Chapter Twenty-Two. Mackenzie
chapter twenty-two
MACKENZIE
Serena’s apartment isn’t a cozy loft in the East Village like mine or a retro chic Upper West Side penthouse like Hannah’s, but a quiet, understated high rise on the Upper East. Her voice is clipped on the other end when the doorman calls to let her know I’m downstairs, but she lets me up.
She answers the door in a bathrobe; her face is bare and her bob tucked into curling rods. For a split second I straddle two realities—the old one where I saw her like this every night, and this new one where any version of Serena feels like a stranger.
Serena’s eyes search my face, her own unreadable.
“I knew it,” she says.
She turns back into the apartment before I can answer, but leaves the door open for me.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been here.
From the looks of the empty walls and the barely touched furniture, so can Serena.
But no matter where Serena goes, this much I know: she always has an emergency bottle of rosé.
I wordlessly pull the open bottle out of the fridge. When I turn, Serena is already washing the dust off two wineglasses.
She sets them on the kitchen counter and turns to look at me. She doesn’t seem angry. She doesn’t seem anything, really, except tired.
“You’re not going to ask how I know?” she asks.
My hands are steady pouring the wine. I’m not anything, either, I realize. Only—tired.
“Just who else does,” I say.
Her jaw ticks. “Nobody. I only figured it out because Hannah left a text thread with you open on her iPad. She’d screenshotted the comment section of a Seven song, and you responded with a bunch of melting emojis.”
That was the afternoon we all met up at Hannah’s apartment. Serena finished a meeting she had downtown early and beat me there. I chalked up the tension to the Mack & Sam news, but she must have been working it out about Seven right then and there.
I hand her one of the wineglasses. There’s a split second where we both hover, holding the stems. We’d usually “cheers” something silly. To not biting it onstage , we’d say after performing in a rainstorm. To prescription strength deodorant and fashion tape , we’d say after an awards show.
Now there isn’t anything to celebrate between us, no matter how ridiculous or small.
“I haven’t said anything to anyone,” Serena adds.
I take a sip of wine. “Rocket heard you asking Hannah about it.”
She blinks, the surprise cracking her exterior. “And he asked you about it?”
“No. He followed me up to Boston to see for himself,” I tell her. “He’s got his own reasons for trying to unmask Seven, I guess.”
After a strained, quiet moment, Serena asks, “Did he figure it out?”
I shake my head. “No. But he was the one who figured out about Sam’s dad. He’s in a tough spot right now. He’s the one who sold the story.”
Serena spends a long moment staring into her wineglass. She may not care about Sam, but she must care what it’s doing to Ben. She lets out a low, “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
She swallows hard. “Where’s Rocket now?”
I nod. “He’s okay,” I say. “He’s just got a bad habit of not telling people when he’s in over his head.”
Serena lets out a terse breath. I turn before I have to see the rest of her stiffen up, walking myself out of the kitchen and into the living area.
There are framed photos resting on the floor by the couch, as if she meant to hang them up.
A quick glance and you’d think Serena’s life started when Thunder Hearts did.
There are no photos of her parents or her siblings, or anything that came before the band.
Not anything that came after, either.
“Why didn’t you just ask me about Seven?” I say. “Then he wouldn’t have followed us in the first place.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Serena asks sharply. “You want me to apologize about Rocket?”
It was only a matter of time before I set her off, but one glance back at her and I’m worried I’ve done a whole lot more than that.
“No, I just—”
“And what kind of question is that, anyway? Why didn’t you just tell me?
” Serena stalks out of the kitchen, towering over me as she gestures out the window, toward the West Side.
“Hannah knows. Hannah’s known a long damn time, apparently.
Do you have any idea how stupid I felt on the phone with her, while she basically had to lie about it, telling me to—”
She cuts herself off so abruptly she almost tips over.
“Telling you to ask me yourself,” I finish for her.
And here we are again: Two immovable objects. Or just two stubborn idiots. Serena pulls in a breath and stops herself, because she must realize the same thing I do—if we keep playing this “you should have” game, we’ll go in circles until we drive each other mad.
