To the friends tucked into my heart,

you are my home.

Contents

Radio Niteowl: Show #156

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Radio Niteowl: Show #157

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Radio Niteowl: Show #158

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Radio Niteowl: Show #159

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Radio Niteowl: Show #160

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Radio Niteowl: Show #161

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Radio Niteowl: Show #162

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Radio Niteowl: Show #163

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

WZTQ—The Swish: Transcript Excerpt

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Radio Niteowl: Show #165

Chapter Forty-Two

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Preview: The Sound of Us

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #156

MAY 28th

NITEOWL: Good evening, my Owls, and welcome to Radio Niteowl on 93.5 KOTN. The phone lines are open and I’m raring to go! Tonight’s topic is forbidden love. Dun-dun! Got a tale to tell? A love you can’t quite articulate? Or are you on the other end of that unrequited affair? Just slide me a line at [number redacted] and—bless, two callers already! Holla, Caller One! You’re on the air. What’s your poison?

CALLER ONE: Yo, I've got this broha of mine. He’s had a run of bad luck. Our best friend died about a year ago.

NITEOWL: Oh no. I’m sorry.

CALLER ONE: Yeah, brah, it was bad. He hasn’t been the same since. I know he didn’t love her, right? But the man can’t seem to let her go. I’m just all twisted about this because he’s my brah, and I don’t know what to do. I’d go to jail for him, you know? I just want him to forgive himself. She loved him and . . . he never felt the same.

NITEOWL: So he feels guilty.

CALLER ONE: Yeah, brah.

NITEOWL: Hmm. You know, my grandmother always said that you can’t open new doors until the old ones close. If you keep them ajar, drafts’ll blow in and close any new door you want to open. Maybe he should confront his feelings. It’s been a year. Maybe he should try to close that door.

CALLER ONE: Shit, that’s it. You’re a genius. There’s a vigil coming up in July. If I can just trick him into going . . .

NITEOWL: A vigil? Hold on, who is your friend?

CALLER ONE: Thanks, broho!

NITEOWL: Wait! . . . Never mind. He’s gone. I hope your friend finds some peace of mind! Okay, Owls! What else do you have for me tonight? Here we go. Caller Two!

CALLER TWO: Oh—uh, hi. So . . . there’s this . . . there’s this girl.

NITEOWL: Good, good. I like where this is going. Much lighthearted. Very yes.

(CALLER TWO and NITEOWL laugh.)

NITEOWL: You’ve got a nice laugh.

CALLER TWO: So do you. You know, for the radio. I mean, you’re probably very pretty too, I didn’t mean—

NITEOWL: So, about this girl . . . ?

CALLER TWO: Right! Yeah. She’s way outta my league. We’ve been friends for years, but she’s my best friend, you know? I'm not her best friend, she’s best friends with someone else, but she’s mine. Isn't it funny how that works?

NITEOWL: Then she doesn't know what she's missing.

CALLER TWO: (laughs nervously) No, she doesn't have eyes for me. Never has. But it never bothered me until I realized one day.

NITEOWL: That you love her?

CALLER TWO: It kinda hit me. Like a linebacker with a personal grudge against me. Anyway, point is, I like her and I don’t know how to tell her, and at this point I don’t think I should. After the summer, most of us are going away to college and she likes someone else . . .

NITEOWL: Well, summer’s about to start, and if you’re going away, this might be your last chance—ever. I say do it. Balls to the wall, boy. You only have one life. Do you want to spend it wondering what-if that one girl was your North Star?

CALLER TWO: And when she says no? That she doesn’t . . . you know. That we’re just friends and she never saw me that way and never will? Then we’ll drift apart, and in ten years we’ll see each other at class reunions and make small talk, and that’ll be it.

NITEOWL: Don't be so dark and brooding. I’m not saying it’ll be easy—

CALLER TWO: Have you ever done it?

NITEOWL: Done what?

CALLER TWO: Walked up to your best friend and told him you loved him?

NITEOWL: You’re assuming I like guys. I might like girls—but the point’s moot. My best friends are a bunch of blockheads—all three of them. They couldn’t see love if it came hurtling at them from a canon.

CALLER TWO: But if they could?

NITEOWL: Not an option. But I'll tell you what, call me back when you've told her, and tell me what she says, and I promise I'll do the same to my blockhead best friends.

CALLER TWO: You like one of your best friends, too?

NITEOWL: Isn’t that the rule? We fall in love with the people we can never have.

Chapter One

Micah paints imaginary lines in the sky with his fingers from one star to the next. I can almost see the constellations if I tilt my head and squint, but I really don’t care if I see them or not. May evenings are the best in Steadfast, Nebraska. The days aren’t stifling yet, and they sigh with a cool breeze coming off the miles and miles of farmlands, blowing the scent of blooming sunflowers into town.

My head rests against his shoulder as he draws Orion in the sky. The cadence of his voice is soft, mellow. It dips and bobs with his accent, curling around the r’s and stuffy t’s. I’ve heard it my whole life. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and his house always smells like spicy food and burning incense. His voice is warm, like a blanket. It’s safe.

“How far away you think they are?” I ask.

“Thousands of millions of miles,” he replies. “Chances are they’re already long dead. Their light takes time to reach us—”

“At the speed of light?” I joke, turning my face toward to his. The spotlight from our porches cuts his cheekbones into sharp lines, the plains of his face smooth and soft, like an Impressionist painting.

He drops his brown eyes to me, grinning. “Smart-ass.”

“Smartest of them all.”

He looks back at the sky. He scoops a handful of dark curls back with his free hand. “What’re we going to do after graduation, Igs?”

I groan, rolling off him. I lay on my back, arms out, staring at the endless sky. We’re in the grass between our front yards. It’s wet with dew and prickly against the back of my neck. “I don’t know. You think Billie’ll just reuse the speeches he gives the football team for his Valedictorian one?”

“I’d like to hear that.” He clears his throat and tries to imitate our mutual friend’s midwestern twang: “It’s real simple—now most of you’ve been at this gig for twelve years. And this is it. This is where we take a stand. Now you’ve got the world ahead of you—”

I elbow him in the side. “Stop it,” I say, trying not to laugh. “Billie doesn’t give speeches like that.”

“Oh, so you’ve been in the locker rooms? Got a secret identity, Ingrid North?”

My cheeks burn. “No.”

“Don’t act so guilty!”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous!”

“Well you’ve been MIA for the last few months, so what do I know?” He moves to sit up. Blades of grass coat his back, and I absently begin to pick them off him.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Did I go somewhere?”

“You’ve been distant since . . .” He chews on his bottom lip, looking back at my house and the light on in the living room, where Grams is watching Jeopardy.

“Oh. That.” I lay back down. “Life just happened, that’s all.”

“But you’ll have more time now, right? With graduation?”

“Probably not.”

He scoots closer to me. “Why not, Igs? The group’s not the same without you. And your grandma—”

“Can we not talk about it right now?”

He purses his lips, worry lines creasing his face, making him look older, like a scolding parent. Maybe what he’ll look like in twenty years, when he owns his father’s auto repair shop. He pretty much lives there now, his fingers always stained with grease. “We miss you. It’d be nice to hang out a few more times—you, me, Billie, and LD—before we all go off to wherever we’re going. This is our last summer together. Maybe forever.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” I say, and roll my eyes, but there’s a twinge of truth to his words. Of all people who should know how quickly something you thought would stay the same changes forever, it’s me.

He mutters something under his breath before turning to face me. “I mean it, Igs. We need to make our last summer in Steadfast epic. We owe it to ourselves, you know?”

When he looks at me with those brown eyes that might be mocha or might be coffee or might be dirt flecked with gold, it’s hard not to think that, for a moment, something could be epic. Something could be world shattering and wonderful. Like his gaze is the missing piece of a puzzle I’ve been looking for my entire life.

I wish I could tell him that, but the words get caught in my throat. I quickly look away, caving.

It’s hard not to cave when Micah Perez looks at you like you’re the last star left in the sky. “Fine, yeah. Got anything in mind?”

“Well, there is a Barn party tonight . . .”

The warm feeling in my gut turns to ice. “That’s why you wanted to stargaze tonight? We’re not stargazing at all—we’re waiting on the others!”

He wobbles his bottom lip. “C’mon, Igs, for me?” Then he starts begging me in Spanish so choppy that his ancestors must be rolling in their graves, so I clamp his lips closed to stop him. His parents might be from Monterrey, but Micah almost failed Spanish in seventh grade.

“I don’t do Barn parties. No matter how much you want to sweet talk me. Besides, who’s going to watch Grams?”

He rolls his eyes. “Your grandma’ll be okay; promise. And my parents are right next door.” He thumbs back to his house, and his mother’s watching America’s Rising Star with that punk singer Jason Dallas as a guest judge. I wish I were watching that now instead of being out here. “If not for me, come for the dozens of classmates who’d love to see your face.”

I snort. “Yeah, on a milk carton.”

“A sour milk carton. It’s the last Barn party before graduation. Tomorrow we’ll walk across that stage and shake hands with Clipboard Butt”—the loving name we have for Principal Monroe, since he always shoved his clipboard down the seat of his pants—“and that’s it! We’ll be done. Officially not high schoolers anymore. Hell, we’ll be adults.”

“That’s scary.”

“Am I winning you over yet?” he asks, trying on another grin for size. Trouble sinks perfectly into the corner of his lips. His cell phone beeps, and he takes it out of his pocket to read it. “You better decide fast. The others are on their way.”

“I don’t see why everyone loves the Barn so much,” I try to argue. “It’s just an excuse to make bad decisions with classmates.”

He wiggles a thick black eyebrow. “I’m all up for bad decisions tonight.”

“Oh? You know condoms expire, right? Don’t trust the dinosaur that’s been in your wallet since fifth grade.”

He feigns a gasp. “I’d never! I might pack heat,” he fashions his hands into a gun, “but a good pistol deserves a good holster.”

“Don’t you mean toy gun?”

“Ouch.”

“You walked into that one, ranger.”

Headlights pull down the road. They briefly blind us as we pull up our hands to shield our eyes. Billie’s beat-up gray Cadillac drives up, and LD leans out of the passenger window, her teal hair piled high on her head in a perfect braid. “You two love birds stop mackin’ on the front lawn and get your asses in here!”

Micah flashes her the bird. “So what do you say? Wanna come prevent some bad decisions tonight? I’ll even let you listen to that radio deejay you like so much, Rooney Quick—”

“Quill,” I correct.

“—on the way there!”

I level him a glare. “He’s not even on right now.”

“Well, when he is, then.”

“You hate his voice.”

“I’ll endure anything for you.”

“Liar.”

He feigns hurt. “I’m sure Rooney Quits—”

“Quill!”

“—never had his best friend call him a liar!”

My idol Rooney Quill also never had to grow up in nowhere Nebraska. I sigh heavily. “Fine! Fine, help me up.”

“¡Vale!” He jumps to his feet and spins back around, grasping my hands. He heaves me up.

“I hope cat tacos are in,” I say, motioning to my sweater.

LD gives a wolf whistle. “Sexy cat tacos. Hop in!”

Grams and I both have an affinity for knit sweaters, so while I don’t have many summery dresses or sparkly skirts, I do have sweaters, with everything on them from R2-D2 to cat tacos (as in cats in tacos). We’re are alike that way. We love to ham up our lives with sweaters covered in . . . ham. Or cats. Or ham and cats. Or ham and cats and the eternal face of Donny Osmond.

I glance back at the window. She is exactly where I left her, in the recliner in the living room, having fallen asleep watching Jeopardy. I pulled an afghan to her chin earlier, so she looks like a cocoon of snuggly orange-and brown-zigzags. A part of me wants her to wake up so I’ll have an excuse to not go. I’m sorry guys, I have to sit here with Grams and watch Days of Our Lives reruns with her while she cooks bacon in the kitchen and hums the theme music to Star Wars, I’d say.

But she looks so peaceful, I can almost trick myself into thinking everything is still okay.

From the car, the golden-headed Billie Bleaker, star running back and Valedictorian and so many other golden things, shouts from the driver’s side, “Hey, North! No second-guessing!”

“I’m not second-guessing.” I climb into the backseat with Micah.

Billie raises a single strong eyebrow. Somehow, he always knows what I’m thinking when Micah doesn’t. “Totally were,” he argues.

“Was not.”

“Was.”

“Was not!”

“Was times infinity.”

I scowl as he bumps fists with LD. Micah gives me an apologetic shrug as we pull off onto the road again. I glance back through the rear window, watching the yellow light in the window grow smaller and smaller until Billie turns onto the main road, and then it disappears.

Chapter Two

Before you start wondering, Mom left when I was six.

I was the last to see her, standing in the doorway with her floral suitcase, dishwater-blond hair braided atop her head. She spied me hiding at the top of the stairs and put a finger to her lips.

“I’ll be back soon,” she whispered as an Exorcist-puke-colored taxi pulled into the driveway.

Then she walked out the front door, cowboy boots clinking, and closed the door so quietly the hinges barely squeaked. Then the big green taxi pulled away.

That’s not to say I’ve never heard from her since. Oh, she used to send postcards for my birthday the first few years—from California, New York, Beijing, Morocco, Singapore, Egypt—but after a while they stopped. Now she just calls whenever she runs out of cash, always from weird area codes like White River Junction, Vermont, or Herald Call, Minnesota.

I hate to think that I’m anything like Mom, but I know that deep down my skin itches for other places, too. The walls are already closing in, the town suffocating. I know, deep down, I’m just like her, from my dishwater-blond hair to my hazel eyes to my knack for twenty questions (“Good journalistic instinct!” Grams always proclaims). I wish I’d gotten her figure too, thin as a rail, and her laugh like honey, not just her bad traits, but I look more like a pear than the next model on the cover of Hipsters Daily. Mom can't remember who the male donor was that made me, and I never cared to find out.

But, unlike Mom, I actually have a conscience, and it’s guilty. Every time I blink, Steadfast makes more reasons for me to stay. Like Grams, and my friends, and Micah in a tight white T-shirt that stretches gloriously over his biceps, and jeans that make his butt look so, so stellar.

Not that I ever look at his butt.

