This Song Is (Not) for You by Laura Nowlin

that we debated at the brainstorm party:
    Interstellar Lunch Menu (Ramona)
    A Rose Is a Rhododendron (Me)
    The Hug Addicts (Ramona, shot down quickly by Sam)
    Autoerotic Annunciation (Sam, shot down quickly by Ramona)
    Brain Maze (Ramona)
    Homemade Atom Bomb (Me)
    Feng Shui or Die! (Sam)
    Here’s how we finally decided.
    • • •
    Sam is lying in the same position with his hands folded behind his head. Ramona is doing a halfway headstand up against the wall. (This is only the second time I have ever seen her without her school uniform. Her jeans are unfashionably baggy and I like that.) She drops sideways suddenly and lands with a thud that rattles the china on the fancy mantelpiece.
    “Careful,” Sam says. He doesn’t even turn his head, and I understood that Ramona making a ruckus in the house is a normal occurrence. He has a small smile too, and I feel like an idiot for not seeing before that he is way, way into her.
    I did feel like my brain was functioning better, but we couldn’t find a name that we all liked.
    “Sam?” Ramona says. She is lying on the floor in her nook now, splayed out like a victim of some violent trauma. “Do you remember when I was describing to you what it felt like when I went glitter bombing with Tom? That’s what I wish we could name the band after. That’s what making music with you two feels like.”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    I know the feeling she was talking about.
    Earlier today, before we checked for Nanami’s comment, we had band practice. There’s a song we started two weeks ago that has never really clicked right. Ramona announced that if we didn’t get it together today, we needed to scrap the song, and Sam and I agreed.
    We started out the way we had before, with Sam leading on bass. A few bars in, I started the preset counter melody on the kaosolator, and Ramona started a slow military drumming.
    I lowered the tone and held it until it turned into a drone.
    I remembered the way the blue at the top of the fence blended with the sky (and shined).
    And then Sam started a melody on his acoustic guitar.
    It was like he’d plucked the blue-on-blue image from my brain and turned it into music.
    Ramona slowed time down, and I could see the car drive past the fence and the face of the driver, just a stranger I’ll never meet, frowning against his phone. From the corner of my eye, I could still see the blue sparkles in the October light. The sun caught the windshield and sent a glare into my eyes.
    And then I was back in the garage, and the song was coming to a close.
    “Vandalized by Glitter,” I say now. Sam and Ramona both sit up and look at me. “‘Vandalized by Glitter’ is what the cop said when I got arrested. And I don’t know, sometimes our songs sound like we’re going up to a person and throwing glitter in their face.”
    “I hated it until you said the thing about throwing glitter in their face,” Sam says. “But now I get it. And I like it.”
    “Vandalized by Glitter,” Ramona says. “ Vandalized. ”
    “ By Glitter ,” I say. I waggle my eyebrows at her. She laughs, and we have a name.
    And I have real friends who I think might actually understand me.

Ramona
    The band is rocking. Last week we all received our letters from Artibus inviting us to apply to our majors. I’m still in love with Sam, and now I have an inconvenient avalanche of a crush on Tom, although I think I have it under control.
    Kind of.
    We’re two-thirds of the way through the semester.
    So of course it’s time for me to have a run-in with my nemesis.
    • • •
    All semester, Emmalyn has been on the verge of going too far. It’s not that I care what she says about me. It’s just that I’m sick of it. I tell myself that she’s probably unhappy, maybe jealous. But what right does she have to so actively and publicly dislike me? I’ve never done anything to her. Unless she did something first.
    Like today.
    It’s dumb, but I’m in a really good mood this morning. It’s all