3. Chapter Three #2
The community center room smelled faintly of old carpet and dry-erase markers.
The chairs were mismatched. The posters on the walls were motivational in a way that made you want to roll your eyes, but the kids didn't care.
They showed up anyway. They didn't care about viral TikToks, trending theories, or whose voice landed a Hollywood trailer.
They only knew we were practicing chords today.
"You're sounding better," I said, crouching beside Tony. "Let's make sure we hold our fingers like this."
I adjusted his grip on the guitar neck. Tony was ten, maybe eleven. He lived with his grandmother after losing both parents. He didn't talk much, but he watched, the kind of watching that felt older than a kid should be.
He tried again, careful, like the instrument might bite him if he got it wrong.
"Like this?" he asked.
"Exactly like that."
His whole face changed. His shoulders loosened, and he beamed like I'd handed him a trophy, and I had to look down at the guitar before my eyes got dramatic about it.
The rest of the session moved the way it always did.
Small hands fumbling through chord changes.
Someone hitting the wrong string and making a sound that could have summoned a haunted goose.
A kid in the corner asking if drums were "legally louder" than guitar.
I kept my voice steady, kept my smile steady, kept my life from tipping over by focusing on the simplest thing in the room.
Finger here. Strum down. Try again. Again. Good.
When I left, Tony stopped me at the door. "I like when you sing," he said, eyes wide and honest. "It makes my grandma smile."
That one almost got me. I nodded because words were not currently a reliable technology, gave him a small wave, and walked out before I could cry in front of a kid who already knew too much about adults falling apart.
Later, band practice happened the way it always did, which is to say loud, a little chaotic, and held together with duct tape and sarcasm.
Our rehearsal space was cramped, cluttered, and technically a fire hazard.
The amps were stacked too close. The cables were everywhere.
Finn acted as if shirts were optional, even when it wasn't hot, because Finn believed in commitment to a bit.
Harper drummed like she was summoning gods.
Sometimes I thought she could actually do it and they were just refusing to answer because even deities have boundaries.
"Okay, so here's what I'm thinking," Finn said, kicking his feet up on the amp like a man who'd never respected ergonomic design. "Harper and I have a bet."
I didn't look up from my notebook. "No."
"You don't even know what it is yet."
"I'm still saying no."
Harper leaned over her drum set, eyes gleaming. "We're betting how long it takes before you and Evan bang it out."
My pen slipped. "Excuse me?"
"Could be from rage," Finn said. "Could be unresolved feelings. Could be hot dressing-room eye contact and a broken zipper. We're not picky."
"Classic enemies-to-exes-to-lovers behavior," Harper added.
"You're disgusting," I said.
"I said bang it out, not get back together," Finn clarified. "Let's not get delusional."
I hurled a wadded-up lyric page at his head. He caught it with an offended gasp and pressed it to his chest. "This is art."
"That was a grocery list."
"All writing is sacred."
"You're both horrible."
"You're deflecting," Harper sang.
"Because it's not happening."
Finn's grin faded, not all at once, which would have been less terrifying. It left in pieces until the friend beneath the glitter-and-chaos routine looked back at me.
"You know we don't have to do this, right?" he said.
The words hit harder than any joke, harder than the tour poster, harder than my mom calling my ex daddy, which I was going to need several business years to recover from.
"You mean the tour?" I asked.
He nodded. "If it's too hard. Being around him. Seeing everything. If it's going to mess with your head, your heart, or your vocal cords, we can walk. We'll figure out something else."
Harper made a dramatic gagging sound. "Don't make this emotional. I finally got a new snare set."
Finn didn't even glance at her. "We're a band. We go where you go."
The rehearsal space went quiet except for the low hum of an amp. Harper sat back, less joking now. Her mouth didn't soften, but her eyes did. That was Harper's version of wrapping someone in a blanket and threatening to kill anyone who made them sad.
Finn kept his words careful. "You're gonna be on tour with him. With them. There'll be groupies, fans, thirst traps, tattoos. Are you ready to see that up close? Because people still worship him. Religious levels of thirst."
My mouth went dry.
He was right. I'd seen the TikToks, the tattoos, the fanfics, the comments that made me want to bleach my eyeballs and then write a strongly worded letter to society.
One girl had tears in her eyes and a tattoo of Evan's signature on her shoulder.
Another had it inked backward across her shoulder blade so she could read it in the mirror.
That's not love. That's a cry for help.
But it was one thing to scroll past it. It was another to stand in a venue and watch it happen in real time. To watch bodies move toward him. To watch the way he smiled because that smile was part of the job. To watch the ones who didn't have to hide.
I looked down at my notebook. My pen had left a black streak across the page when Finn said Evan's name. Dramatic, unsubtle, honestly on-brand.
"I want to do this," I said.
Harper raised a brow. "You sure?"
"No. But this is our big break. I'm not turning it down because of who we're playing with."
"That's allowed, you know," Finn said. "Protecting yourself."
"I know." I pressed the pen cap against the paper until it left a dent. "But I already let fear make one giant decision for me. I'm not letting it make this one too."
The words sat there, loud and mine.
Harper stopped spinning her drumstick. Finn set his guitar down gently, the movement deliberate, as if he was trying to be calm enough for both of us.
"You don't have to prove anything," he said.
I smiled. It hurt a little. "I think I do."