. . . Unless, obviously, it’s in my face as he reaches up between the seats to change the radio. “I hate this station. It’s nothing but Deadheads.”

LD slaps his hand away. “Now, now, we should support our local Deadhead.”

“He’s not even a good deejay.”

“You wouldn’t know a good deejay if it smacked you across the face,” I defend as he sits back with a huff. “I’d like to see you try to do better.”

“And play something besides country,” Billie adds, looking up in the rearview mirror at me. I can see his grin in the reflection, and it’s charming in a boyish way. Billie is tall and muscular from years of football. His sandy hair is gelled in a swoop, the sides newly buzzed. His mom runs the local salon, and I still remember all the years in middle school when he had green or blue hair. But he grew out of that phase. He put his punk CDs in the attic and joined varsity football, something he’s genuinely good at. Girls like him—a lot of girls like him—but he just isn’t the kind of guy to count notches in his belt. Which is probably why so many girls find him attractive, come to think of it.

Micah mocks him and sits back in his seat. “Well fine then! Everyone’s giving me shit about my music. You’re all a bunch of haters.”

“Charming haters,” LD corrects. Then she turns around to us from the passenger seat and asks me, “How’s Grams?”

I shrug. “Fell asleep reading The Juice again while watching Jeopardy.”

“We really need to get her better reading material,” she says, and shakes her head, pulling her purse from the floorboards. “Tell me it was at least a good issue?”

“It was about that vigil.”

“Oh, that girl who died from that band—”

“Roman Holiday,” I fill in.

“That one! What’s her name? I was listening to that radio show you like so much—the one with Quill—talk about her today at work. Gosh, what was her name?” LD looks at Billie for an answer. Holly Hudson I want to respond, because I listened to the same show, too. Every day at 6:00 p.m. sharp.

Billie makes a face. “What the hell, you think I’d know?”

“Never mind, you’re right. Whatever.” She fishes around in her gargantuan bag for a silver flask and takes a swig. She hands it off to Micah. “Maybe we can get Grams a subscription to People—Holly Hudson! There we go. God, that would’ve drove me crazy.”

Micah takes the flask and throws his head back in a long drink. He makes a face. “We tried; she hates People. What is this, piss?”

“Whiskey; close though.”

He makes another face and offers it to me. I hesitate. “The Barn’s better when you pregame,” he says.

Point. I take a swig, and the alcohol burns all the way down into my belly and sits there like hot coals. “Oh that’s gross. Billie?”

He waves his hand. “Nah. Someone needs to stay sober for you guys.”

“Oh, come on,” LD says, and pokes him in the bicep. “Don’t tell me a strapping young man like yourself doesn’t want a good time?”

“I can have a good time sober,” he says. “Besides, someone needs to make good choices.” He gives LD a level look.

“Pff. Killjoy,” she sniffs, and grabs the flask from me. The one drink is already making me warm. She takes another swig and starts passing it around again. “You’re just too good for the rest of us lowly humans.”

“Some of us have college scholarships to not screw up,” Billie retorts.

Ouch.

LD gives him a sharp look. “Don’t worry, Golden Boy; I've already paved that road.”

Billie’s grip tightens around the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well that’s how I took it.”

Micah and I glance at each other. We ride in silence the rest of the way through town, listening to the murmur of the radio. I glance out the window and watch the fields of sunflowers pass lazily by. The Barn is near the reservoir, a mile out of town. When I turn back to look at Steadfast, the radio tower stands like a stake in its heart, the red light at the top blinking.

After a moment, a familiar tune begins to hum through the speakers, washing away the silence. I slap Micah in the arm to get him to listen, perking at the familiar tune. “Ooh, turn it up! Mick’s playing our song!”

Billie shakes his head. “For the record, this is not my song.”

“You don't have a say,” LD retorts.

Billie sighs as LD turns up the speakers so loud, the music rattles the windows.

“Shotgun Heartache” by Jason Dallas.

I raise my hands and begin to move to the beat. The song is fast, rolling, like racing a car down a deserted road. It’s hard not to move, the lyrics infectious. We sing along, Micah and I sharing the flask like it’s a microphone. So close to him, I can smell his body spray. Coconut and motor oil.

The smell of heaven.

“I’m gonna bury my crown, let’s get the hell outta town, we gotta run, run, run before life drags us down!” we howl into the flask.

LD rolls down the windows and howls the lyrics at the full moon, thrusting up her hands. The Cadillac crests the hill and the Barn, decked in lantern lights and surrounded by cars and tractors and bikes, comes into view.

Let tonight be a good night, I pray to the moon, the sky—the red North Star blinking behind us. I pray to the night that it will be filled with nothing but good things, a summer of good things, before it all ends.

We need good things—just a few.

Just for tonight.

Billie parks at the edge of the lot as the song ends. We all pile out and gather near the trunk of the car, waiting for the first one to take the treacherous steps across the gravel to hell. The Barn is, as the name implies, a huge red barn—the kind you see in Footloose or Dirty Dancing. You can easily fit two tractors, or about fifty high school seniors, in it. The doors are open tonight, letting in the sweet May breeze. There are Christmas lights strewn up across the rafters and a disco ball throwing pinpoints of light down onto the seniors dancing over the hay-speckled ground.

LD sloshes the flask around. “There’s about a swig left, you sure you don’t want it, Golden Boy?”

Billie eyes the Barn—and the country music rumbling from it—and then the flask. “Do your parents know you’re drinking their good whiskey?”

“Of course not. I’m a properly sneaky lady when it comes to that sort of thing.” She sloshes the flask around. “C’moooon.”

“Yeah, Bleaker,” Micah adds, calling Billie by his last name the way Coach Evans used to. He plants a hand on Billie’s shoulder and shakes it. “Be a good sport, bro!”

Billie looks pleadingly back at me as if I’m the deciding factor. I shrug. “What could it hurt? It’s just a sip.”

“You guys are the worst.”

“Peer pressure!” LD and Micah crow, bumping fists.

Rolling his eyes, Billie takes the flask and raises it. “You two are the death of me,” he cheers and takes a gulp. He makes a face, shoving the empty flask back at LD. “Happy now?”

“Oh, Billie, I’m so happy I could fart rainbows.”

“Please save yourself the embarrassment.”

LD tosses the empty flask into the backseat and puts her arm around Billie and Micah. “Come on, boys,” she says, “we’ve got all our lives ahead of us and one glorious night to screw it all up with a pretty girl. Let's go find us some trouble.”

I follow them, weaving through the maze of cars toward the Barn. I try not to look into any of the windows but I’m too nosy—especially after I see our senior class president hitting second base with our salutatorian, a tangle of hair and boobs and their half-off skirts.

LD gives a low whistle. “Seems like we’re late to the party,” she remarks. “Hey, I thought Rachel had a crush on you, Golden Boy.”

“She might be bi,” Billie says, and shrugs, “but she’s not my type anyway.”

“What is your type?”

“What’s yours?”

She grins. “Touché.”

Micah nudges his head toward me, signaling me to catch up. I do, and he bends in close to me to ask, “On a scale from one to Hell Freezing Over, how likely is it for me to score with Heather tonight?”

The girl in question is sitting with her crew in the back of a six-foot-long pickup bed, sipping beer from a red Solo cup, shorts so short it makes me a little sick to look at someone who can pull them off.

I shrug. “Maybe she’s just really passionate about saving horses and riding cowboys?”

“I’ll be her cowboy.” He wiggles an eyebrow.

“Oh, honey,” LD tells him, “anyone would kill to be her cowboy.”

The closer to the Barn we come, the louder the car-shaking country music gets. A gaggle of girls sing along to Taylor Swift’s new single. Micah spots the line of kegs and excuses himself to get drinks for us. Billie goes with him.

LD and I stop at the edge of the Barn. She scans the dance floor with hungry eyes—but we both know she isn’t going to find the girl she’s looking for. That ship sailed years ago, and she took LD’s heart with her it seems.

I sigh, folding my arms over my chest. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Mmm.” She purses her lips. “What do you mean?”

“Being hopelessly in love with someone who is hopelessly out of reach.” I stare down at my dirt-scuffed Chucks. “Do you ever talk to her?”

Her—LD doesn’t like anyone to mention her name because it’s a constant reminder of the secret she wasn’t ready to reveal quite yet. It was sophomore year, nearly spring. LD was in love—she’d never been in love before, not like that. Not ground-shattering love, not mold-breaking, not secret-sharing love. They built a castle out of secret meetings and stolen kisses, because in Steadfast people might forgive you for being different, but they never forgot. It took only one guy seeing their hands brush in the hallway, their pinkies interlock, for the castle to come tumbling down.

The girl she loved hated that she had to be different to be happy. Her family moved away that summer. In small towns being who you really are can be suffocating, and LD has been drowning for years.

She shrugs nonchalantly. “Am I supposed to still talk to her?”

“No, I suppose not.”

She puts her hands on her hips. She’s easily the most fashionably dressed girl here, in a tight A-line skirt and an off-the-shoulder lacy blouse. Heather could eat her heart out—and that was probably the point. “You know, Iggy-Pop, none of this really matters anymore.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Because tomorrow, Hell will finally be over.”

I mock whisper, “But tonight, all the demons are here.”

She outstretches her arm. “Well, care to dance with these demons while the men are getting our sassy selves drinks?”

I put a hand over my heart in mock outrage. I put on my worst southern drawl, “My word, Miss Darling! I thought you’d never ask.” I hook my arm into hers and we float to the middle of the dance floor. A few people turn to stare, but since spring our sophomore year, LD decided to like the attention. Her clothes are armor, her eyeliner sharp enough to cut a fool. She attracts their gazes like moths to a flame.

The song fades into a line dance, and while other people begin to gather into circles and kick their heels up and all that Footloose nonsense, LD puts her arms around my waist and we begin to dance slow.

“Get a room, lesbos!” someone heckles from the crowd. We don’t have to turn around to know who it is—Mike Labouise, quarterback and absolute douche.

We keep dancing.

“Yeah, Ingrid, I’ll give you ten bucks if you kiss her,” he goes on.

A muscle in LD’s jaw feathers.

“Couldn’t get a better date than old fatty there?”

“A match made in heaven,” one of his cronies agrees. “They’re the best each other’ll ever get.”

That stops LD cold. I feel her hands fist around my waist, and she turns to Mike. He’s wearing a polo shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, looking like he just stepped out of an American Apparel ad. How come bullies are rarely ugly?

“Come again?” LD asks sweetly, a saccharine smile sliding over her lips.

“You heard me,” Mike slurs. He’s more than a few drinks in. Closer, I can see lipstick already smeared across his collar. Classy.

“All I heard was shit coming out of your mouth,” she replies, then turns to Mike’s lackey. “Mind translating?”

Mike’s eyes flash dangerously. “You p—”

A hand jumps out from the crowd and grabs Mike by the collar, forcing him back. It’s Billie. He turns Mike around and shoves him away. “Leave them alone, Labouise.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to insult your girlfriend,” Mike replies, readjusting his shirt. “Or, wait—did you mean the cow?”

My fists clench.

“Did she come for the moooo-sic?” someone else heckles.

The crowd laughs.

I can feel people beginning to stare, eyes like straight pins into my skin, skewering me like a moth to a corkboard. This is why I don’t come to the Barn. The joke began in middle school. It was a Monday in seventh grade. September twenty-third. I remember it better than any birthday or holiday I ever had. You never remember the good things the way you do the bad. I had a crush on Mike then, and I did a terrible job of hiding it. Everyone knew, like everyone knew Billie was in love with Rachel or that the sky was blue. I’m not sure what would’ve happened that day if I hadn’t worn a black-and-white splotched sweater. Or if I hadn’t accidentally run into Mike in the cafeteria and spilled milk all over his new bomber jacket. Sometimes I can still hear the cafeteria braying along like a herd of deranged cattle.

It doesn’t matter that I lost a lot of my pudge or that I can run ribbons around Mike and his gang or that no matter how far I sprint I can never get far enough away from that sound in my head.

Because Steadfast is so small, we’ve all known each other our whole lives. Me, my friends, my bullies. Like being crammed in a hotel you can never leave.

A muscle in Billie’s jaw feathers. “I’ll give you to the count of three to walk away.”

“Or what, Bleaker? I'm udderly terrified.”

Billie jerks forward but LD catches him by the arm. “No fighting,” she hisses. “Remember your scholarship.”

“Yeah, remember that scholarship of yours. Gotta milk it for all it’s worth—”

Suddenly, Billie tears out of LD’s grip and leaps toward Mike. He grabs him by the collar, forcing him close. The crowd quickly moves back. “I swear to God, Labouise,” Billie snarls, his grip so tight on Mike’s collar his knuckles are white, “I’ll punch you so hard even Nebraska State won’t recognize you when you show up for second-string practice. It is second string, isn’t it? Or third?”

“Go to hell, Bleaker!” Mike leans back and then cracks his head against Billie’s with all his might. Billie stumbles back but catches his footing and dives at Mike. They go tumbling to the ground in a flurry of punches and kicks. Mike’s goons, first-string linemen from the football team, gang up on Billie. Someone clocks him good, and blood gushes from his nose.

He’s fighting a losing battle.

He’s going to get butchered.

Bless, even I’m doing those stupid jokes now—

Stop it stop it stop it—

LD forces my hands down from my ears. “Go find Micah. I’m going to try and not let Billie get killed.” Then she takes off her jewelry in one swipe, dumps it into her purse, and shoves her purse at me. She dives into the fray, heels and all.

I stare in horror for a moment at the mess of arms and legs and shouts and screams and curses—until common sense slams into me like a brick wall. I sling LD’s purse over my shoulder and elbow through the gathering crowd.

Micah.

I have to find Micah.

Chapter Three

“Micah!” I call, stumbling into the back of the Barn, where rows and rows of horse stalls sit empty. It’s private, but only in the way public showers are. It’s where everyone goes to—you know.

It’s just where they go.

An arts groupie makes out with a stoner in the first stall, and in the second the drum major is feeling up the president of the KEY club. The third stall is empty—or at least at first it looks that way.

