The Girl with the Plan

28

Van doesn't just drop me home. He takes me to our spot yet again, and claims he wants me to be in my right mind before he leaves me alone. I can tell his words mean as little to him as they do me, it's just an excuse. It's been hard, spending every day together and then being doomed to stay apart from Van himself. I grew to like our little habits, our morning routines and especially our evening routines. I feel at a loss, to be in this situation with Van. I used to stride around feeling somewhat proud of myself for being the only girl who didn't boost his huge ego by falling at his feet, but here I am. At his feet. Though, according to him he's at mine too.

"What did you think of the song?" he says, after a while of us just sat staring out into the darkness.

Grace will surely be suspicious, with me storming out and Van following after me only to not return. But I'm past the point of caring what anyone thinks.

"Well," I laugh suddenly causing for him to grin in my direction, "I can't say I was best pleased when you started revealing all of our secrets on the stage."

He laughs, and I revel in seeing him with a smile on his face for once. His teeth glisten under the moonlight. His skin the same sickly, vampire white as always, almost iridescent under the moon.

"You should count yourself lucky," he says, catching my attention as he starts fiddling with a CD in his glove compartment. He pulls one out, which has the word 'Kathleen' scribbled on it in sharpie. I widen my eyes, watching as he puts it in,

"I could've played this one."

The music starts playing loudly out of the speakers. I'm wondering how he got it past the boys that he was singing about me, especially seeing as he's called it Kathleen. I laugh, thinking back to the multiple times he's claimed he's gonna write a song about me.

"So you thought you'd make my Grandma name, a song on your album?" I smile and he shrugs,

"Listen to it," he says, pressing play and then turning in his seat to look at me the whole time.

I bop my head to the music, my foot tapping against the car mat beneath my feet.

"You're simpatico. And of all the lifts home and all the mixed feelings, you're cuts above...and you don't own worries or a chest full of heart aches,"

My lips lift up into a smile, as I glance to him at the sound of his deep, gravelly voice. He's good, Jon's on fucking crack if he thinks otherwise. And this song is definitely one of the better ones, in my biased opinion.

"I gotta give it to you, you give me problems; when you are not in the mood. I've gotta give it to you, you give me problems and make me give in to you,"

I start laughing, thinking of Van sat frustrated, scribbling in his notepad thinking of all the times that I have pissed him off. Getting more and more riled up, his hand struggling through his knotty, scruffy hair. And he smiles when he sees me laughing,

"It's impractical, to go out and catch a death with a dress fit for the summer,"

I smile, thinking of how often he'll say to me that I will catch a death in my little dresses. He still loves them though, pulling on the hem eagerly every time I wear one. It became our thing, before all of this, for him to make that specific comment.

"So you don't, instead you call me up with a head full of filth and..."

"Van!" I exclaim, hitting his arm softly but then beginning to laugh at the reference. There's only been a few times we haven't been bothered to meet, where we've lazily talked on the phone and gotten ourselves off. The song fizzles out after a while of music and I hear the boys at the end wondering who it's about.