Chapter 9 #2
All the songs sounded just a little bit off, and Niall was distracted, messing up words, glancing over at Freddie throughout, clearly wondering why he was still absolutely fine.
But it was like without Alfie on guitar, everything was unbalanced, the timing wrong, the music never finding its groove.
The crowd was picking up on it—people were looking at their friends and whispering, and there was just a sense in the crowd of something is wrong that you could palpably feel.
When the whispers turned into murmurs, I saw Freddie looking out to the crowd, his expression worried even as his fingers flew over the neck of his bass.
It was the first time I was seeing him play, and even though it clearly wasn’t the best showcase for the band, I could tell that he was great, playing with a skill I wouldn’t have thought was possible in someone around my age.
But even Freddie’s bass abilities weren’t enough to salvage this slow-motion car wreck.
And when Niall messed up three lyrics in a row, he stopped singing, stepped back from his microphone, and shook his head.
“This is bollocks,” he said, then stormed off the stage, petulantly pushing the mic stand as he went.
He clearly meant for it to topple over, but instead it just wobbled back and forth a little before righting itself.
Freddie stopped playing, and so did Tristram/Doug, who looked around for a moment, then got out from behind his drum kit and walked offstage, leaving Freddie there alone.
Freddie looked out into the crowd, and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to take the stage, the way Niall was so eager to in the rest of the loops when his band became otherwise indisposed.
But if I knew anything about Freddie by now, it was that he thought about other people much more than himself.
So I wasn’t surprised when he just leaned close to his mic and said, “I’m so sorry. Apologies.”
Then he set his bass down and turned and walked off the stage as well—leaving it empty, the spotlights still swirling around nothing.
“Um, that was Eton Mess!” The announcer was back, his voice crackling through the loudspeakers, and even though he was a professional, he couldn’t quite disguise the confusion in his voice.
“You have more than an hour left of Grad Nite—so be sure to visit any attractions that are still on your list! Be safe and have fun!”
As soon as he stopped talking, the music came back on, and the stage lights snapped off.
The crowd started to break up and wander off—and I looked over to see the manager gathering up her things, an annoyed expression on her face.
“No,” I heard her say into her phone as she strode past. “It was a complete waste of time.”
I winced, feeling my heart squeeze. Even though I’d done everything I could to try and fix this, it had still been a disaster—just a different kind of disaster than before.
I walked slowly up to the stage as the crowd thinned out, everyone off to get their last Grad Nite adventures in—because, for them, this was a night that would never come around again.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed, but even so, I pushed myself up onto the stage. I stood there for just a moment, then picked up the water bottle that Freddie hadn’t touched. Sure enough, I could see that the little seal on the cap had been broken—and I was sure I knew by whom.
“Hey.”
I turned around and saw Freddie standing on the stage behind me, looking surprised to see me there. “Hi. Um, that was…”
“Awful,” he finished, his voice cracking as he said the word. He walked over and picked up his bass. “The manager…”
“I think she left.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. Why would she stick around after that?” He looked at me, and I saw the hurt—the anger—in his expression.
“You know, we might get fired? All of us sent back home for unprofessional behavior.” He shook his head.
“Maybe if we’d just gone ahead and played like we’d planned, it would have been okay. But you seemed so convincing…”
“Wait.” I took a step closer to him. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what I believe!” His voice was rising. “It is pretty fantastical, Cass, you know that. You know what it sounds like. But maybe if we’d just gone through with it—”
“Alfie would have gotten sick. Onstage. Is that what you want?”
“No, but at least then it wouldn’t be our faults! We wouldn’t be about to get fired!”
“But you don’t want to be here anyway!” Somehow, without my noticing, this had switched from a conversation into a fight, both of our voices getting loud enough that some people passing by glanced up at us, like they were trying to figure out if this was part of the show—or some kind of experimental theater.
“You told me you’re tired of playing the same music every night, singing someone else’s songs… .”
“Well, maybe that was stupid. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried for so much more. Shouldn’t have tried to make it in America. I mean, how silly is that—to think that it could happen?”
“It’s not silly. And I’m sorry. I—” A second later, it was like I’d just heard myself, and shook my head, getting mad all over again. “Wait, why am I apologizing? Do you know how much time I’ve spent trying to help you? Trying to fix this?”