But then I see him in the corner, the back of his head ruffled, curls askew. For a moment I think he's just looking into the corner of the stall like the weirdo he is, but then someone's hand runs through his curls. He isn’t alone.

Hesitantly, I step closer.

I wish I hadn't.

He presses his hands against the girl’s shoulders, deepening their kiss. He’s taken one strap of her tank top off, she’s pressing her hands against his solid chest, drinking him in like a tall glass of lemon water.

I take a step back.

You know in those stupid rom-coms when the main characters see the inciting incident that changes their life forever? Time sort of slows down and everything turns gray around them, and the camera zooms in on their shocked, disheartened faces?

Well, that’s complete bull.

Because those bad moments are just as fast as the good ones—too fast.

So fast you almost don’t feel your heart shattering.

Almost.

Neither Micah nor Heather notice me. Their world consists of two people. Their only history is this moment. The moment I always wanted to be in.

Fisting my hands, I leave the stalls before they see me and return to the barn and the fight.

Billie has Mike in a headlock and LD is wiping blood from a split eyebrow. The chorus of “Fight!” and the bray of cattle are too much. I can’t stand it. People stand away from me like who I am is catching.

Like I’m a leper—or something worse. They’ve always known I could never be in that stall with Micah. Why didn't they ever tell me? Why was I stupid to think that I . . . that we . . . ?

My eyes are blurring. I wipe them hard with the back of my hand, and my mascara smears across my face. I've had enough of this.

“Get off him, Boo!” I shouted, using Mike Labouise’s nickname from elementary school. We used to be friends. His grandma and mine would go to poker nights together at the town hall. I don't understand why he hates me now—but I don't care.

I march up to the fight, people moving out of my way like the parting of the Red Sea in that old movie, and I force my sharp elbow between Mike and Billie. He releases Billie from the headlock, and I shove them away from each other.

“What would your grandma say, Boo?” I ask him.

His face breaks into surprise. “She’s dead.”

“Rolling over in her grave, too.” I drop LD’s handbag and turn to go. Billie locks eyes with me for a moment, begins to follow, but I don’t wait for him. I leave as fast as I can. He had this pity look on his face that I can't stand. Not right now. Not after . . .

Stop thinking, I chant to myself, wishing I could. Wishing I could freeze my brain and never think again.

I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s not to the gray Cadillac. And it’s not back to the Barn. Subconsciously, I guess I follow the blinking red light in the sky.

My North Star.

“I asked you for a good night,” I told it, following the road back to town. “Just one good one! Just one!”

But the blinking light doesn’t answer. Of course it doesn’t. I’d have to check myself into an institution if it did.

It’s a mile trek back to town, but it feels infinitely longer, like I’m on one of those desert highways that stretch for hundreds of miles. Everything looks so close, but it’s all so far away.

Whatever possessed me to think the Barn was a good idea? I pull my arms around myself tightly, although I feel like an imposter in my own skin. I can still hear them chanting and the bray of cattle. I know it’s just one of those things that happens, like Heather calling me “thunder thighs” in third grade and Mitchell Wilkins dressing up like me for a Halloween party in ninth. When a school is as small as Steadfast, escaping your tormentors feels like running on a treadmill.

I hate treadmills—you do all that work and never get anywhere. Like a hamster on a wheel. When I run, I want to go. I want to leave. But I never run too far. Just to the reservoir at the edge of town. And then I run back because I can’t get out.

I can’t leave Steadfast.

After a while of walking—maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty—the unmistakable sound of a car begins to fade in between the crickets and buzzing gnats. I turn just in time to watch the gray Cadillac crest over the hill and stop beside me.

Billie rolls down the window. He has a split lip and a pretty good shiner coming up on his right eye. He’s halfway drenched in beer, and I can smell it out the car window. “North . . .”

I wave him off. “I’m fine. I’m good. Everything’s good.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Of course it’s a lie!” I snap, and then bite my cheek. Don’t cry, I chant to myself. Don’t fucking cry. “I’m sorry, I just . . .”

“Yeah, I know. People are assholes.”

“Yeah.” I remember the third stall. I wish I didn’t remember. “You didn’t have to come after me. I'm not going to get sawed in half by Freddie Krueger or anything.”

“I know you’re good. I’m the one who’s not. I mean look at this face. It’ll never be the same again. Besides, it’s Jason who has the chainsaw.” He puts on a charming grin and oh, is he charming. Charming in the way good boys always are.

“It’ll be fine,” I reply, quickly looking away.

“Like you? How you’ll be fine?”

“Yeah, like how I’ll be fine.”

We both know it’s a lie.

He says, “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

“Will it require talking about my feelings? Because the Juice has a one-week exclusive on them.”

“Naturally. I wouldn't want to steal your story,” he tries to joke, and then nudges his head into the car. “Hop in, North. Your chauffeur will take you anywhere you want to go.”

He doesn’t mean that but the possibility makes my heart balloon anyway. Anywhere—it sounds like a magic spell, a key to the iron bars around my life. I’ll go anywhere, absolutely anywhere, as long as it isn’t Steadfast. But I know he won’t go too far. He’s cautious like that, weighing everything before he ever takes a single step. When Iowa offered him a full scholarship for football, so did Nebraska, and South Carolina, and Florida. It took him a month to decide, and when he chose Iowa he didn’t tell anyone why.

He nudges his head toward the passenger seat, and I give in. I open the door and pause. LD is lying in the backseat, a bunch of tissues stuffed up her bloody nose. I begin to ask if she’s okay when Billie waves me off. “She’s fine. Passed out the second I shoved her into the backseat to come find you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. She pregamed pretty hard before we picked you and Micah up.”

Just the mention of him sends prickly needles up my spine. “And where’s he . . . ?”

His eyes soften. Ah, so he knows, too. Instead of answering, he takes LD’s purse out of the passenger seat and dumps it on the back floorboards. “Hop in.”

I slide into the passenger seat and buckle up. From the backseat, LD snores softly.

Billie adjusts the rearview mirror. “So, where to, madam?”

“Can we just drive?”

“Anywhere?”

A knot forms in my throat. I nod. “Anywhere.”

“Okay, I know just the place.” He puts his old Cadillac into gear and sets off through Steadfast, where all the windows are dark and all the shops are closed. Streetlights line the old cobblestone roads to the main square. No one is awake, everything so still and quiet it looks frozen in time. I press my forehead against the window and watch the shops pass. He drives straight through town, slow and steady, the radio mumbling rock and roll. His forefinger taps in time to the beat.

I like the silence between us, the subtle agreement not to talk or tell. LD is too nosy—if she was awake, she’d demand to know what I saw, and I’m not ready to tell anyone yet.

Maybe I'm overreacting. It was just a kiss, wasn't it? It didn’t mean anything.

It couldn’t.

But what if it did? What if it meant everything?

We drive straight through town to the other side. Steadfast is surrounded by sunflower fields and turbines as far as the eye can see. Sometimes dustings of cotton pepper the gaps between, sometimes ranches with horses, but always somewhere in sight are vast fields of yellow. You can get lost in them.

He finally stops on a dirt patch on the side of the road. He kills the engine and gets out. I look around me. There’s a huge dilapidated sign on the side of the road that reads “Sunflower Your Day.”

“Old McKeaney’s sunflower maze?” I ask, perplexed. “What’re we doing here? It hasn’t been open since he died.”

“Open and existing are two different things. Remember when we used to come here in middle school?”

A small smile tugs at the edges of my lips. “Micah used to always hide in the stalks and scare the piss out of you.” But at the mention of Micah, my heart throbs like a fresh wound. I just want to go home. I hug myself tightly, the smile dropping from my face. “Why’re we here?”

“Come on,” he nods his head in a signal for me to get out.

Hesitantly, I do. “You’re not going to kill me in the middle of nowhere, are you?”

“If I was, I would’ve done it back in middle school when you put gum in my hair.” He gives me one of those side-eyed looks.

I chew on the inside of my cheek. “It wasn’t my fault I wanted to see if my gum matched your hair.”

“It was berry Dubble Bubble,” he replies flatly. “Of course it’d match.” Popping the trunk, he takes a flashlight out and slings a backpack over his shoulder. Then he heads toward the sunflowers. I don’t follow. “Come on, North,” he says. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of an old maze.”

“Like any sane person, I’m afraid of getting lost. . . I mean the paths can’t possibly be there anymore . . .”

He rolls his eyes. “You said anywhere, remember? To take you anywhere. What does it matter if it’s on a path or not?”

“I didn’t mean ‘Let’s get lost and let the children of the sunflowers eat us!’”

“I won’t let us get lost.”

“Oh yeah? Can you read the stars or something, Golden Boy?” I wave my hand up at the night sky. It’s so clear and bright, he doesn’t need a flashlight.

He points his flashlight beam toward my radio tower. “That’s the only star I need to see. Now will you indulge me?”

Saying no means going back to town, it means climbing the stairs to my bedroom and falling asleep, and waking up the next morning no different from tonight, with my heart on the verge of aching because of something I thought I’d always have a chance to have. A chance with . . .

It was just a kiss.

It was just a kiss.

“North, come on,” he says again. “We won’t get lost.”

Standing there framed by the sunflower, he looks for the first time like anywhere could be a place—a haven.

Hesitantly, I take his hand.

And he pulls me into the maze.

Chapter Four

The stalks sigh back and forth in the wind lazily. I glance up, thinking I won’t be able to see anything at all over the tall stalks and blooming yellow petals, but there it is—my red North Star.

“See? You’re not lost,” he says matter-of-factly. He looks around, as if trying to get his bearings, and then points his flashlight behind me. “I think we go that way.”

“Away from the blinking red light?”

“Yeah, but it should curve inward in a few feet or so.”

“And then?”

Even in the darkness, I can see him smile with those blindingly white teeth. He is golden, all right. He’s perfect, even when he’s not. He can be anyone’s friend in anyone’s clique, so why does he choose to hang around losers like me? “If I told you,” he says between his grin, “it’d be ruining the surprise.”

“Fine, fine.”

The path curves left after a few feet, and then to the right. I don’t want to imagine what else is in the sunflowers with us. Wild animals—snakes, raccoons, bigfoot, children that might just belong to sunflower people . . . aliens.

Well, maybe not aliens.

And then there’s us.

“How do you know where you’re going?” I whisper.

“I’ve done this a hundred times.”

“Yeah but how do you know it’s the right way?”

He gives me one of those of-all-the-questions-to-ask-you-ask-THAT-one looks. “Ingrid Cecelia North,” he says. The syllables roll so easily off his tongue. He motions his head onward and keeps walking. “It’s an abandoned sunflower maze. It hasn’t changed in five years.”

“How do you know it’s been five?”

“Because it closed the year Dad died,” he replies without looking back.

My heart sinks. “Oh . . . I . . . I’m so sorry—”

“It still feels like yesterday, sometimes, you know? I don’t wake up and forget that he’s dead anymore, but sometimes it still surprises me. I just wake up and remember that he’s not here.” He stops at a bend and turns back to look at me. “Thanks, by the way, for back then.”

I blink at him, dumbfounded. “For what?”

His eyebrows furrow. “You don’t remember?”

“Well if you’d be more specific . . . ,” I reply, trying to think back. Billie’s dad died the year before high school. After the funeral, Billie traded his hair dye for a football jersey. He didn’t become less of a friend afterward, but…he changed. His dad was his everything. That, at least, I can understand now. If Grams died, I don’t know who I would be. Grams is my everything—my family, my history, my home.

He scrubs the back of his neck with a sigh, as if debating whether or not to tell me exactly what I did—I sort of hope he does—but he just shakes his head. “C’mon, let’s keep going. It’s a little farther.”

I have to take big strides to keep up with him. “What is?”

“Anywhere.”

It must be this particular slant of moonlight through the sunflowers, but for the first time in the history of ever, the golden boy makes my broken little heart twitch. And flutter.

Oh, bless, it must be LD’s whiskey. It’s still running rampant through me like a very, very bad decision. This entire night was a bad decision, from the cat taco sweater to getting into Billie’s gray Cadillac.

He reaches out his hand again—also a bad idea.

I take it.

The paths, now mostly overgrown with seedlings, are only visible because of the colored markers put up at every bend. But Billie’s never lost. He can make his way through the maze blindfolded, I suspect, having been here so many times he knows it better than his own hand. Traveling through the maze feels like wading through an ocean, pushing golden petals away with each breaststroke.

In a clearing, the old watchtower comes into view. It sits in the middle of the maze, wilting from disuse. A guy used to sit up there and direct people out of the maze—I can almost remember, but not quite.

“Wow,” I finally manage, “talk about a letdown.”

“We’re not there yet,” he insists, and—and begins climbing the tower. Like literally climbing it.

I rush up to the base. He’s already ten feet up, so I can’t very well pull him down. “What the hell are you doing? Have you gone absolutely bonkers? Bless!”

He reaches a spot where he can’t go any higher and looks over to the other pole. He reaches, and dear od my heart stops as he hurtles himself over to another footing, and keeps climbing. Like a monkey.

Like a freaking monkey.

As he nears the top, I begin to wonder—really wonder—what in the world he’s doing. He shimmies up into the watchtower’s roost. “Heads up!” he calls, and a moment later the retractable ladder comes spiraling down. It slams into the ground with a hard thunk. “Climb up!”

I hesitate. “Um, that’s kinda high.”

“And?”

“And if you haven’t noticed, I’m more of a ground type of person.”

He pops his head over the ledge. “Just come on, North, and stop being a baby. You said anywhere.”

Scowling, I pull up my cat taco sleeves and begin the ascent. “I don’t think it means what you think it means,” I mutter to myself.

“Inconceivable!” he crows from the top.

He helps me the last few steps because they’re pretty tricky, but by the time I’m up on the landing, I almost don’t care that we’re fifty feet in the air. Almost.

The view is breathtaking. Half a mile of sunflowers stretches out in front of us, slowly fading into the town of Steadfast. First dark, blocky houses, but then brighter ones lit by streetlights. From here I can see down Main Street all the way to the square where a gazebo sits, decorated with strands of lights. Past the square are more houses, and then rising up behind them is my red North Star.

I stare in awe.

“Hey, come sit back here,” Billie’s voice interrupts. I look behind me.

