Catch Me by Claire Contreras Read Free Book Online Page A

sight of them. Every time I see my little logo on a new one, the happiness in my heart blooms a little more. It’s a little bee with a crown on it, simple but elegant, and more importantly it’s very personal to me. It’s the little image that my best friend Ryan used to draw for me whenever we exchanged notes in the hallways in school. All of the little notes had that little bee on them. It’s the same little bee I have tattooed on my back in honor of him. Having it displayed on our line of microphones doesn’t take the pain of him being gone away, but it definitely makes me feel like I’m keeping his memory alive.
    I reply back to Allie and hit send right as we’re pulling up to the Harmon Records building. Waiting for Marcus to open the door for me, I check my face in my compact mirror one last time, making sure that I don’t embarrass myself by having food between my teeth or something. I snap it shut just as my door is being opened and slide out, Hendrix following closely behind.
    “Welcome to your new home away from home,” Hendrix says, draping his arm over my shoulder.
    “Yep. God, I should’ve taken a shot of something before coming here,” I say, shaking my head when I feel Hendrix stiffen beside me.
    “Geez, Hen, it was a joke and please don’t make me repeat my whole spiel again,” I counter.
    “All right, I’ll drop it,” he mutters ushering me toward the elevators. “I’ll give you the tour now since we’re on our way up anyway. Not much has changed since you last came, but we’ve added a couple of wings that I know you haven’t seen since, well, when you come you usually go straight to my office and right back out.”
    We move toward the back, making space for the people stepping into the elevator and ride up to the forty-third floor in silence, only listening to the chatter around us. A couple of men and women say hi to Hendrix as they spot him, but other than that, we remain uninterrupted. Most people get off as we ascend, leaving only a handful of Harmon employees to continue the ride with us. When the elevator is more comfortable, we move away from each other, and Hendrix starts talking to one of the guys standing beside us. The guy is in his early twenties, I think, and keeps eyeing me as he talks to my brother. I offer him a small smile as I stand there awkwardly, waiting for my brother to either stop talking or introduce us. Thankfully, we make it to the forty-second floor and Hendrix tells “Bradley” that he’ll “catch him later” as he pulls me out of the elevator, which catches me off guard since this isn’t our stop.
    “All right, you remember how Dad was thinking about building a gym so that the employees could just use the facilities here?” Hendrix asks as we walk to the right.
    I nod, remembering how my father was on a health trip a couple of years ago after he had a heart scare. I know in most families the mother is what keeps the household together, she’s usually the driving force behind things and holds down the front while the father busies himself with work and other things, but in our family our strength is my father. In my eyes he is anyway, and I realized it the day Hendrix called to tell me that Dad had been taken to the hospital because of shortness of breath and chest pains. It happened in Los Angeles so I got in my car after I got out of a Micromanagement class I was taking and drove straight over there.
    On my way to see him so many things flashed through my head. Would I be okay if he died? Did I feel like I told him everything I needed to? Would I feel the way I felt when I lost my best friend Ryan? I knew the answer to that question was hell no because I didn’t see my father enough for his death to affect me in that magnitude. As sad as it sounds, and even I realize it’s a terrible thing to say, but the loss of my best friend was definitely more hurtful to me than the loss of either one of my parents would be. I’m certain about one