I set my wineglass down on the bare coffee table, straightening up to look her in the eye. “I wanted to tell you,” I say. “About that and—a lot of other things. But you’ve been so angry with me. I wanted to fix that first.”
Serena can’t hold my gaze. Instead, she takes a few steps toward the wide window, her eyes trained on the sunset-stained buildings downtown.
“I wasn’t angry with you,” says Serena.
My voice is wry. “Sure. You just publicly declared war on Seven, knowing full well it was me.”
“I said I wasn’t angry with you. But I’m pissed at whatever the hell you’re doing with Tick Tune,” she says.
“I mean, Jesus, Mackenzie. You saw what those assholes did to Rocket. There are dozens of other kids just like him they’ve already screwed over, and now they’re doing it to thousands , and you’re—what?
Going to prove the label wrong for not backing your solo career?
Cash out as Seven and screw over Sam for breaking your heart? ”
It feels like my heart is breaking right now. She must see it streaked across my face, because she takes a step back like it ricocheted.
“You can’t possibly think that of me,” I say.
But she knew it would hurt me to say it. The same way we were standing in my apartment two years ago and I knew exactly what to say to hurt her.
Exactly what to say to push her away, fast .
Serena’s eyes sweep to the floor. “I don’t know what to think,” she says tightly. “You lied to me.”
The apartment is so bare that I feel small, standing in the center of it on my own. Smaller than I ever did when I was on massive stages, with Serena and Hannah at my side.
“Well, you’re wrong,” I tell her. “I’m deleting Seven’s account before any of this goes down.”
“You can’t,” Serena says bitterly. “The app’s still down. I’ve got Hannah’s lawyer exploring options to stop them going through with the sale before artists have a chance to log back on. But who knows how much time it’ll buy us.”
Us. Serena has always gone to bat for underdogs. But she doesn’t call people out on social media, or get lawyers involved. Whatever is going on here, it’s personal.
I cross the distance to join her at the window. “Why do you care about this Tick Tune thing so much?”
She still won’t look at me. Her throat bobs, her fingers tight against the wineglass.
“I’m the one who pushed Rocket to take that contract two years ago,” she finally says.
“I didn’t read the fine print and he got screwed over because he trusted me.
So much that some of his friends did it after he did, too.
I’ve been trying to fix it for them, and I just—can’t.
” Her face twists into a hard scowl that doesn’t stop her eyes from watering.
“But I can damn well stop it from happening again.”
The spreadsheet on her computer. The one of her opening acts—the ones who notoriously do almost all covers, and occasionally new songs.
Everyone assumed it was a strategy to pump up the crowd.
But really, it was the only loophole in that terrible contract that let them perform live without breaching it.
Rocket isn’t the only one Serena’s been looking out for. She’s been trying to keep an entire sinking ship of new artists afloat.
Enough that she must have fired Isla, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be fair to expect anyone else to try to steer it. Serena would rather drown trying to do it alone.
That’s what scares me. Serena was built to handle this kind of thing. If she’s falling apart now, there is more she hasn’t said.
“There’s something else going on, though,” I say gently. “Not with that. But with you.”
With one sharp shake of her head, Serena’s back in her shell. Cool and indifferent. “You keep saying that,” she says. “There’s not some—big secret. I’m not like you. I don’t lie.”
My eyes sting. The thing is, I’ve already done this. Over and over and over again. So many people have pushed me away through the years, and I’ve just short of pulled myself apart trying to make them stay.
Of all the lessons I’ve learned over the years, the most brutal is knowing when it’s time to let go.
“I’m trying here, Serena. I really am. But I can’t do it alone.”
My voice cracks. Serena’s eyes flit up to meet mine, and for a moment I see her.
One of my best friends. Someone who has seen me at my ugliest lows and my sparkliest best. Someone who speaks a secret language of inside jokes and millisecond-long glances that would be lost on anyone else.