There’s a blanket spread out on the wooden floor, along with a bag of Twizzlers and a Diet Coke. I move to sit down on it so I don’t get splinters in my butt, and he comes to sit beside me.

“Sorry I only had one Coke. I usually come up here alone,” he says apologetically, opening the Diet Coke. “However, sharing Twizzlers straws is optional.”

“Always with your Twizzlers.”

“Some things never change,” he replies, wagging the pack at me.

“I guess not.” I choose one from the bag and put it into the Coke bottle like a straw. “You come up here alone?”

He does the same. “Yeah, when things get too noisy. It’s pretty quiet up here. No one bothers me.” He shrugs. “And I feel closer to Dad up here.”

His dad—the guy who used to watch over the people in the sunflower maze, to keep them from getting lost. He used to be the one up here. A chill prickles my skin, but I rub it away. “Do Micah and LD know about this place?”

“Nah. I mean, you know about as much as the rest of them.” He takes a sip from the bottle and bites off a piece of the straw. “I guess you’re the first one I've brought here.”

I stare down at my Twizzler, rolling it between my thumb and first finger. He waits for me to explain. “I don't get it sometimes. We all call each other best friends, but then why don’t we know this stuff about each other? Will it just be worse after graduation, when people like you don’t have a reason to hang out with people like me anymore?”

He jerks his head toward me like I've slapped him. “What do you mean? You think I’m forcing myself to be friends with you? I—”

“Billie, please stop,” I cut him off. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean that if we never sat at the same table in kindergarten, would we all still be friends? Truthfully? Could you picture you—star running back, football scholarship, valedictorian—hanging out with the loner, the weirdo, or the basket case?”

He huffs, frustrated. “What is this, a John Hughes movie? I don’t see any of you like that.”

“You don’t have to. The rest of the world already does.”

He opens his mouth to argue.

“Why did you stop dyeing your hair, Billie? Why did you try out for the football team? You hated football. You hated conformity. What happened to all of your “Avenge Sevenfold” T-shirts? Your studded bracelets? The gages? Remember the gages?”

He tries to say something—anything—but then he closes his mouth. Opens it. Closes it. Like a fish on a dry dock, gasping for the right thing to say. No, maybe not right, maybe just the best. He’s trying to find the best thing to say.

“I…wanted a change,” he finally manages.

“Why?” Maybe if I were different, Micah would see me differently. Maybe Billie had the right idea, changing who he was to fit in. Maybe the trick to life is just filing yourself down, layer by layer, until you fit the mold.

“Ingrid…”

“Never mind, just forget about it. It’s stupid, because it all worked for you, didn’t it? You became popular, you get to leave Steadfast, go somewhere else—see the world. While I . . . I . . .” I remember Grams, curled up in the recliner, the colors from Jeopardy painting her face yellow and orange. “I need to get home. I’m sorry.” Crawling to the edge of the watchtower, I find my footing and start climbing down.

“Wait—North, wait please.” He starts to follow. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I can walk. It’s not far.” It’s the only good thing about Steadfast—everything you could ever want (and some stuff you don’t) is within walking distance. “I just need to go home.”

He looks over the edge, biting his bottom lip like he does when he wants to hide his emotions, and doesn’t follow.

I reach the bottom and set out through the maze, keeping my eyes trained on the blinking red star above me. It’ll lead me where I need to go. To the only place where I really want to be.

It takes me awhile, but I reach the radio station. The spare key’s under the door where Mick always leaves it, and I go inside. It’s four in the morning when I crash onto the red sofa outside the recording booth. Soft rock plays from the night's preset auto shuffle and fills the room with a certain kind of silence that only the Rolling Stones can bring, about not always getting what you want but getting what you need.

And I think, just before I drift off to sleep, what a load of crap that is.

Chapter Five

“Hell’s Bells, Ingrid!”

I bolt upright on the couch with a cry. My bleary eyes focus on Mick’s Hawaiian shirt. The radio station manager. Not the enemy. I fall back down against the couch cushions with a groan. “Don’t do that!”

He puts his hands on his hips. “What in the hell are you doing here? How’d you get in?”

“The key under the mat, and I don’t want to talk about it.” I roll over, hugging a throw pillow to my chest. My head’s throbbing and my legs are so sore. Proof that last night happened. It actually happened.

My throat constricts, making it hard to breathe.

“Eula’s probably worried sick,” he says, and sighs.

I don’t respond. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep he’ll leave me alone . . .

He pries the pillow out of my death grip. “Ingrid North.”

So, I guess I should back up a moment. This guy? This guy in cargo shorts and a blue Hawaiian shirt? He’s a retired Grateful Dead superfan who can whip up a mean guacamole, best known for his radio announcer voice and his one-movie one-trailer gig—you’ve probably seen it. The one with the superhero with the cool sidekick? Yeah, I hated that movie, too. Anyway, after that gig he bought the radio station and it’s been his baby ever since. No wife, no children, just two ferrets who like to make sweet, sweet love to a Winnie the Pooh on the regular, and an entire closet full of cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

He’s thirty-three with a prematurely graying goatee and thick eyebrows. His skin is dark and his eyes are the color of brownies that’ve been in the oven too long. He’s thin because he eats nothing but rabbit food and jogs a kazillion miles a day, because other than deejaying at the radio station there is absolutely nothing else to do in Steadfast, Nebraska, for a single man ready to mingle. I met him when he first moved to Steadfast my freshman year of high school, I was listening to Rooney Quill’s radio show at Den’s Diner. He came in and sat down beside me, and we just started talking, I guess. About radio. About shows. About music. He ordered eggs Benedict, and I never talked with someone so long about radio—I never talked to anyone about it, actually. People in Steadfast usually just listen to the radio; they don’t want to be a part of it.

He paid for my dinner and then turned a thoughtful look to me. “You know, I got a spot open Saturdays at midnight. If you wanna try your hand.”

“What—you serious?” I asked, almost spewing my milkshake. “I don’t know anything about hosting.”

“What’s a better way to start? Let me know.”

And that was that. The radio station became my second home, and I guess he’s the closest thing I have to a father figure.

“Girl, you smell like a brewery,” he tells me, crinkling his nose. “Get your ass up before you stink up the whole upholstery.”

“It already smells like moldy cheese from your bare feet,” I mutter, yanking the pillow back. I hug it against my chest again. “Can’t I just stay for a few more hours?”

“You have graduation today.”

“No I don’t.”

“Ingrid, it’s Saturday. Graduation.”

“Maybe I flunked out of high school. Maybe there’s not a chair for me. Maybe—”

He gives a frustrated sigh and sits down in the chair beside the sofa. “Ingrid,” he starts patiently. He’d make a good dad if any marrying man could put up with the constant grooming of his goatee. He reaches into his pocket and draws out a Snickers bar, peeling it open like a banana. He offered it to me. “You hungry?”

“I went to the Barn last night,” I say as if it were some sort of excuse, ignoring the offer of chocolate.

“That solves the smell,” he remarks, biting into the candy bar. “And I heard.”

I groan. “You did?”

“Yeah, the boys got pretty banged up. LD’s got a nice shiner on her cheek. Fending men off you, I hear.” He takes another bite and chews slowly.

“Hah. You mean fending men off them.” I pursed my lips together. “I saw Micah and Heather lip-locked.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, chewing on his nutty caramel candy bar, but then he slowly outstretches the rest of the Snickers to me. He puts it in my hands and curls my fingers around it. “A kiss is just a kiss, my girl.”

Then he gets up and walks into the radio booth, where he switches the nighttime soft rock shuffle to Green Day’s “Oh Love” to serenade my heart, which is more confused than broken. More conflicted than shattered. I mean it is shattered, but not irreparable.

Billie Joe Armstrong sings to me his woes as I finally pry myself off the couch to go to graduation.

Chapter Six

Steadfast High’s prized football stadium (which is a green field with three whole rows of bleachers on either side—it’s been standing for half a century, nourished by the blood of opposing teams) is packed with parents of the twenty-three graduating seniors and the rest of the town come to watch the spectacle. You know the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”? Grams raised me, but I learned to ride my first bike from Micah’s dad, Mr. Perez, and I learned how to bake banana bread from Miss Seltzer (who never married) while she babysat LD and me when Grams and LD’s mom went to knitting parties. They’re all in the stands, their faces glistening in the mid-morning blaze.

I heave a sigh of frustration, half-tempted to rip this stupid cap off my head to fan myself with it. Of all the colors for Steadfast High to pick for our polyester robes, they had to go with black. Even the balmy eighty-degree weather can’t keep us from roasting.

I never said our town bred geniuses.

All twenty-three seniors are actually sweating buckets even before we sit down in our assigned chairs. Mike Labouise shoots me a repulsive glare as he sits down in the row ahead of me. He has a nice bruise on his cheek from the fight last night. It feels like everyone who was at the barn is staring at me, which is practically everyone except Natalie Bowman, whose parents are so religious the only friends she has are in a church group half an hour away. And even she starts to stare just for the sake of staring.

Well nothing like feeling like the elephant in the room. Or the cow in the stadium? Whatever.

I find my chair. Micah’s already sitting beside me. Being North and Perez, we’ve always been seated together. Which I've loved—until now. I sit down, trying to pretend nothing is different from yesterday.

Micah tugs on the collar of his robes. “You think anyone’ll notice if I start fanning my balls?”

“You still have those?” I ask.

He gives me a sharp look. “What’s got your panties in a wad.”

I glance back at him, swallowing the real retort I want to give. “Sorry. I just . . . it’s hot out here.”

“Yeah, it is. You guys skipped out early last night. Did you make it home okay?” he asks, dipping close enough so I smell his AXE body spray and motor oil musk. He must have done an early shift at his dad’s auto shop. Every spare minute he has he’s fixing up his old Honda motorbike or the mayor’s ’57 Chevy.

His scent makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I fist my hands tightly, nails biting into the palms of my hands. My mind goes from Normal Teenage Girl to Lobotomized Invalid in less time than it takes for Han Solo to shoot first.

I wonder what would happen if I kissed him?

“Ingrid?” he quirks an eyebrow.

I quickly look away, clearing my throat. “No, Billie just took me home is all.”

LD leans back in her chair in front of us. She bedazzled the top of her hat to say, “SUCK IT, MIKE.” “Ooh, look, our golden boy’s about to make his speech! You know I wrote it, right? You both know I wrote it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you wrote it,” we intone.

“Must be so tiring for Billie to be good at everything. Except speechwriting,” Micah adds.

LD sniffs loudly. “Is that envy I smell?”

“Envy? I’m just stating the facts—right Igs?”

I open my mouth, then close it again. Micah isn’t wrong—sometimes with all of Billie’s achievements my head starts to spin, too, because how can anyone have time to be good at everything and still be popular? I remember our fight in the sunflower maze last night. “He just has it all together, I guess—”

“Oh, oh—here he is!” LD interrupts.

The golden boy looks like a solid brick wall in his black graduation robe as he ascends to the podium. He takes a few note cards out from his sleeve. His yellow tassel swings in his face as he bends toward the microphone and gives all of us his wide, white smile. “Hi, class.”

“RAGIN’ FOURTY-EIGHT! GO FOUR GO!”

Billie’s football nickname.

The entire class erupts into applause like he’s the star of our small-town sitcom. The principal shoots a disapproving look into the sea of black robes, and the one idiot with “SUCK IT, MIKE” on her hat.

Billie’s smile grows wider. “So, guys, let’s talk for a minute. There’s a reason I never ran for football captain, and why my vice president, the beautiful Heather Woodard,” he points back at Heather—the same Heather who was with Micah last night—sitting with her legs crossed under her chair, “did most of these speeches over the past few years . . . because I suck at them. But like Principal Monroe said, ‘There isn’t a better way to experience high school than to do all the things you thought you couldn’t.’ So, here I am . . . and please forgive my terrible speech.”

LD mutters, “Terrible, my ass."

A few people in the stands cheer, and someone—I think his mother—begins chanting the Steadfast High Hornets fight song, and other parents join in. I cover my face with my hands. If I never had to hear this stupid fight song again, it’d be too soon.

“All right! All right!” Billie laughs.

I peek out through my fingers.

Billie motions for them to quiet down again, and they do. He’s like a maestro commanding a symphony. And he never loses his cool, not once. He looks perfectly comfortable in his skin.

What’s that like?

“Thanks, Mom,” he adds between his smile. Then he looks out into the audience, as if he’s trying to find an anchor to land. “So, not many of you may know this about me, but I like to climb. I’m not talking about trees or ladders. I mean I like to climb. I like to parkour up walls. I like to scale buildings. The higher, the better—and yeah, Mom, I know it’s dangerous, but most of the things that are dangerous are the ones that make us feel most alive, you know? There’s this one place in particular that I like to go. It’s not crazy high . . . but it has this view. It’s the view of everything I’ve ever known. The sunflowers. Main Street. Den’s Diner—”

We howl at that.

“—the tree where I got my first kiss. The parking lot where I . . . did other things.” Behind him, Principal Monroe begins to stress-sweat. Billie doesn’t stop searching the audience, looking out over every one of us as though he were in that lookout tower, looking down at the maze we called high school—at all of us, sitting in our stuffy black robes.

Then his roaming gaze settles on me, and for a moment I can still taste the Diet Coke and Twizzlers and feel the sweet midnight breeze as it rustled through the sunflowers.

He takes a deep breath and quickly looks away. It feels like he pulls a fish hook out of my heart, because he’s leaving. He’s actually leaving at the end of the summer. Our Billie.

LD snakes her hand back and takes mine in her grip, and squeezes it tightly.

Our golden boy is leaving us.

From his height, I wonder how small we already look.

Chapter Seven

The rest of graduation goes as planned, and we all toss our hats into the air . . . and find them again. Because we’re twenty-three seniors, and there are only so many graduation hats. LD’s speech is a hit, and everyone congratulates Billie afterward for a job well done. We mingle for a little while in the stadium while Grams talks with Billie’s Mom. Mike Labouise and his crew hang around the refreshments, and he keeps giving me the stink eye, but I ignore him valiantly. LD invites us to her house for a graduation party, but I’m already busy.

