don't want them to know yet. Not until everything is final." She demanded giving them both stern looks. Then, she thanked Todd's father one last time and left the office. She drove him as fast as she could while still being a safe driver.
She slammed the front door to the Hanson's house and ran upstairs as fast as she could to Zac's bedroom. After knocking, Zac answered the door and smiled. "Hey. You looked pretty." He gave her a quick hug and glanced down at her hand. "What's that?" He asked, referring to the small flat box she was holding.
"It's a present. For you. "She sat down on his bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, watching as he stood in front of her. He took the lid off of the box and stared down at it's contents.
"What is it?" He asked, pulling out a cd.
"That would be a cd, Zac."
"Well, yeah. I kind of figured that part out."
She smiled. "You know Mr. Dille?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I kind of told everybody that I stopped playing at his club and all that but..."
Zac gave her a confused stare.
"Well I did stop playing there but I've been doing something else for the past couple months. See, he kind of has this small recording studio set up downtown that I never knew about. That's how he gets all these bands at his club. Well anyway, he asked me if I wanted to fool around and try to record some of the songs I wrote and I figured, what the heck?"
"So this is you?"
"This is me. It's totally me. All me!" She jumped a little and grinned.
Zac stared down at the cd. "Wow." Then he sat down on the bed next to her and gave her a huge hug. "This is really you?"
She nodded. "I wanted you to have the first copy. Well, the only copy. I'm not really sure what I want to do with it yet. Mr. Dillie said he might make a few copies and send them out but I doubt anything will happen. I mean, it's just me."
"It's the best gift I've ever gotten."
"Your song is on there."
He looked up from the cd. "What?"
"The one you wrote me last year. I credited you and everything. Mr. Dillie typed up the song list and everything on the inside and it says 'lyrics by Zac Hanson, with music by Carter Porter'."
Zac hugged her again. "This is awesome. But it's even better for you. I've been trying to get you to do this forever."
She laughed. "I know. That's why I kept it a secret. That way if i screwed it up or ... sucked ... you wouldn't know." She sighed. "Plus I hate letting myself down and when I let other people down it makes it worse."
"You never let anybody down. We all love you." He smiled and kissed her lightly. "I love you."
"I love you, too. But now I'm going to let you listen to that alone. Ok? You have to be honest when you let me know what you think."
"Of course."
Carter left Zac alone and he instantly popped his cd into his cd player, listening for the first time to the greatest album he'd ever heard.