chapter twelve
Willa
Willa took the morning train from Portland to Boston. Kara had asked if she just wanted to ride on the bus, but she politely declined. She didn’t do buses—too cramped, too chaotic, too many people she couldn’t ignore. The train gave her quiet. Time to think. Time to spiral, if she was being honest.
She settled into her window seat, tucked in her AirPods, and leaned her head back. Ran a hand through her hair and sighed like the dramatic gay disaster she absolutely was. Because, of course, her mind went straight to last night.
Not the music. Not the tacos. Her.
Frankie under those string lights—eyeliner smudged, curls wild, laughing like Willa had actually surprised her.
Like she didn’t expect Willa to be funny.
And then later, that open mic kid with shaking hands and soft eyes covering one of Frankie’s early songs like it had saved them.
Frankie hadn’t joked or brushed it off. She’d just sat there, glassy-eyed and completely quiet, like the moment had cracked something open.
On the walk back, the air cool and the city soft around them, Willa had caught herself thinking, this isn’t something I want to write about. This is something I want to keep.
Which was… deeply unhelpful.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled until she found the photo—the one she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. Frankie mid-laugh, completely unguarded, all light and teeth and life. Slightly out of focus. Completely real.
She sent a text to Lena before she could second-guess it.
Willa: We went to an open mic last night. Someone covered one of her early songs and dedicated it to her because they knew she was in the audience. She nearly cried. It was stunning.
The reply came fast.
Lena: Oh no. You’re falling for her, aren’t you?
Willa didn’t answer that directly.
Willa: She’s not what I expected. And I’m not sure what to do with that.
She left it there. Let it sit like a secret.
She arrived in Boston just after noon, dropped her bag at the hotel, and took off with her camera and no real plan.
The city buzzed with late-spring energy—students sprawled in the grass, street musicians staking out corners, old brick buildings stubborn against glassy towers.
She wandered, photographed, let herself disappear.
At five, Kara texted to see if she was coming to dinner. Willa almost said no. Then didn’t.
They crammed into a loud little Mexican place in Cambridge—tight tables, string lights, ‘90s tracks playing low through the walls.
Willa slid in beside Frankie without thinking, and then very much thought about it when Frankie shifted just slightly closer.
Not enough to draw attention. Just enough to feel.
Conversation bounced around her—tour stories, inside jokes, Ember’s failed vegetarian experiment. Willa mostly listened. But Frankie kept pulling her in. Nudging her knee. Whispering jokes too close to her ear.
At one point, Frankie leaned in and asked, “You always look this serious when you eat tacos?”
Willa didn’t look up. “Only when I’m about to make life-altering guacamole decisions.”
Frankie snorted. “God, you’re weird.”
“You’re the one watching me eat.”
“I’m a people watcher. Artists, ya’ know.”
Willa raised an eyebrow. “That why your knee’s been pressed to mine for ten minutes?”
Frankie just smiled. “You noticed.”
And later, as they all spilled onto the sidewalk and Willa waited for her rideshare, Frankie kept glancing over. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask her to stay.
Willa didn’t wave. Just got in the car.
But back at the hotel, she couldn’t stop thinking about that moment. That smile. The way Frankie had said you noticed like she already knew.
—
Frankie
The venue in Boston—The Wild Orchid—was smaller than the others, but Frankie liked it more for that.
It had that gritty, lived-in charm that made her feel like she was stepping into someone’s basement—turned-sanctuary.
Exposed brick walls, uneven wooden floors that creaked with every step, and the faint lingering scent of weed, sweat, and lavender incense.
Messages were scrawled all over the green room walls from the performers that had been there before her.
She smiled as she read them. Her kind of place.
The band was scattered across the space.
Juno sat on the edge of the stage, tuning with laser focus.
Malik hammered out a rapid drum fill like they were being chased.
And Ember stretched with the dedication of a woman about to run a triathlon, fingers flexing, back arching in exaggerated slow motion.
Frankie was pacing, guitar strapped across her back, idly plucking at the strings. It wasn’t nerves. Not really. Just this buzz under her skin. The kind that said something was coming—something she hadn’t named yet. And then it hit her.
Willa. Still in her damn head.
Willa laughing at dinner last night, leaning into her like it meant nothing. Frankie didn’t know what the hell to do with any of it anymore.
The door creaked open, and like some kind of karmic curse, there she was.
Willa walked in like she owned the place—or maybe like she didn’t care if she did.
Black boots, dark jeans, camera bag slung across her shoulder like an afterthought.
Her hair was up, loosely knotted, little wisps falling around her face.
She looked fresh off the cover of some edgy lesbian magazine.
Moody & Beautiful & Probably Would Judge Your Vinyl Collection.
She gave a lazy wave, like this was just another Tuesday. And maybe it was for her. But for Frankie, something in her tightened. Right behind her ribs.
Frankie didn’t think. She just acted. Pulled a face. Crossed her eyes. Jutted her jaw out dramatically and stuck out her tongue while holding her guitar like it was a giant spool instead of an instrument.
Willa blinked. Completely unamused. Then, in one smooth motion, raised her camera and snapped a photo.
“You know I’m going to caption that one popstar mid-meltdown, right?” Willa said dryly, already checking the photo on her viewfinder.
Frankie grinned, “Just make sure it’s my good side.”
Willa didn’t look up. “You don’t have a good side.”
Frankie gasped theatrically, clutching at her chest. “Wow. So rude to someone who literally makes you money.”