“With what?” she says, and laughs. “A secret boyfriend?”

I stretch a smile over my face. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Billie raises an eyebrow, coming to join us. “Are you?”

“We’d know if she were,” Micah responds for me.

“Would you?” I challenge.

He gives me a strange look. I pat him on the shoulder. “I gotta take Grams home to take her medicine. I'll see you guys on Monday? Den’s for lunch?”

As I leave, I hear Micah ask the gang, “She doesn’t have a secret boyfriend, does she?”

“Maybe she has a secret girlfriend,” replies LD.

“Really?”

“No, Micah. Not really.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek so I won’t smile too much, because LD gets Micah with her dry sarcasm every time, and I turn to find Grams in the crowd. I don’t have to take her home so soon, but I do so anyway because I worry about her missing her medication. I usually bring extra in my purse, but you can only fit so much in black graduation gowns. Besides, her doctor said that missing one pill won’t mean the disease will just wash her away, but I still worry. Grams and I make pizza and watch Jeopardy again. I make sure she’s asleep before I sneak out of the house—I have the back door well oiled, so I don't wake her up.

It’s Saturday night, and I have somewhere to be.

The radio tower is by far the biggest structure for at least a hundred miles. It’s taller than the water tower in North Platte, and you can fit at least three monster trucks underneath that one. Our tower rises like a pinprick up into the clear night sky, proudly holding up a red light that blinks like the North Star.

My North Star. The only star in the sky worth seeing.

I find the key underneath the back doormat and let myself in. A drum solo from a ’70s hair band drifts down from the second floor. I dump my book bag in the office and climb the stairs to the studio.

Mick’s head-banging to the Grateful Dead three minutes until midnight. It’s the last song of the hour. He always finishes his programs with the Grateful Dead—it’s part of his charm. He slaps me on the back in greeting and howls the final guitar lick.

“I thought you wouldn’t show tonight,” he says, breathless, and hurries back over to the microphone. He flicks a button and the LIVE light above the studio blinks to life. “And that was the sweet, sweet sound of the Dead. I hope some of you are feeling awfully good right now, because after that rockin’ set, you should be. Stay tuned the next hour for our Saturday night special with our lovely host, Niteowl. Until next time, peace, and love and light to you all.”

I raise an eyebrow as he flicks the microphone off again, and the LIVE light goes dead again. “I think your hippie’s showing.”

He shrugs, wiping his sweaty forehead with his shirtsleeve. “It was a good couple of years.”

Rolling my eyes, I push up a chair and ease down into it. “So, been busy tonight?”

“Pretty quiet on the home front. What’s on the books for tonight’s show? You never wrote it down on the calendar.” He jabs his thumb back to the hot firemen calendar he has hanging on the wall where we write down all of our shows. It’s just me and Mick, but he wants to at least look semiprofessional. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the hot firemen throws the whole concept of professionalism right off a burning rooftop.

“Oh—I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” I begin messing with the sound levels on the board, cueing up my intro music. “Did you catch Rooney today?”

He scrunches his nose. “You’re not going to talk about One Direction, too, are you? I mean I’m all about no censorship but . . . think of the children!”

I cock my head. “I don’t know. Think of all the 1D-ers we could reel in . . .”

He gives me a level look but then shakes his head. “Fine. Fine. You’re going on in two minutes, girl.”

“Have some faith! I’ll make something up. How to Get Over Unrequited Love? Why Some People Kiss Other People You Hate? That Time in Your Life When You Just Want to Cry All the Time? In Case of Emergency: Channing Tatum?—”

“You got Channing Tatum as a guest?” he asks, perplexed.

“I wish.”

“Damn. Hey, uh, how about that thing.” Mick snaps his fingers, trying to remember. “That thing about that band.”

“Stoner got your brain?” I push my rolling chair over to the antiquated computer and wiggle the mouse. The monitor blinks awake, and I search over the Internet for something to talk about tonight. “You mean the Jason Dallas concert in Omaha?”

“That's it! Sold out in three minutes flat I hear. He any good?”

“Only the best,” I reply. “His killer licks in ‘Shotgun Heartache’ are to die for. God, I wish I could play something. Maybe if I did, someone’d like me.”

“Or like you less. I never liked musicians. They never shut up.” He shrugs and gets to his feet. “And you know, if you played music you wouldn’t be here. And I think here is where you need to be.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it tightly. “You’re a radio heart; always will be.”

I smile up at him. “Thanks, Mick.”

“Yep. Well I’m all tuckered out. You think you got the show for the next hour?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Just don’t do anything that’ll get our station sued—again.”

“That was an honest mistake.”

He mutters something under his breath and scrubs my head. “Safely into that good night, girl,” he says in good-bye and shuffles out of the recording booth.

I spin back around in my chair and begin to flip on the channels and mixers. The studio hums to life with lights and whirrs and level readers that waffle like seesaws. The digital clock over the computer monitor blinks 11:59.

One minute until show time.

Time feels like it stretches for eternity. My heart hammers in my chest, the taste of anticipation on the back of my tongue like steel and courage, waiting for the red numbers to flip to midnight.

I am Ingrid North. Shy, going-nowhere North. But I take a deep breath, and I close my eyes, and when the clock strikes midnight I can be anyone.

I flip my microphone on as the LIVE light blinks on above the studio window. I lean into the microphone, becoming who I want to be.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #157

JUNE 4th

NITEOWL: Happy midnight, my owls! You’re listening to 93.5 KOTN, and tonight’s topic is leaving. About the Great Perhaps. The big What-If’s knocking on our door and you better answer it, right skippy! Grab life by the horns—isn’t that what the Dead Poets Society taught us? To carpe this diem! Caller One, what do you think? You’re live and on the air, so please don't curse. Caller One?

CALLER ONE: . . . Uh, he-hello?

NITEOWL: Glad you could join us.

CALLER ONE: Oh my gosh, hi! I’m actually on the air! Geoff, I’m on the air! I never get picked for shit—

NITEOWL: Cursing!

CALLER ONE: Sorry! Sorry! Like can everyone hear me?

NITEOWL: Everyone who wants to listen, sure. So, what’s stopping you from carpe diem-ing?

CALLER ONE: So, there’s someone, right? And I really like him—I can see a future with us, you know? But I don’t think his parents will approve of me. His parents are superrich, and my family owns a dive bar. It’s . . . it’s pretty much heaven. It’s my favorite place in the world. But I think that’s why he hasn’t, you know, told them about us. And I’m just worried that I’ll have to choose. I just . . . I never thought a guy like him would like someone like me.

NITEOWL: What’s that supposed to mean?

CALLER ONE: I just thought—

NITEOWL: If he doesn’t want to go public with you because of who you are, he can sit and rotate on my middle finger—forgive my frankness. You sound like a wonderful girl, and I don’t know anyone who actually likes working with their family, but you sound like you love it. If he really loves you, then he will love all of you—who you are, where you work, what you want to do for the rest of your life . . . and you'll feel the same way about him because you’ll like the sound of whatever future you’ll have with him. You’ll—

CALLER ONE: I’ll like the sound of us . . .

NITEOWL: Exactly! I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I think you deserve more than someone who thinks you should be a secret. So talk to him first. Let him know how you feel. No one deserves to be a secret. Then I think you can figure out your future; you just need to figure out your present first.

CALLER ONE: Okay—okay. Maybe you’re right. Thanks, Niteowl.

NITEOWL: Good luck—and call me with what happens! Caller Two, you’re live on the air, what’s cookin’ on your side of the world?

CALLER TWO: Honest to God, do you have any advice that doesn’t read like a Lifetime fortune cookie?

NITEOWL: Oh, it’s you again. The dark and brooding one. Did you tell her yet? Your lover girl?

DARK AND BROODING: Have you told yours?

NITEOWL: You can’t answer a question with a question.

DARK AND BROODING: I just did.

NITEOWL: Totally not allowed! Haven’t told her yet, have you?

DARK AND BROODING: What’re your plans, Niteowl?

NITEOWL: Fine, fine. Don’t answer me. And you're not supposed to ask me this stuff.

DARK AND BROODING: So you have it all figured out? Look, if you want me to take your advice, then you gotta prove you know what you're talking about. Pretend it’s not about you. What’s in your future? Not Niteowl’s but yours? What are you striving toward?

(pause)

NITEOWL: I’ll tell you when you tell that girl you like her.

DARK AND BROODING: You might be waiting awhile.

NITEOWL: Then so will you.

Chapter Eight

Gram’s French toast is the only way to start off the first morning of my adult life. I grab a piece of bacon from a plate on the kitchen counter. Grams hums “You Were Meant for Me” from Singing in the Rain as she cooks. It’s her favorite movie. She knows every word by heart, even when she can’t remember her own name. I kiss her on the cheek with my bacon breath and tell her good morning.

Grams gives a start. “Oh my word,” she breathes, patting her heart, “why aren’t you dressed? School’s in half an hour.”

“Nope, graduated. It’s my first Monday as a free woman.” I pour a glass of orange juice and sit down at the breakfast table. I jut my chin out toward the stove. “What’s the occasion?”

She gives me a hard look. “Ingrid, when you get accepted into a college you should be proud of it. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

I pause with my glass of OJ halfway to my mouth.

A letter sits in the middle of the table. I should’ve hid it better after the last time she found it. “Oh, that—I’m sorry . . . I thought I told you.”

“I’d remember if you’d told me something like that. You’ll be the first North to go to college!” She plops the French toast onto two plates and brings them over to the table. She slides one to me with a smile. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie. Oh! Where’s my head, you need syrup.”

“I’ll get it.” I stand before she has a chance to say no and retrieve the syrup from the pantry.

I had told Grams.

I told her the moment I slit open the envelope. I told her the next day, too, when she found the letter on my nightstand. I told her after the doctor’s appointment, when they said they needed to run more tests and whether I’d be available. It was the weekend I was supposed to catch a flight, all expenses paid, to visit NYU. I told her the day the hospital called to break the news of her disease. The last time I told her was the day I deferred my application.

The worst was, she’s the only one I ever told. I hadn’t even told the gang—Micah, Billie, LD . . . I was going to, but I never found the time. Billie talked so much about going to Iowa University that I didn’t want to rain on his parade, and LD didn’t want to talk about college after what happened at Juilliard . . . and Micah?

Micah didn’t understand why we all wanted to leave Steadfast. Now after seeing him kissing Heather, I understand his allure to stay, because I consoled myself the same way. I didn’t mind staying in Steadfast as long as Micah was here too because . . . well, wasn’t it a match made in heaven? Next-door neighbors becoming sweethearts?

But after Friday night, I was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

After breakfast, I excuse myself to go hide the letter under my mattress. I can’t bear to throw it away, not yet anyway. Keeping it hurt, but it feels hopeful, too. Like the last string on a kite about to blow away. This time, I shove it so far under my mattress it finds the ass end of Narnia.

I have work in thirty minutes, so I fish out a bubble-gum pink apron from the laundry basket in the corner of my room, white slacks, and a “HEY, SWEETEY” T-shirt. I look like a walking gum ball. Wearing the same uniform for five years has actually scarred me in ways I never could have imagined. For instance, I will burn every pair of white slacks I see for the rest of my life.

Micah always jokes that I can come be a receptionist at his dad’s auto place, Perez and Sons Motors, but I'm stubborn. I got my position at Sweetey’s Sweet Shoppe on my own. (The pretentious “-pe” in “Shoppe” has been mysteriously short-circuited on the neon sign above the store for four out of the five years I’ve worked there, and I will take that secret to my grave.) It’s probably the worst job known to mankind, but it’s mine.

Bossman warned me that I’ll get first shift now that I’ve graduated. He knows I don’t do kids. Unluckily for me, neither does Heather, who also works at Sweetey’s because her father, the mayor, is best friends with the Bossman.

Heather Woodard is arranging the Twizzlers by color when I finally get to work. She flips her dark ponytail over her shoulder and gives me one of her scum-of-the-earth looks. “You’re late. Again.”

“Missed me that much?” I dump my backpack in the storeroom and clock in, flubbing my time by fifteen minutes. Bossman never notices.

“As if,” she mutters, shoving a red Twizzler package onto the shelf.

“Nice; you’ve separated the red from the really red. That’s talent.”

“It’s by sweetness.” She points to the dietetic knockoffs, then to the other side, where the regular Twizzlers are.

“Great job,” I deadpan, snagging a chili-powder lollipop from one of the jars, and hop onto the register counter. Sweetey’s Sweet Shoppe is a joke, but people travel from miles around to browse the petrified sugars. We have candies from every part of the world. Chocolates from Germany, cookie pandas from Japan, chili-powder lollipops from Mexico. I like the lollipops the best. Then again, I just like spicy food. Must be from my dad’s side, but I'll never know.

Heather gives me a dirty look as I suck on the lollipop.

I take it out of my mouth and offer it to her. “Hungry? You must be starving on saltines and children’s souls.”

“Maybe you should try it,” she snaps in reply.

I shrug. The same old jabs, just a different day.

Heather’s the type of girl who’d cut off a guy’s rattail just because it invades her personal bubble on the bus. Oh no, wait—she did. Third grade. Micah’s rattail. Truthfully, I say good riddance to it, but was it really her decision to cut off a very important part of Micah’s life? His rattail was a point of pride ever since his mother first tried to get him to cut it.

But because Heather is, well, Heather, she can get away with anything. As the mayor’s daughter, that’s her right. Like my right is to be picked last for kickball, and Micah’s is to be called on in Spanish class even though he speaks Spanish worse than the rest of us, Billie’s right to be the good old chip off the old block, and LD’s right to be a “troubled youth” who doesn’t understand how good she could have it if she could just be “normal.”

Heather could go to any college she wants, get into any sorority, be accepted by anyone and everyone in the entire world—but she isn’t going anywhere, either.

It’s true what they say about Steadfast, Nebraska—it’s like “Hotel California”: once you check in, you can never leave.

Heather takes out her phone from her apron pocket, and scrolls through her social feed. After a while, she says, “God, this is so annoying.”

I can’t help myself. “What is?”

“There’s some stupid punk-rock singer coming to Omaha in a few weeks, and like everyone wants to go. Why do we get freaks and not, like, Justin Timberlake?”