Someone I let myself think of as a forever person, despite all the people who came and went too soon.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. By the time I pull it out and see Isla’s name on the screen, the glimpse of the old Serena is gone. She looks emptied of herself, jutting her chin toward the door with a silent Go on.
I do. It hurts like hell. But it’s the tip of the iceberg compared to the hurt to come—a different kind of forever. One that might not have Serena in it.
“Don’t delete anything yet,” says Serena.
I stop halfway to the door, turning to look back. “Why not?”
“You can come forward before the sale goes through. You’re Seven. You have more power in this than I do.”
It’s no easy thing for her to admit. She wouldn’t unless she really needed my help.
But for the first time, I don’t know if the help she wants is the kind I can give.
“I need to think about it,” I say. “We’re finishing the album soon. The label has a showcase for Mack & Sam scheduled for next week. So if anything happens, I’d have to tell Sam about Seven first. Anything I decide to do with this will affect him now, too.”
I’m so preoccupied with thinking of how I’d break it to Sam that I startle at the sound of Serena’s sharp laugh.
“Sam doesn’t know?”
My voice is grim, my feet firmly planted. “Serena, I never wanted anyone to know.”
The last of the laugh drains out of her as she meets my eyes. She softens, then. For the first time since I arrived, I feel like we’re on the same side of a line, and not trying to cross one.
“Your voice is beautiful,” she says. “I just wish you had told me about Seven. Maybe I…”
She trails off, but I hear it. Maybe I could have helped. That’s always what Serena did best. But somehow, we’ve gotten so tangled in trying to help each other that all we’ve done is hurt.
My throat is almost too thick to speak.
“The way my heart got broken over and over—the way we all struggled back then—it was so public, and we were never, ever allowed to crack,” I manage. “But it hurt. All the pretending only made it worse. Seven was my way of finally processing it all, without feeling like I was letting anyone down.”
Even now, Seven feels like a strange dream.
There was no way of knowing how people would respond to my new voice.
I spent so long building this tough, shiny exterior in Thunder Hearts that I thought it was all anyone would want from me.
The way I saw it, singing on Tick Tune was like singing into a void.
But then the void started singing my lyrics back, and everything got complicated.
Serena is the one who crosses the distance now, setting a cold hand on my arm.
It’s the barest touch, but that’s all it takes for my eyes to fill with tears.
I shift closer, setting my own hand on top of hers.
I wonder if she feels it, too: that of all the heartbreaks we’ve endured in our lives, none would come close to losing this.
“The only way we got through all that was because we never had to pretend with each other,” I tell her. “Hannah and I are your best friends. But we still have no idea what’s happening with you, or why you keep delaying the tour.”
Serena keeps her hand on my arm, but doesn’t speak for a long time. The sun is sinking low into the skyline, streaking deep pinks and blues across the clouds, dimming the apartment light.
When she pulls her hand away, she gives mine a light squeeze first.
“The app is still down,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t make any decisions yet. But think about it.”
I nod, blinking the tears back. It’s not much progress. But it’s enough to hope.
“I will.”
I shove on a bucket hat and walk along the East River, but my mind is no clearer by the time I get home. The only thing I know is this: I am a grenade. At least, as far as Sam is concerned.
If it weren’t for me, we never would have gone to Boston. Rocket never would have followed us up there and found out about Caspar. Sam wouldn’t be in his worst nightmare, the one we teamed up together to prevent: putting Ben in the spotlight again.
And Sam wouldn’t have sunk all this time and effort into an album that might get screwed over the instant the world finds out I’m Seven.
I open our text thread, but I don’t type anything. It isn’t fair to tell him right now, when he’s got so much on his plate. And besides—maybe it won’t matter. Maybe this whole thing will resolve itself on its own, before anybody has to know the truth.
Or maybe everything in my life is about to explode and take Sam down with it.
Jesus. All this time, I’ve stayed away from Sam to protect myself. Now after everything we’ve been through, the truth is clear as day—I should have stayed away to protect him from me.