This Song Is (Not) for You Read Online Free

never look at her, because so much of playing together is about communicating without talking. But I try to look at Ramona as little as I can.
    Ramona is really talented. And determined.
    She doesn’t care when playing makes her sweaty and messes up her hair.
    And she makes these faces.
    I was saved from remembering some specific times I’ve seen Ramona during practice by a noise behind me. It was like wind chimes. Alien wind chimes from a robot planet. I looked over my shoulder. Tom was bent over the pedals and the chaos something. He was making this haunting electronic sound. I could hear where my guitar would fit in. I started the opening chords for the song. I closed my eyes and focused on Ramona’s drumming. My body began to move with the time she set. The sound of her stick striking the tom hit my back again and again.
    Ramona.
    • • •
    Whenever Ramona eats candy, she arranges it by color first. It’s not like an obsessive-compulsive thing. She just thinks it’s fun. She usually doesn’t like anything orange, so she often gives those to me. Greens are her favorites.
    Her sneeze is really weird. She scrunches up her face and makes a noise like a tiny snort. It’s like she’s trying to stop the sneeze from getting away.
    Ramona’s mother started giving her piano lessons when she was four. She died when Ramona was nine, and her father hired someone from the academy to give her lessons after that. She still has private lessons, and she never talks about her mother.
    We like to watch really bad shows together so we can make fun of the dialogue. Shows about psychics solving crimes are the most fun. Ramona is really good at predicting what the psychics will say next.
    Ramona can’t stand people who put up a false front. “Poseur” is her darkest insult.
    She’s fun, and she’s real.
    Ramona’s an assertive girl, and if she was into me as more than a friend, she would have just said so a long time ago. She’s trusted me with her friendship, and I’m not going to ever put that at risk.
    • • •
    I turned around.
    From over her kit, Ramona met my eyes. She grinned and bit her lip. We sounded good. Tom filled out the song without drowning either of us out. I could tell the guy knows what he’s doing. Ramona played a fill, closed her eyes, and threw her head back.
    I turned away again.
    • • •
    After we ran through the song a second time, we all sat down on the garage floor and ate the stuff Mom brought. Ramona hadn’t stopped talking since she got out from behind her drums.
    “We need to consider doing something with that song we were working on sophomore year. Do you remember? You played like a da-da-dum de-da?”
    I nodded. Tom looked amused, which was a good sign. Some people find Ramona overwhelming, and after our first practice, she’s going to be even more adamant that he join the band.
    We had a really awesome jam with him. Toward the end Tom had started musing about and humming some lyrics, and it sounded like he has an okay voice. I didn’t have any expectations for Tom. I had no idea if he would be any good at all. Ramona claimed she could tell just from their conversation in the basement hall that he was a real musician and that he was destined to be our third band member.
    She was right about him being a real musician.
    “You should come to our Saturday practice,” I said to Tom. Ramona grinned at me.

Tom
    I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in weeks. I’m not saying I feel great; I just feel better. My car needs Freon, but the evening is cool and it’s nice driving home with the windows down. The glitter on my hood is red, and I remember Ramona hitting her high hat and bouncing in her seat.
    Ramona is fun and funny. Sam is a good musician and a nice enough guy. It was good to forget about Sara and everything else for a while. I’m gonna go back for another practice this weekend.
    (I realize that I actually do want to be in their band.)
    I’d gone to their website and been