“Jason Dallas?”

“Yeah, whoever that is.”

Seriously? She knows Justin Timberlake but not Jason Dallas? “You know, the guy whose bitter rivals with Roman Montgomery from Roman Holiday?”

She gasps. Oh, so she knows Roman Holiday, but not the Prince of Punk? Someone seriously needs to intervene before her music library turns turdy. “Ohmygod! That loser? I thought he looked familiar. Ugh, ew. Definitely not going now. He’s just so gross and overstated. I mean, does he have to wear all that leather and . . .

I think she’s still talking to me, but I tune her out and pull out my phone, bringing up LD’s number.

—Ingrid 10:03 a.m.

Someone kill me. The Evil Queen doesn't know who Jason Dallas is.

—LD 10:04 a.m.

Srsyly??! Bless her poor unfortunate soul.

—Ingrid 10:05 a.m.

So sad, so true.

“Are you even listening?” Heather snaps her fingers at me and rolls her eyes. “Whatever; it’s not like it matters anyway. All the tickets are sold out.”

“Of course they are,” I quip. “He’s Jason Dallas.”

“Whatever.”

—Ingrid 10:07 a.m.

Seriously, why aren’t you stuck on

first shift with her? You graduated, too.

—LD 10:08 a.m.

I have perfected the art of scapegoating. : )

—Ingrid 10:09 a.m.

Teach me your ways, master

—LD 10:09 a.m.

These are not the sweets you’re looking for.

BTW, I don't think I’m coming to the diner today.

—Ingrid 10:10 a.m.

No you HAVE to. You’re my wing woman!

You can’t leave me with those two : (

Please?

—LD 10:11 a.m.

Fine, fine.

I’ll be a little late though.

—Ingrid 10:12 a.m.

As long as you're there. <3

Chapter Nine

By the time I get to Den’s for lunch, Micah and Billie are already pigging out over an order of chili cheese fries. My favorite. Billie scoots over when I come in, but I slide in beside Micah, trying to ignore the way Billie’s shoulders fall a fraction. I feel weird after the sunflower maze, and yet I can’t meet Micah’s gaze, either, after I saw him with . . . after he and Heather . . .

A kiss is just a kiss, I repeat to myself what Mick told me before graduation.

Micah nudges the plate toward me. “Something wrong?”

“Of course there is. You couldn’t wait. You ate half the fries before I got here!” I say, taking the fry. I hope I don’t sound fake.

“We’re growing young men,” Micah replies. “You’d have us starve?”

“She might get a kick out of that,” Billie says.

I glare at both of them, stealing another fry. “You two can shove it.”

Billie quirks an eyebrow. “Someone’s had a bad morning.”

“If you had to work all morning with Heather, you’d hate your life, too.”

“Heather?” Micah whistles. “Sorry but I’d probably love my life if I had to look at her all day.”

I scowl.

“She’s a handful,” Billie adds. He won homecoming with her last year. They wore matching blue formalwear and rode in the back of the mayor’s Ford pickup. Just remembering how they looked makes me lose my appetite, and I put the fry back.

Micah cocks his head. “Probably a hand full, too, right Igs? Heeeey-ooooh!” He raises his hand and high-fives me.

Golden Boy’s ears turn an acute shade of red.

Micah goes on, “I’d rather work with Heather than you every day, Billie.” Billie feigns a gasp. “Please. Who set the engine in that truck this morning?”

“I helped.”

“Yeah. ‘Over a bit. No the other way. A bit more . . . a bit more . . .’” Micah mocked, rolling his eyes. “I got it in all by myself, no thanks to your sorry ass.”

“That’s what she said,” I quip.

“Heeeey-ooooh!” Billie cries, and we high-five, too.

“Already talking dirty without me?” jokes a soft voice from behind us. LD, with sunglasses on, slides into the booth beside Billie, neon-yellow scarf almost blinding. She asks the hostess for a pot of coffee.

Billie points to her sunglasses. “What's with the shades?”

She takes them off, revealing a nice shiner on her eye. She takes a menu and looks through it, trying to ignore us. But we stare too long. Is that why she didn’t want to come to lunch today?

She sighs, putting down the menu. “It’s fine. One of Mike’s goons clocked me good the other night is all.”

“Bullshit, he did,” Billie says. “Mike knows better than to hit a girl.”

LD gives him a deadpan look. “Save your chivalry, hero; I’m fine.”

“He should know better than to hit anyone,” I agree.

“And someone should learn not to pick fights,” LD adds, looking straight at Billie.

His ears go red. “I was defending you.”

“You have a scholarship to keep,” she argues, “and I think we can handle Michael jack-off Labouise.”

He throws his hands in the air. “So now I’m the bad guy for helping out?”

“I could’ve handled it.”

“You could’ve handled it,” he echoes, disbelieving.

Micah tries to interject, “I’m not sure who punched what first, but can we all just calm down?”

“Yeah, take a breather?” I agree, nodding. LD and Billie glare at each other, the tension so thick I couldn’t even shatter it with a wrecking ball.

So Micah instead asks LD, “So your parents know about it?”

That seems to calm her down a little, at least. “No. They don’t.” LD’s parents are the town physicians, and they’re also some of the sanest people in Steadfast. When the whole thing with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named happened, they were the first ones at LD’s side. Aside from us three. We knew Mike wouldn’t still be standing if LD told them all of the shit he put her through these last few years.

She’s a gracious soul like that. Also, she probably doesn’t want her parents in jail.

“It’s nothing,” she goes on after a moment, her shoulders slumping as she disengages from the fight. She sits back in the booth and picks up the menu and stands it up so it blocks her view of Billie across the table. “So, what’s everyone having? The same old same old?”

“Yeah,” I reply.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Micah adds.

And just like that, the tension dissipates.

LD flips the page in her menu, eyeing Micah. “So, where did you go after the Barn?”

“Don’t remember. Did things, I guess.”

LD tilts down the menu enough to give Billie a no-nonsense look. “He got laid, didn’t he?”

“He got laid,” Billie agrees.

I stare between the two of them. Laid? But they were only kissing! That’s a total lie—lingo for . . . for . . .

But Micah turns three thousand shades of red over his tanned skin. I like it when he blushes—the color on his cheeks reminds me of late-season apples. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit, you don’t,” Billie says.

LD agrees. “I think we may need to do some asking around.”

“I think we do. North?”

My mouth goes dry. I refuse to look up from the plate of half-eaten cheesy fries. So it wasn’t just a kiss. It wasn’t nothing. It was . . .

“Leave him alone, guys,” I hear myself say.

LD scoffs. “As if! You three badgered me for two months while I was Internet dating that girl online—”

“Who turned out to be a forty-year-old man,” Micah reminds her.

She ignores him. “Call this sweet, sweet revenge.”

Micah squirms. I put a hand on LD’s forearm. “Seriously, I don’t think—”

“Why’d he be ashamed to tell us? Unless it’s Heather Woodard.”

He bristles.

“Is it?” LD asks. “You can’t be serious.”

I can see this is going downhill very, very fast. “Can we just drop it? Who’s ready to order?” I try to signal the waitress to come back, but she’s flirting with a middle-aged man in a Husker’s baseball cap. Great.

“Heather, really?” she presses.

“She’s not—”

“If you’re about to say she has a nice personality, save your breath,” then she turns to tell me, “I’m pretty sure the only personality he got out of her were a few fake orgasms. ‘Oh, Micah, there! There!’”

Micah makes a move to stand. Aggressively, too. “Care to say that to my face?”

“I’ll say it to whatever part you want me to kick first,” she rebukes flatly.

Billie grabs Micah by the arm to keep him from lunging over the table. Abandoning my coffee, I throw up my arms in a peace treaty.

“Whoa, whoa!” I shout, and shove Micah back down into his seat. “Seriously! Calm down. She was just joking.”

“I didn’t get the joke,” Micah bites back.

LD retorts, “Maybe you’re stuck too far up her—”

“I mean it!” I yell, slamming my fists down on the table.

If anyone should be angry, it’s me. It’s ME. The only person who loved him—loved him so much her heart is breaking, and no one cares. The dishes and cups rattle. Billie saves a fork from falling off the table.

“Now,” I tell them, ripping open a creamer pack and dumping it into my coffee until the dark burned color turns white, “we’re going to act civil or so help me I will body slam each and every one of you to kingdom come. Capisce?”

“Capisce,” Micah and LD mutter in unison.

“Good.” I nod and steel myself, because a kiss is never just a kiss. “Pass me the sugar.” I should have known. I pretend not to care.

Chapter Ten

After lunch, Billie decides to take a walk with LD to apologize for their fight earlier. Billie and LD are neighbors, like Micah and I are. They’ve been with each other longer than anyone else in Steadfast. They played in each other’s kiddie pools and ran naked in each other’s yards. A part of me is envious of that kind of friendship—something I never had with Micah. We have our own secrets and our own inside jokes, but there’s always been a separation. This invisible fault line that LD and Billie don’t have.

I turn toward the candy store, my hands in my pockets. Micah walks beside me. Unlike LD and Billie, I don’t want to have to deal with Micah right now. I’m not sure I can even meet his eyes. I know where Micah was at the Barn. I know what he did. I know what it sounded like—and that was something I thought I’d find out in a very different way.

When we’re halfway to the confectionary store, Micah clears his throat. I look over at him. “Listen, I know I ditched you guys the other night . . .” he begins.

“I didn’t even have to come,” I reply. “I could’ve stayed home and—”

“And what? Wasted your life listening to the radio?”

“At least the radio doesn't run off and abandon me.”

“I didn't abandon you. You need to live a little, Igs. Expand your life. Do shit.”

“I do do shit,” I argue.

“No, doing shit is seizing the day, going to the Barn, partying, meeting people . . . doing shit.”

My feet cement to the sidewalk. I stare at him like he’s grown another head. “Did you really have sex with Heather?”

He stops and turns back to me, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, I didn’t not have sex with her.”

“Is that why you wanted to go to the Barn?”

“Seriously? That's what you think? Igs, I had no clue that night was going to turn out the way it did. It just sort of . . . happened.”

“Happened,” I echo.

“Look, I'm sorry, okay? Things just happened, okay? I went with it.” He wrings his hands together. He only ever does that when he’s nervous, and he’s never been nervous around me before. He glances over to the confectionary store across the street. “Listen, I—I was going to ask you this later but . . . I need your help, I think. I . . . I need you to ask her out.”

I give him another long look. “I’m not bi, Micah.”

“No! I know. I mean for me. Ask her out for me.”

My heart drops like a rock into my gut. I try not to outwardly wince, my hands growing clammy. I don't know what to say—what do I say? I can’t say no because he’s my best friend. He has been all of our lives. And . . . isn't that the answer, though? First and foremost, I’m his friend. Not his ex. Bless, we never even dated. I don’t own him. I don’t own any of him, except for the small spot he’s carved out in his heart for our friendship, and it hurts mirrored against the crater he made in mine.

“Please, Igs.”

I take a deep breath. “Why?" When he begins to answer, I go on, “She's given us hell for years. Literally our entire lives. Why, Micah?”

Why her?

“For my own good,” he points out. “Please, Igs; she won’t talk to me. I’m like—like a worm to her.”

“No—no. She’s the worm. We’re better than her, and her little clique of fake-ass people. Wasn’t one night enough?”

“But—”

“No.”

He catches my wrist before I can escape across the street. “Please, Iggy.”

His grip is strong, his fingers secure enough so I won’t leave, but his grip is tender, too. I hate him sometimes. I hate how contradictory he is, sweet eyes and hard cheekbones and dark eyes and soft curls.

“Micah, let’s not do this. It’s going to be agony. You had one really nice night, but that’s all it was—a great night.”

“You owe me,” he argues. I try to deny it, but he begins talking over me. “Yes, yes you do. Remember Mike?”

“Point proven!” I reply, appalled.

“It’s not my fault he’s a dickweed—”

“Ugh!” Rolling my eyes, I yank my wrist out of his grip and rub it, even though he didn’t hurt me. Micah could never hurt me. But his request throbs in a place in my chest I’m not very familiar with. A place I bottled up a long time ago, when I realized Micah and Ingrid would never have a cute couple-y name.

What’s wrong with me? Of course I’m going to help my best friend score a date with my mortal enemy.

I close my eyes and steel myself. Because this is what best friends do. “Fine,” I say, “although I really don’t know how I’m going to do it. She hates me.”

“Not as much as you think,” he replies, and pulls me into a hug. “You’re the best! Seriously. You need anything—ever—just name it.”

“A shot of vodka and seven Chip N Dales—count ’em. I want seven.”

“Seven! Done—so when are you going to do it?”

I scrunched my nose. “Um, next week?”

“Seriously? C'mon, Igs,” he says, and pouts.

“No pouty face. It doesn’t work on me. This is a delicate matter, okay? Just give her some time. You don't want to look too desperate, do you? You want to be a catch.” I’m pulling all of this out of my ass, but it sounds legit enough.

He gives a long sigh. “Fine. I'll put my love life in your capable hands!” He leans over and kisses my forehead, before turning down the street toward his family’s body shop. When I get back to work, Heather’s reorganizing the SweeTarts by color.

“God, what took you so long?” She rolls her eyes. “Had to graze in a pasture?”

“With your dad,” I shoot back and put a pack of Twizzlers in the M&Ms section just to piss her off.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #158

JUNE 11th

NITEOWL: Happy midnight, my lovely owls. You’re listening to 93.5 KOTN. This week’s topic is—well, everything. To be honest, I haven’t had the chance to think up a topic. I’ve been—um—busy. We’ll just say busy. So it’s a free-for-all! Welcome, Caller One, you are fresh on the air and no cursing. We got fined for last week’s . . . incident. Hello?

CALLER ONE: Hello! This is Bendo’s Massive Dildos calling about your lifetime supply of di—

(ends call)

NITEOWL: Aaaaaand that’s another fine! Caller Two, you’re on the air! What’s your heartbreak tonight?

CALLER TWO: My favorite band is dead, and I don’t know what to do. Their lead singer died a year ago, and her vigil’s next month but . . . no one’s heard from the rest of the band since she died. I think they’re disbanding. For good. I don’t know what to do.