“I’m here for the journalism,” Willa said, but her smile gave her away. “Not to inflate your ego.”
Malik passed between them, holding a granola bar in one hand and their phone in the other. “God,” they muttered. “The tension in here could snap a bass string. Just make out already and let the rest of us live.”
Frankie choked on a laugh, nearly dropping her pick.
Ember said from behind her keyboard. “For real, it’s getting distracting.”
Willa rolled her eyes—classic, effortless—but didn’t deny it. Didn’t blush. Not even a flinch.
Frankie, on the other hand, felt like someone had turned a dial inside her up to eleven. She shrugged her jacket off suddenly too warm. Then caught Willa watching the motion with a little too much interest before glancing away.
She tilted her head, “See something you like, Archer?”
Willa looked back at her, calm as ever. “Just trying to figure out how much of that confidence is stage persona and how much is delusion.”
Frankie grinned wider. “Guess you’ll have to stick around to find out.”
—
After soundcheck, Kara wandered over, still glued to her phone, fingers flying with practiced ease. “Hey,” she said, glancing up for half a second. “Would you mind doing a quick sit down with Willa? A few quotes, while things are calm. You’ve got twenty minutes before the sponsor call.”
Frankie hesitated for just a second—not because she didn’t want to talk to Willa. She glanced across the room and saw her, already leaning against a stack of road cases, her notebook tucked under one arm, pen already in hand, and her expression soft.
Frankie swallowed. “Yeah,” She said finally, “Sure.”
They sat at a beat up folding table in the corner of the greenroom, where the overhead light buzzed faintly and the wall behind them still had remnants of someone’s sharpie graffiti from a tour long passed.
A stack of guitar cases loomed nearby. Someone tested a mic onstage—three short bursts of feedback, then silence.
Frankie, pulled her jacket sleeves down over her hands like armor, tucking her fingers inside. She suddenly felt seventeen again sitting at her grandma’s kitchen table, raw with wanting and unsure of what anyone expected from her.
“You okay?” Willa asked, eyes soft, full of… something—care? Admiration? Both?
“Yeah,” Frankie said softer than usual.
“You good if I record this, just so I don’t have to write anything down?”
“Yeah—works for me.” Frankie nodded.
Willa placed her phone gently on the table between them, the screen facing up. She hit record with one tap, then looked up.
“If there’s something you don’t want to answer—or you’re not comfortable with, just tell me.” Then she looked at her notes.
“You’ve said your music’s always been personal,” She began, voice even. “But what made you fall in love with it in the first place? Like—what’s your origin story?”
Frankie blinked. It wasn’t a question she was expecting. She’d been bracing for something about image or ambition or whatever narrative Willa thought she was going to stitch together. Not…that.
She looked down, let out a breath, then smiled, small and soft. The kind that only showed up when she was thinking about something too tender to say out loud.
“My Mimi,” she said finally. “She had this old record player in her kitchen. One of those wood-paneled ones that took forever to warm up. She’d play her favorite vinyl records while she cooked—Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Bonnie Raitt—all women with big voices and sad eyes.”
Frankie looked up from her hands, Willa didn’t interrupt. Didn’t even nod. She just listened.
“She used to sing, too.” Frankie went on, her voice loosening with the memory.
“Not professionally or anything. Just while she stirred pasta sauce or kneaded dough for homemade bread. Sometimes she’d dance with the dog.
But her voice—Goddess, it was… it wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t flashy. But it meant something.
Like it came from somewhere deeper than her lungs. ”
Her fingers tightened around the sleeves of her zip-up.
“I’d sit on the counter and try to match her notes.
I wanted to sound like her. I wanted to feel like her—safe and strong and like nothing could break you if you knew how to hold a song.
” She stopped talking. Looked down at her lap.
“She’s…” Her throat closed around the words. “She’s not singing much anymore.”
Willa tilted her head, her voice quiet but clear. “Is she okay?”
Frankie shook her head. Slowly. She didn’t want to go into it, she didn’t want to say the word dementia. So instead she just shook her head, “Not really.”
The quiet that followed wasn’t awkward. It was full. Full of things they didn’t know how to say and maybe didn’t need to. Full of weight that sat between them, heavy, but not unwelcome.
Then Willa did something Frankie hadn’t expected. She reached across the table and laid her hand over Frankie’s. Just a touch. Brief. Steady. Her fingers warm against Frankie’s knuckles. It was nothing, really. It was everything.
“You don’t have to talk about it.” Willa said, voice softer than Frankie had ever heard it. “It’s okay.”
Frankie nodded but didn’t speak. Her chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with being seen too clearly.
Then, after a beat, Willa asked, more carefully this time, “Off the record… is she still with us?”
Frankie blinked hard. “Yeah,” She said “But it’s not good. She has good days and bad days. I feel like we’re getting to the point where the good are fewer. But she’s still here. And I guess I’m scared—no terrified—that one day she won’t be. And I won’t know what I’m supposed to sound like anymore.”
Willa didn’t answer. She just reached down and stopped the recording with a single tap. Frankie looked up, startled.
“Don’t include that part,” she said.
“I won’t, promise.” Willa replied. “That’s just for us.”
Frankie’s chest pulled tight. Not in a bad way. Just enough to remind her she still had one.
And for the first time, she didn’t feel like a quote, or even a performer. She just felt like a girl at a folding table, telling the truth to someone who was finally listening.
And Willa saw her. Not the image, not the stage version.
Her.
And that—more than anything—terrified her. Because it meant that Willa Archer could break her. Or worse, that she already had.
—