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

already singing, already dancing, barely stopping to take a breath for the entire set.

Like how the set is paced: for the first few songs the temperature and intensity are dialed up until the crowd is screaming along to the anthemic “To Your Knees,” but then it’s brought back down again, with the moodier and more melodic “Negative Numbers.” As the crowd sways together as one, I realize none of this is accidental. Hannah is the author, plotting us through an emotional experience, but with music.

I didn’t buy it before, when she said books and songs were different ways of telling a story. I’m starting to believe it now.

After the set ends, Chad invites the Canadian Superfans to meet the band.

They squeal, loudly, and squeal again when we enter the greenroom, swarming around Hannah, Jax, Claudia, and Libby, fangirling, taking selfies, finding scraps of paper to get autographs. Hannah keeps glancing at me, then looking away. Like maybe she’s as happy to see me as I am to see her.

Finally, the Superfans leave. “Thank you so much!” gushes Canadian Fan Two to Chad.

“We’ll keep an ear out for your band,” says Canadian Fan One.

“And good luck sneaking back over the border,” Canadian Fan Two says to me.

“Thanks,” I say.

The door shuts behind them and I finally get a moment with Hannah.

“Your band?” she asks, eyebrow going up.

“Long story . . .”

“And one I have to hear,” she says, with a slow smile.

“So you see, when I heard you were playing in Vancou—”

“Hey,” Claudia interrupts. “What did they mean about you sneaking over the border?”

“That’s the thing,” I tell Hannah. “I didn’t have a passport, so Chad smuggled me across.”

“Hid him in the bed of my truck,” Chad brags.

“Then you were serious before?” Hannah asks. “About the international-felon thing?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s no big deal, right? It’s just Canada.”

“Illegally crossing an international border is pretty serious,” Libby says.

“We used the NEXUS lanes,” Chad says.

“The NEXUS lanes close at midnight,” Claudia adds. “Which is now.”

“And going home, it’s the American border agents,” adds Libby. “Not nice like the Canadians.”

“Maybe they won’t search the truck,” Chad says.

“You better hope not,” Libby says. “Otherwise Aaron might be headed straight to Gitmo.”

“At least it’ll be a Canadian Gitmo,” Jax says. “It’s probably nicer.”

“Everything’s nicer in Canada,” Chad agrees.

I sink into a chair, my scalp pinpricking with perspiration as the doomsday worrywart returns to his rightful place. What was I thinking? My breath speeds up but I can’t seem to get enough air in my lungs. Black spots dance across my vision.

“Hey.” Hannah’s voice sounds far away. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“How? How is anything gonna be okay?”

She is quiet for a minute as she thinks, and then her voice takes on that clear, calm authoritative tone I heard the night she corralled people to carry Chad into Maxwell’s. “Like this. Everyone, listen up: Change in plans. We’re going to leave now, and Aaron’s going to come with in the van, hidden with the equipment. Chad, you okay to drive back alone?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“I can drive with you,” Jax volunteers. “If that’s cool.”

“Totally cool,” Chad says.

“Okay, Jax will drive with Chad. We’ll hide Aaron under the equipment and Claudia will exploit her magnetic sexuality to flirt with the customs agents. Then we’re going to drive over the border without any kind of problem.” She takes my hand. “I’ll get you home.” She squeezes. “I promise.”

Jax and Chad agree to stick around to get paid while I help the band load out. In the back of the van, Hannah makes a cubby for me amid the amps, the guitar cases, the drum kit. If it weren’t for the possibility of high crimes, it would be cozy.

When it’s time for me to get in, she holds up a blanket. “I’ll leave this off until the border so you don’t get claustrophobic. And I’ll stay back here with you until then to make sure you don’t get crushed to death in an avalanche of musical equipment. The irony of it would be too much.”

“Ha, ha,” I say meekly.

It’s quiet as we wind through the streets. Every time we take a turn, Hannah leans against the cases to keep them from shifting. When we get on the highway she asks Claudia how long till the border.

“About forty-five minutes,” Claudia replies.

“Perfect timing.”

“For what?” I ask.

“My surprise.” She slips a pair of earbuds through the crack in the gear. “Put these in.”

“Is this a playlist of your perfect songs?”

“No, it’s my attempt at a playlist of your perfect songs.”

“I don’t have any perfect songs.”

“Yet. Hence the list. My attempt to find your perfect song.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I guess I thought about you, tried to channel you, and here’s what I came up with.”

The thought of Hannah spending all this time to find me a song gives me a lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I croak.

“Don’t thank me yet. You ready?”

I nod.

“Okay, the first song is ‘Papa Was a Rodeo’ by the Magnetic Fields. I chose it because it tells a story, and you being a books guy, I thought you’d appreciate it.” She presses play.

The song is as slow as rising bread. Against a melancholy guitar riff, a guy with an earth-deep voice begins to sing. It’s a love song. But the saddest kind. About loving someone, and not being able to love them at the same time.

“Well?” she asks when it’s over.

A dozen butterflies flutter around my stomach, though I can’t tell if it’s the song or the fact that Hannah chose it for me. Maybe there’s no daylight between the two. “What’s next?”

“I went out on a limb on this one. ‘Clair de Lune.’”

“Classical?”

“Yeah. But that’s not why I chose it. The song comes from a poem by Paul Verlaine; in it, he describes the soul as somewhere full of music, in a minor key.” She puts her hand over her heart. “So that seemed, I don’t know, right somehow. The poetry. The minor key.”

“Why minor key?”

“Minor keys are beautiful. And