Read The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away for Free Online

she just didn’t have any interest in faking her life, or maybe she was just too stupid to figure out how to pretend like she didn’t care.
    Although, hadn’t she been pretending the last two weeks like she didn’t care?
    The kiss behind the garage. They’d been writing songs together at Matthew’s house, and when Kate said she had to go home, Matthew offered to walk her. A light snow had started falling when they were halfway to Kate’s house, and Matthew had launched into a loud rendition of “Let it Snow.”
    “That’s a Christmas carol,” Kate had admonished him. “You can’t sing Christmas carols in January!”
    “What does ‘Let it Snow’ have to do with Christmas?” Matthew had asked. “It’s totally about the weather. It’s a weather song, like ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ or ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ ”
    Kate had cracked up. “ ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ isn’t a weather song. It’s a protest song.”
    Matthew had slung his arm around Kate’s shoulder. “That’s what I like about you, Faber. I don’t know any other girl who would know that.”
    “Lots of girls know that,” Kate had insisted, although she was secretly proud that among all the girls she personally knew, she was the only one who had a clue to what “Blowin’ in the Wind” was about. “Girls are as into music as guys are. At least some girls. And not all guys are into music. My dad is a total music dork. His big claim to fame is that he saw Bon Jovi three times when he was in college. But you know what’s cool? My mom saw the Clash. Twice.”
    “Not to one-up you or anything, but my mom toured with the Clash.”
    Kate had stopped in her tracks. “No way!”
    “Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But she was friends with some sound guy’s girlfriend, and so when the Clash toured the Eastern Seaboard, my mom went with them for a few shows.”
    “Maybe my mom should invite your mom over for coffee,” Kate had said, immediately liking the idea of her family and Matthew’s getting tangled up, making it harder for Matthew to untangle himself from Kate. Of course, if their moms got to be friends, and the Hollers started to feel like family, then Kate and Matthew might start feeling like cousins, which wasn’t the vibe Kate was going for.
    I’m such an idiot for thinking like this, she had told herself, sticking out her tongue to catch a snowflake. I mean, get a life.
    They’d reached Kate’s house by then. The sky had gotten dark, and there had been a layer of intensely pink clouds on the horizon. Kate had pointed at it and said, “I’m normally not a pink person, but I think that’s beautiful.”
    Matthew hadn’t said anything, and for a second Kate had felt really stupid, but she’d stopped feeling stupid when he’d grabbed her hand and pulled her to the side of the Fabers’ garage. Instead of feeling stupid, she’d felt jittery and light-headed, and when Matthew had pulled her toward him and dipped his facetoward hers, she’d thought she might possibly faint.
    Matthew had brushed a strand of hair away from Kate’s face and said, “You are totally awesome. You are really, totally awesome.”
    And then he’d kissed her, and his lips had been so soft Kate could hardly stand it. She’d put her hand in his hair, the way she’d wanted to ever since she first saw him, tangling her fingers in his reddish-gold curls.
    She’d thought it meant something. She’d really thought it meant something, and so she’d tried not to care when he didn’t call the next day, and then on Tuesday back at school when he didn’t act like anything special had happened between them, she tried even harder not to care. And so maybe it wasn’t surprising that all her not caring (which was really caring more than anything in the world) had poured out in the song she’d just sung.
    She just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

    On Monday, the cast list was posted. Kate and Lorna were both in the chorus. Lorna wasincensed.