We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman (read aloud txt) 📕

“I’m sorry, Chad. That must have been terrifying.”

“Once again, you’re missing my point, dawg. I was sure I was dead too.” He pulls onto the highway and zooms into the fast lane. “But look at me now, son. Just look at me now.”

Bogart’s Ballroom, the venue where Beethoven’s Anvil is playing tonight, is one of those big theaters in Tacoma. In the 1950s it was a fancy cinema, in the 1970s it became a derelict shell, and it was nearly torn down in the 1990s until it was resurrected as a music club, picking up the spillover from the Seattle scene.

Outside a crowd lingers, some people holding up signs begging for extra tickets. I look at them smugly. We don’t need a ticket. We are on the list. The Lumberjack-induced gloom begins to lift. Hannah put me on the list.

Chad parks while I fight my way through the throngs to the box office to collect our tickets, but the harried woman tells me to go around to the stage entrance for a wristband.

Stage entrance. Wristband. I feel, possibly for the first time in my life, cool.

The feeling lasts until Chad and I approach the refrigerator-sized human manning the stage door. “Hi,” I say, my voice squeaky and uncool. “We’re on the list for Beethoven’s Anvil.”

Without so much as glancing at his clipboard, the Refrigerator replies, “Nope.”

“We are. Aaron Stein and Chad Santos. Or maybe it’s Aaron Stein, plus one.”

“You’re not on the list.”

“Do you mind checking?” I ask. “We would’ve been added today.”

“Don’t need to check,” he replies. “Checked earlier.”

“Can you look?” I tap his clipboard and he snarls at me like I just trespassed onto private property. Then he glances, for maybe a half second, at it before giving off a satisfied “Nope.”

“You didn’t even look!”

The Refrigerator glares at us.

“Maybe you misunderstood,” Chad whispers to me.

“I definitely did not misunderstand.”

“Maybe she forgot?” Chad says.

“It was eight hours ago.”

“Well, maybe she changed her mind.”

Of all the scenarios, that one is the most likely. But it doesn’t seem like Hannah’s style to pull something like that. If Hannah changed her mind, she’d have the guts to break my heart in person.

“Can you call her?” Chad asks.

“I don’t have her number,” I mumble, not wanting the Refrigerator to hear this, but of course, he does.

“Groupies,” he scoffs as his walkie-talkie squawks.

“Can’t you just walkie-talkie down? Tell Hannah Crew that Aaron Stein is here.”

“Do I look like a secretary?”

“Just call down. Please.”

“Sorry. I don’t do groupies’ bidding.”

“Dude. Don’t call us that,” Chad says. “It’s disrespectful to the band, and to us. We are fans.”

“How’s that work with chicks?” the Refrigerator continues. “Do you gotta munch the carpet? Or do you rub their feet and paint their nails?”

“That’s really misogynist,” Chad tells him. “You should examine your toxic masculinity.”

“You got exactly thirty seconds before me and my toxic masculinity kick both your asses.” He glances at Chad. “Don’t think I won’t because you’re in that chair.”

“Good to know you have a moral code,” says Chad, totally unruffled. He starts to back up. “Come on, dawg. He’s not worth it.”

I’m shaking with adrenaline as we return to Chad’s truck. I pound the door.

“Whoa. Don’t take it out on the Dodge.”

“I just hate guys like that.”

“Who? Him? Forget him.”

I bang my fist against my head.

“Whoa. It’s okay, shorty. We can wait for the band. See Hannah when they load out.”

“Then I’ll really feel like a pathetic groupie.”

“Don’t let guys like that get into your head,” Chad says.

“All I have is guys like that in my head.” I open the door to the truck. “Let’s just go.”

“You sure you don’t wanna stay?”

This is the fourth Beethoven’s Anvil show I’ve been to, but so far I’ve only managed to see them once. If we’re looking at the numbers, that’s one for three. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

“I’m sure.”

Chad lowers the chair lift. “You know, guys like that are just flexing.”

“Yeah, their muscles. Which are huge.”

“Naw, they’re flexing to hide how scared they are.”

“Him? Scared?” I bark out a laugh as I climb into the passenger seat. “Of what? Us?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would he be scared of us? No offense, Chad, but he could squash both of us with one hand.”

“He’s scared of becoming us.”

“Why would he be scared of that?”

“Okay. How to explain this?” Chad asks, checking his rearview mirror as if the answer is there. “Have you ever seen the movie Fight Club?”

“No, but I’ve read the book.”

“Seriously? It was also a book first?”

“Seriously.”

“Are all movies books first?”

“Just the best ones.”

“Then you know the story?”

“First rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”

Chad nods. “So I saw that movie a bunch of times in high school. Me and the guys used to get drunk and watch it. And the thing was, back then I thought—we all thought Tyler was fire. The badassest of the badasses. Everything we wanted to be. A hero who fucked and fought and took no shit from anyone.

“And maybe I would’ve kept on thinking that. But a few months after my accident, I’m watching the movie again, and it was like I’d been watching a different movie all along, because I suddenly saw Tyler wasn’t meant to be the hero. He was a hot mess. How could I not see that before?”

I shrug. “I think a lot of guys want to be like Tyler.”

“Not you though.”

“No, not me. But then again, I read the book.”

Chad chuckles. “I have a theory. That guys like the bouncer, guys like I was, they think they’re supposed to be Tyler, and they go around fronting. But in reality, none of us really are. We’re just stuck pretending. And when you pretend like that, you live in fear of being caught. So you double down on the act. That way no one can see past it.”

“That’s deep, Chad.”

“Deep as the Mariana Trench.” Chad winks. “I got hidden depths.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

“Look. I’m not saying I wanna be stuck