“Yeah.” Freddie slung the bass over his shoulder and folded his arms as he looked at me. “Why?”
“What…What do you mean, why?” It felt like everything I’d been attempting to do—and all the help I’d been trying to give him, everything I’d done to save this performance—was being thrown back in my face. “I guess you’d rather be having hives right now? Sorry for trying to help you.”
“But why are you so focused on helping me? You’ve just said you’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix this. But why aren’t you trying to fix things with your friends? Your real friends?”
I swallowed hard. “Because—this is what I’m meant to do here. The loops are to fix this.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. I’m someone you just met tonight. This is your journey. You really think this is happening to you so you can save our performance?”
“I mean…” I blinked at him. This was the problem with not having a wise guide to walk you through things. You didn’t have answers to fairly basic questions like this.
Freddie took a step closer to me. “You told me yourself that there are a bunch of people from your past here tonight, people you’re avoiding. Don’t you think that maybe this is happening so that you can make things right with them?”
I shook my head, my heart beating hard, as I tried to gather my thoughts and get them in some kind of order. “That’s…It’s not…”
Freddie gave me a long look, his head tipped to one side. “You know what I think? I think it’s easier for you to try to fix this performance than deal with the people you’ve hurt. The ones you keep leaving behind.”
I drew in a sharp breath—it felt like I’d just been slapped. “That’s not fair.”
“But it’s right. Isn’t it?” He just looked at me for a moment. “I don’t think you want this to end. I think you like being in the loops. It’s the way you’ve lived your whole life, right? Always starting over, leaving everything behind and rebooting somewhere else?”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. And even though I was trying to deny these words, the truth of them was making me feel shaken—like the ground was no longer as steady as it had been just moments before.
But rather than face this, I just folded my arms over my chest, and when I spoke again, my voice was cold.
“Look, I don’t think there’s any fixing this.
” I gestured to the instruments, trying not to think about the fact that maybe I also meant us.
“Because either Alfie gets sick, or he doesn’t play and the songs don’t work.
And it looks like I was just wasting my time trying to help. ”
“I don’t think I would call it help, Cass. This was a disaster.”
“This disaster was better than all the other ones I’ve seen,” I said, my voice starting to rise again. “At least you didn’t have an allergic reaction this time!” Freddie just shook his head, and I frowned. “You believe me, right? About Niall?”
“About my best friend betraying me? Going behind my back?” Freddie raked his hands through his curls, which felt like something that should absolutely not be allowed when you’re trying to stay mad at someone.
When he looked at me again, his expression was pleading.
“I mean, you don’t know for sure, right? It’s not like you saw anything.”
“I saw enough.” For just a second, a crack appeared in the wall I’d put in front of my heart, to shield it from everything Freddie had just said to me.
I felt it weaken as I looked at how crestfallen his expression was.
To lose your big chance and your best friend was an awful one-two punch to take, even without adding the girl and her time-loop problems to the mix.
“Look, I’m sorry Niall turned out to be a terrible friend.
But I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t do that.
” Freddie just looked away, and I held out the bottle of water.
“Here. Drink if you don’t believe me. It’s not like I want to be right about this. ”
Freddie just looked at me for a long moment, like he was weighing something. Then he took the bottle from me, unscrewed the cap, and took a long, almost defiant drink.
He lowered it and looked at me, a relieved smile spreading over his face.
“See? I’m…” But almost immediately after he’d said this, it started.
The red rash creeping up the sides of his neck, his eyes getting puffy.
“Oh,” he said, blinking, his voice heartbreakingly sad. “You were right. I’m sorry, Cass.”
“I’m sorry, too.” And I was—about Niall, and the performance tonight, and all the ones that had come before. But I also meant the two of us. Because even though Freddie might not remember—I wasn’t sure there was any coming back from this.
“I have to go,” Freddie said, already backing up, his face getting blotchier and blotchier. And before I could say anything else, he ran offstage.
I stood there, alone on the stage, blinking back the tears that were threatening to spill. As much as I wanted to ignore Freddie’s words, they were bouncing around in my head, reverberating, making me think about all the things I usually pushed as far away as possible.
“Hey!” I turned around and saw a security officer looking up at me. “You can’t be here,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said, as I walked to the end of the stage and climbed down. “I was just leaving.”