NITEOWL: I feel you. When Zayn left One Direction I cried. Not gonna lie.

CALLER TWO: Right? Roman Holiday’s songs saved my life. They—Roman, Boaz, and even Holly . . . they were my best friends when I didn’t have any.

NITEOWL: They were your light in the dark, right? Well, when a light goes out do you forget about it?

CALLER TWO: No . . .

NITEOWL: And just because you can’t see it, does it mean it doesn’t exist?

CALLER TWO: Of course not.

NITEOWL: Roman Holiday might be gone, but you’re still here. That’s what matters. You’re a light that’ll never go out. You can put their songs on repeat again and again—and because of you, their songs will never be forgotten. And in the meantime, you can find some other bands. They won’t be your favorite, but I think we can slowly fill that hole. What do you say, callers? Have any recs for . . . ?

CALLER TWO: Lila.

NITEOWL: Lila! Caller Three, have any recs for Lila? And a friendly reminder that no, I did not order lady toys, but thank you for calling—

DARK AND BROODING: Maybe we can start by educating her on some real bands.

NITEOWL: Whoa there, that’s sharp. Roman Holiday’s a real band.

DARK AND BROODING: There are no real bands anymore. All the good ones are disbanded. They’re gone. Just like good music, gone. Like good radio deejays.

NITEOWL: All right, all right. Lila, check out Eileen and the Come-Ons. They’re pretty hip and they’ve got some killer lyrics. Thanks for calling.

(ends call)

NITEOWL: Okay, Dark and Brooding. Let’s dance.

DARK AND BROODING: Dark and Brooding? What am I, a character on a soap opera?

NITEOWL: Don’t sass me. Why do you think every good band is disbanded? Or dead? There’s totally good music these days.

DARK AND BROODING: Name one singer better than Freddie Mercury.

NITEOWL: David Bowie.

DARK AND BROODING: Also dead.

NITEOWL: Name one singer worse than Kanye West.

DARK AND BROODING: . . . Point. But you still haven’t answered my question.

NITEOWL: I don’t know—that’s a tough question. Better at what? At falsetto or—

DARK AND BROODING: No, the other question.

NITEOWL: I don’t think . . .

DARK AND BROODING: What do you want to do with your one boring life, Niteowl?

NITEOWL: Hang up on you tonight. ’Bye, Felicia.

Chapter Eleven

Today's the day.

I grab a piece of toast from the toaster, and kiss Grams on the cheek on my way out. The confectionary store is literally five minutes away from the house, but on a morning where I’m eating toast and guzzling the coffee I failed to enjoy at the table with Grams (read: almost every morning).

I get to the store right as Heather switches the Closed sign to Open, and gives me a look that could wither unicorn hearts.

“Sorry,” I quickly say as a reflex and put my book bag in the break room.

As I pull back my hair under my visor, my phone goes off.

—Micah 8:02 a.m.

u gonna do it today?

I chew on the inside of my cheek, pounding out a response with my thumbs.

—8:03 a.m.

Obviously. Want me to ask her fave flower too?

—Micah 8:03AM

and favorite food/restaurant

oh

that was a joke

lol

“Hello? I saw you come in, Ingrid,” Heather calls from the front counter.

“That was my ghost,” I yell back. “I’m actually not here.”

“Ugh . . . ,” she says, then mutters something inaudible.

My phone buzzes again.

—Micah 8:03AM

thx igs

ur the best

Bless. I hope I’m the best after this. I spent all yesterday plotting out exactly how I’m going to set up Heather and Micah. Admittedly, half the day I spent listening to the Rolling Stones and staring at my ceiling, but the other half was totally involved with figuring out how to get my lame-ass best friend a date with the hottest girl in Steadfast.

It’s like trying to get a zebra to date a show pony. Show ponies just don't mess with things that clash with their wardrobe, and Micah definitely clashes with everything Heather stands for. He’s dirty and oily, while she freaks out about the lint on her apron—and do I even have to mention the Twizzlers aisle? He loves taking long walks around the town square at night, while she enjoys sitting in the back of her daddy’s pickup truck. She likes pink, he likes blue. He’s nice and she’s . . .

Not.

And I’m being polite.

Heather will never date someone like Micah; that much I know for a fact. Like I know the sky is blue and Heather is a Mean Girl. She has standards, and Micah is better than any of them. But I can't convince him—I’ve tried—so he has to get his heart broken the hard way. But he’ll bounce back. This is just a crush. That’s all it is. A kiss and a hookup.

All he needs is a dose of reality, and he'll be back to himself again.

I pull back my blond hair. Heather’s hair is a pretty black that almost looks blue. Mine is so fair I went as the Albino from The Princess Bride one year, and I didn’t even have to powder my hair. She has long legs, and I have long scars from where I fell out of a tree as a kid. She has green eyes; I have muddy ones.

She’s popular, and yeah I am, too, but I’m not the sort of popular that can be traded for currency.

I wish I were someone else.

Someone whose parents didn’t ditch her as a baby, a girl with just a little gumption, just enough to stand up straight and own her accomplishments. The girl in the mirror would be beautiful—not because she’s skinny or has the prettiest makeup or most expensive clothes, but because she knows she’s beautiful. Because no one has to tell her for her to believe it.

“Hello! I’m not the only one working this stupid store!” Heather shouts from the front of the shop.

I tie the apron around my waist and grab a bag of Snickers to stock the shelf with.

Heather’s sitting on the counter when I come out, filing her nails. The radio behind her blares her favorite morning radio station. The host, Nick Lively, is probably the last VJ left post-when-MTV-actually-played-music era.

Nick Lively is discussing what I already knew from Saturday night—the end of the pop-rock band Roman Holiday. Something about their contract expiring or something. It definitely sucks for all the fans who bought a ticket last year (before the lead singer’s death) to see them at Madison Square this July. Maybe I can do a radio show about that . . .

“God, I can’t believe this,” Heather mutters, pressing harder on her nail file. Clearly, she has strong feelings for the now-defunct pop-rock band.

“How come we’re so invested in people who clearly aren’t as invested in themselves?” I ask, walking up to my cash register. I start counting out my drawer.

Heather shoots me a glare. “Because some of us like thinking about something else besides themselves.”

Ha! Has she looked in the mirror? I bite my tongue and change the subject. “So, what did you do this weekend?”

“Nothing with you.”

Play nice. “I wouldn’t want to do anything with me, either, to be honest. I’m boring. Do you have any plans after the summer?”

She stops filing her nails and cocks her head, giving me a suspicious eye. “Why would you care?”

“Because you’re my coworker. Of course I care!” Lies, all lies. “I mean, we’ve graduated and the summer’s going to end someday, right? We’re never going back to school, which is really weird, you know? And there’s really not much to do here in Steadf—”

“I’m taking online classes,” she interrupts, and returns to filing her pinky nail. “I’m going to be one of those courtroom recorders. I always loved Legally Blonde.”

I’m genuinely surprised. “Those people who type out courtroom cases?”

“Yeah. And if I like it, I might get a law degree, even though Daddy thinks that . . .” She trails off and scrubs at her nail bed harder. “Anyway, it’s whatever. Better than being stuck here.”

“I think you’d make a great Elle Wood.”

She snorts.

“Maybe even go to Harvard. Why not try? It beats the hell out of Steadfast—”

“Why the hell do you care?” she snaps. “It’s not like someone like you would understand.”

My face hardens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She opens her mouth to respond, but then waves her nail file at me. “Whatever.”

I dump the bag of Snickers into the allotted bucket. This conversation is not going how I imagined. Better just suck it up and get this stupid thing over with so I can go mess up her Twizzlers again. “So our boss wants to meet you at the diner for lunch. Says he’s got something to discuss.”

She snaps her head up, and her face suddenly brightens. “Ohmygod, my promotion!”

I falter. “Pro-promotion?”

“Isn’t that what I said? I asked him for one because I’ve been working here for like nine months and minimum wage is so god-awful. Who can live on seven dollars an hour?”

She’s been working here nine months. I’ve been here for four years. The bullshit radar must be quite evident on my face, because she rolls her eyes.

“You never ask, Ingrid. Did he say when to meet him?”

“Lunch,” I reply, still reeling from the verbal slap. I never ask? “He asked for lunch.”

“That’s perfect!"

Even though I know she isn’t meeting Bossman for a raise, the possibility that she might get one while I’m stuck at seven dollars an hour, unable to afford Jason Dallas tickets . . .

Not that anyone can afford those tickets. They’re ridiculous.

But just to be in the same arena as him, listening to his songs, hearing them. They—those songs . . .

“Did you hear me? I asked what time today.”

“Lunch,” I repeat for the third time and leave to go find a bag of Skittles in the stockroom. I stock the shelves until lunch, trying not to think too much about anything. I never ask.

Should I have to ask? For a job well done?

Shouldn't they see it?

Shouldn't they know?

Heather actually says good-bye to me when she clocks out. I let her go for all of three seconds before I clock out right behind her (something we’re not supposed to do) and hang a sign on the store door saying we’ve stepped out for a moment (another thing we aren’t supposed to do) to follow her to the diner. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t spy? And then swoop in like the best friend in shining armor when she hands Micah his heart back, skewered and half-eaten.

How should I play it though? The thoughtful friend? The I-told-you-so friend? The sympathetic one? The pessimist?

Bless, all the choices!

Through the diner window I watch her practically prance in like the show pony she is, immaculate teeth spread pearly white, and looks around for our boss. He’s kind of hard to miss. Big guy. Always wears plaid. And fur boots. Like a misplaced lumberjack with a sweet tooth. But he isn’t in the diner.

Her face begins to fall as she figures out that I lied my ass off, and there is a grain of satisfaction in that. Sweet, sweet satisfaction—

Until Micah stands from his booth and calls her over. She doesn’t move for a moment, but her friends aren’t there and she looks stupid just standing in the doorway. So she goes, and she sits across from him.

And . . . and she smiles. She smiles because he’s smiling and he can’t stop himself. It’s a smile I know too well. Slightly crooked. Broad. Buck teeth. Dimpled. A scattering of freckles over his tanned cheeks. It’s the smile he wears just after he blows out his birthday candles, the moment he hears his favorite song, the seconds just after his 1972 Harley purrs to life. Pure, complete happiness—

I tear myself away from the window, my nails biting into the palms of my hands so hard that when I finally release my fists there are indention marks in my skin.

No—this is just a fluke.

He’ll see. She’s a bad idea. Has it written all over her face. My chest begins to constrict with panic. Begins to ache like it did that night at the Barn.

I force myself to walk back to the store. I grab a Snickers on the way back into the break room and sink down into one of the chairs. Shredding the wrapper open, I take a bite. The Snickers tastes like salt in a wound, like peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth. What was that Charlie Brown saying?

Something about unrequited love.

I can’t remember.

Chapter Twelve

When Heather comes back from lunch, I excuse myself for the day, stating that I don't feel well. She's in such a good mood she doesn’t complain, and that makes me feel worse. I want to text LD, but I don't know what to say. How terrible was I in hoping Heather would reject Micah? What kind of friend does that? And what kind of friend am I to hate that it didn’t happen?

I walk straight home, to the small blue vinyl house I’ve lived in my entire life. The white porch needs painting, and the swing’s chains are rusted, but it’s home. Just seeing it makes me feel a little better. I rush up the steps and go inside.

“Grams, what do you want for dinner?” I call into the house, rolling up my shirtsleeves as I make my way into the kitchen.

Grams doesn’t answer me.

“Yoo-hoo?” I call again, and open the refrigerator to see what I can cook. There’s milk, eggs, lunch meat, and my three-day-old vomit-inducing attempt at making curry. I sigh. “Is pizza okay with you? I’m starving but I’m too lazy to do the dishes. Unless you did them. Did you do them . . . ? Grams . . . ?”

Still, no answer.

“Grams . . . ?” Closing the refrigerator door, I grab the phone to order a pizza from Steady Pizza (seriously, that’s the name). “You like pepperoni, right? Or is that just me?”

When Grams still doesn’t answer, I figure she must be in the back room sleeping, but I go to check anyway.

The door to the back room is open, and the light is on. I breathe out a sigh of relief, and knock on the door.

“If you’re sleeping again, or ignoring me because you found that thong that I definitely don’t own . . .”

Grams looks up from a photo album in her lap. She’s sitting on the guest bed—what used to be Mom’s room before she up and left. “Oh, darling, I didn’t hear you. How was work today?”

“Stupid as always,” I reply, sitting down beside her. I look down at the old photo album. The pictures are yellowing and curled at the edges, most of them with some variation of a young woman who looks like Grams and a tall and handsome young man in an air force uniform. Grandpa. It’s really quite spectacular how they met. She was a farmer’s girl from Hemingway, South Carolina, whose best friend cajoled her into going to the air show a few hours away. She didn’t—doesn’t—care about airplanes. She hates to fly. But she went anyway, and she watched the airmen do all these crazy inverted loops and then went out for drinks with her friend. Her ears were ringing. She was tired. She wanted to go home.

But then a man came up to her at the bar. He asked her for her name. Then he outstretched his hand for a dance, and despite the fact that she hated flying and airplanes and things that did three-hundred-sixty-degree loops, she fell in love with a fighter pilot.

She takes out one of the photos with her weathered fingers like it’s a thin piece of glass and hands it to me.

“I like that one the best,” she says, and her eyes glitter with adoration. Grandpa is striking a Samuel Adams pose, one leg hiked up on a keg, grinning the hell out of the picture. He’s on the edge of a cliff against the backdrop of which is China. He and Grams traveled when they were young. Wherever the air force stationed him, she went, and even after he got out of the military they traveled. There are so many knickknacks and trinkets from so many different times and places, I can’t keep track of where the hell everything’s from. When Grams got pregnant with my mom, though, they settled down in Grandpa’s hometown, and built this house. They were here to see the construction of the radio tower, the paving of Main Street, and everything else that came and went in Steadfast.

I take the picture, smoothing out the curling edges. “Looks like you guys partied hard.”

She throws her head back in a willowy laugh. I love her laughs. “That was in China. We camped out on the ledge that night . . . you could see Beijing just over those hills . . .” Then she bends in closer and adds, “That was the night your mother was conceived.”

I drop the picture like it’s hot coals. “Grams! I didn’t need to know that.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, darling! Everyone needs to know where they’re from.”

“Except for me.” I pick the photo up off the ground and hand it back to her. I lean my cheek against her shoulder. She’s been so many places over her life, left her trail across the world like a connect-the-dots game. Grams is from everywhere, made up of all the places she’s been. And I am made up of Steadfast. Of her. “I love you. You’re my home.”

She wraps her arm around me in a side hug, and kisses my forehead, like she always did when I was little and alone. I was alone a lot before Micah, Billie, and LD. It was just me and her. That was something Heather would never understand—what it’s like to be abandoned. Everyone loves her.

Including Micah now.

“Oh, darling, I love you, too.”

We sit there for a long moment, and then she kisses my forehead one more time and sits up straight. She pats my knee. “Darling! So, how was work today?”

I strain a smile over my lips, and this time I say in earnest, “It sucked.”

Chapter Thirteen

The next day Micah and Heather go on their first date. It's a pity date—it has to be. Heather has a heart somewhere in that undead carcass of hers that feels sorry for my best friend. But then the next day they go on a second date.

Then a third.

A fourth last night.

All week he visits the store; she meets him at the diner for lunch, leaving Billie, LD, and I scrounging up extra change to pick up more of the chili-fry bill than normal. I hear them talking on Micah’s front porch in the evenings, and I see their silhouettes through the curtains in his bedroom window. I try not to stare too long.

Because if I do I’ll begin to realize that Heather isn’t pitying Micah any more than I pity her. She looks at him like I’ve always done in secret, between the folds our friendship where something warm grew.

I try to ignore Heather and Micah. I try to tell myself that it’s only a few dates. Only a few kisses. Only a few . . . other things.

If Heather talks about him at work, I ignore it, diving into rag mags and music as if they can save my soul. Or at least bandage my heart so it’ll quit aching every time his name slips from her cherry ChapStick lips.

On Saturday, she’s talking to her friend, Clarissa, about a drive-in movie she went to see with Micah last night—the drive-in has Friday double features. Two dumb romantic comedies Micah wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Or at least not until today.

I guess I didn’t know my best friend as well as I thought I did.

“So, after Love All Night there was an intermission, right? Before the second movie because it was like this double-feature thing. And he actually wanted a pretzel. I know, right? Like you never know what they fry those in or for how long,” she was saying as I came in and went straight to the back room, where I stashed my book bag in my locker and put on my apron.

She’s at the front counter, so I decide to hang back near the foreign chocolates for a while, restickering them with new price tags.

“I mean, yeah I ate it. Yes; with the preprocessed cheese. Ugh, I had to go for like a three-mile run after we got home just to get all that poison out of my body,” Heather went on.

I want to tell her that Micah loves the nacho cheese, and that if she ever decides to share chili cheese fries with him, then order extra cheese because he’s a cheese demon, but I don’t. Because it’s something I know because I’m his best friend. She wouldn't listen to what I have to say anyway.

As I listen to Heather tell—in detail—what happened before, during, and after the movie (and spoiler, very little of it involved actually watching the movie), I finish the German chocolates and move on to Japan. The cookie pandas. I open a box and eat one, sticking the new price tag on my forehead instead.

That’s when the bell above the front door chimes. Heather instantly quiets down. That means it’s either the Bossman or—

“Oh, Mike,” she says. “Hi.”

My blood runs cold.

“Hey girl,” he replies. “What’s up?”

“Talking to Clarissa—she says you owe her like ten bucks for lunch last week,” she relays from her conversation over the phone. I peek around the end of the aisle as Heather hangs up and leans against the counter toward Mike. “So what’s the occasion? Come to relieve me of my boredom?”

“Yeah, lunch?”

“Uh, please.”

“Without the cowboy,” he adds.

“Mike—”

“Seriously, ditch him.”

“Let me grab my purse, and I'm not ditching him.”

“What do you see in him anyway?”

With a roll of her eyes, she begins back toward the break room—which I’m standing right in front of, as luck would have it. She finds me at the end of the aisle with an unamused expression. “What’re you looking at?” she snaps. “I’m taking my lunch. You have the front.”

My head’s reeling, remembering what I said to Mike at the Barn. Does she want to send me to my doom? “I gotta, um, finish these stickers first—”

“Hey, girl, how much do these little pop things cost?” Mike yells to Heather from the front of the store.

She gives me an impatient look. “Well? I'm off the clock.”

“But—”

She slams the door to the break room. Mike calls her again. I grip the price tag gun tighter. It’s just a customer, I have to repeat to myself. It's just a customer who wants to know how much the Baby Bottle Pops cost. Neanderthal.

I turn toward the front and, steeling my loins, march to the counter.

“How do you get the powder to stick—shit, you.” He gives a start when he notices me at the register. “What’re you doing here?”

“I work here,” I intone.

“That your price at auction?” He motions to the sticker still stuck to my forehead. I’d forgotten I stuck it there and embarrassingly peel it off.

“Are you here to buy something, Mike?” I ask, trying to keep myself civil. Bossman has cameras set up on the register (but nowhere else in the store, surprisingly enough) so for all I know he could be monitoring me right now. And I really don’t want to lose this job. It’s all I have, as pathetic as that sounds. “Lollipops? A heart?”

“Ooh, aren’t you snarky,” he comments, putting the Baby Bottle Pop back. “You had some balls at the Barn. Tell me, which one of you’s the man in the relationship?”

I breathe out through my nose. Calm. Peace. Try to imagine myself somewhere else—anywhere else. On a safari, at the top of the Eiffel Tower, walking the streets of London, standing in Times Square in New York City—

If I could be anywhere right now, just wish myself to some other place, it’d be there. Surrounded by people, blending in, never being seen, never being noticed. Wouldn’t it be heaven, to be somewhere and have no one care you’re there.

“Would you like to buy anything?” I ask again, forcing the words out between my clenched teeth.

He grins and takes a jar of gumdrops from the end shelf and holds it up. “How much does this cost?”

“Seven dollars and eighty-f—”

He drops it, and the jar shatters on the ground. Gumdrops go rolling everywhere. “Oh, whoops.”

“Seriously?” I snap before I can bite my tongue. “What’ve I done to piss you off?”

“What’ve you done?” he echoes.

I swallow. Oh, Bless, what have I gotten myself into? He stalks to the counter, and I instinctively stand up a little straighter. Is it too late to retract my statement?

“What have you done?” he repeats again, leaning over the counter to me. He smells like Axe body spray—the douchey kind.

“Yeah, Mike,” I find myself saying, “what have I done?”

“Nothing,” he responds and grins. “You’ve done nothing, Iggy North. That’s what’s so pathetic about you. Following around in Bleaker’s shadow, but guess what? Bleaker isn’t here right now. So you’re nothing, like that stupid girly friend of yours, and you’ll always be nothing.”

I can see my own reflection in his green eyes. And that’s scary—seeing yourself reflected in glass marbles. I see how small I am, and realize how easy it is for him to call me nothing. Am I nothing? Is that how everyone in this town sees me? Me and LD? In Billie’s shadow? I fist my hands, nails cutting into my palms, torn between punching the smug look off his face and hiding myself underneath the table, but all I can do is stare at him, trapped between mortification and the sinking feeling that . . . that he’s right.

I am nothing.

His grin only grows wider because the look on my face is telling. We both know he’s right, and he loves it. “And you—”

“What broke?” Heather’s voice cuts in, coming back from the break room with her purse slung over her shoulder. She looks down at the shattered jar of gumdrops, then at us. When neither of us say anything, she adds impatiently, “Um, hello?”

I snap out of it. “I’ll clean it up,” I say, tearing myself away from the counter to go retrieve the broom and dustpan from the break room.

I hear Heather ask Mike, “What happened?”

“Dunno. It just fell. Lunch?”

“Yeah, Micah’s meeting us—”

“Jesus, again? Get rid of that oil stain, girl,” he says before the door closes behind them and the bell rings, echoing in the empty candy shop. I don’t even get the broom and dustpan out of the break room before I catch my reflection in the mirror—the white uniform that makes me look outrageously marshmallow, the white-blonde hair, the forgettable face—nothing.

I’m looking at nothing.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #159

JUNE 18th

DARK AND BROODING: I have a question for you, Niteowl.

NITEOWL: Why am I even agreeing to this? Fine. Shoot.

DARK AND BROODING: It’s a girl question.

NITEOWL: Again? Consider me all ears—and anyone else who’s listening, of course. What kind of girl question? I happen to know a lot on the subject.

DARK AND BROODING: A scholar of it, are you?

NITEOWL: Got my degree in Bon Jovi love ballads. So is this about your girl? Is she in love with another guy? Another girl?

DARK AND BROODING: She’s in love with an idea that doesn’t exist.

NITEOWL: I’m flattered! I’ve never had a girl in love with me.

DARK AND BROODING: (laughs)I would be okay if she was in love with you. You would be good for her.

NITEOWL: I . . .

DARK AND BROODING: Sorry—I didn’t mean—

NITEOWL: No, it’s thoughtful. I didn’t expect that from you.

DARK AND BROODING: Perhaps people will surprise you.

NITEOWL: Maybe the girl you like will surprise you, too.

Chapter Fourteen

That Wednesday, Billie invites me to North Platte. I go just to get out of Steadfast for a little while, but secretly it’s to escape. Grams is at the town hall playing bingo with the rest of the older generation, and I don’t expect her back home for the rest of the day. The monthly bingo Wednesdays are the only times I can really go out and do something without being worried about Grams. Of course I’m always still worried about her, but at least at the town hall she has other people looking out for her for a little while.

And bingo just so happens to always fall on the one Wednesday Bossman lets me take off work. (God forbid he lets me take off a weekend. Amy Adams will win an Oscar before then. Leo did, so there’s hope.)

I wince, thinking of work. Heather came back from lunch after I cleaned up the broken jar and gumdrops, and didn’t say a word to me the rest of our shift. She’s been mysteriously quiet since the incident. So has Micah. I saw him a few times in the morning, while we go to work, but we just make small talk.

“Hi,” he’d always say. “Nice morning, huh?”

“Hot as balls,” I’d reply.

And . . . that’s it. Like there’s this moat between us infested with crocodiles and piranhas and our friendship is being eaten alive somewhere in the middle.

Billie comes to pick me up around eleven in his gray Cadillac. It was his dad’s before he passed away, and it sounds just as old. “And why are we going all the way to North Platte?” I ask, getting in.

“I gotta pick up something, and I thought you’d rather do something cool on your day off instead of mooning over Heathcah.”

I groan. “Is that their couple name?”

He shrugs. “LD started saying it. Either that or Miceather.”

“That sounds menacing.”

“You can’t really combine Micah and Heather too many ways.” He pulls out onto Main Street, and we head out of town. The engine rumbles under the hood, a soothing sound. The Cadillac is always soothing. It’s the only car we collectively have for our group. It’s ferried me to and from school almost the entire time he’s had it . . . except the last few months of our senior year. I missed riding in it.

I prop my elbow up on the window and stare out at the fields of sunflowers. “And I’m not mooning,” I say after a minute. “I’m mourning.”

He raises a thick blond eyebrow. “He’s not dead, Ingrid.”

I purse my lips, turning my face toward the window instead of answering.

“North, c’mon, it’s not that bad. We just have to wait this out. You’re not the only one who hates it. Believe me, sometimes I think she’s dating him to get back at me—”

I sit ramrod straight. “Wait—you dated her?”

“It was around Homecoming,” he defends, “and we didn’t date. We just kind of . . .” He waves his hand in the air, trying to summon the right word. “We just did things. For a while.”

“How long?”

“. . . Until April—ish? April-ish.”

I stare at him like he’s a stranger in my friend’s skin. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know?”

“You went silent right after Christmas,” he replies. “How was I supposed to tell you anything when you didn’t want to communicate? I tried talking to you but you just . . . you just shut down.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“No, you did. And I get it. We all know why now, but you could’ve confided in us. We could’ve helped. We’re your friends—”

“Helped?” I scoff. “Can you cure Alzheimer’s, Golden Boy? Can you stop Grams from forgetting me?” My voice cracks despite myself.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean it like that. We could’ve been there for you. We’re friends, North.”

I turn away from him again. The sunflowers are never ending, stretching for miles and miles. I hate it. This place looks so big, but I’ve never suffocated so much in my life. “I just couldn’t, okay? It was my thing to deal with. It didn’t affect you—clearly,” I added, referring to Heather.

“Didn’t affect us? You—we just—we’re better—” He purses his lips. “Just forget I said anything, okay? It was a mistake.” Then he leans forward and flicks on the radio, and that’s that.

Mick’s voice floods the stereo. “Aaaaand that was a killer track from Aerosmith. Man, you gotta love a guy with some tongue action. Next up is the Grateful Dead, and then maybe a little Mötley Crűe. But right now, let’s Janis this station up . . .”

Janis Joplin’s voice crooned over the speakers.

I cut my eyes over to the radio in surprise. This is the station that comes on when he starts his radio? My anger quickly melts into panic. “You . . . you listen to KOTN?”

He shrugs, clearly still not over the fight. His eyes are trained on the road. “Sure. Why not? Mick plays good stuff. Sometimes.”

“Do you listen . . .” I hesitate. Would he even recognize my voice over the radio? Would I recognize his if he ever called in? Of course I would. I could pick Billie’s voice out of a crowd. It’s soft and suede, and it crackles like a river.

“Do I listen to what?”

“. . . Jason Dallas?” I divert my question quickly. “I mean, he’s coming to Omaha, and tickets sold out in five minutes or something.”

“Three minutes and forty-two seconds,” Billie corrects.

I laugh. “Yeah? Aren’t you too cool to listen to Jason Dallas?”

“Mick talked about it when it happened.”

“Oh.”

We ride the rest of the way to North Platte in silence. It’s much bigger than Steadfast, and there are so many more people there’s actual traffic. I can only imagine what bigger cities must be like—bumper to bumper for hours on end, sitting in the baking heat, breathing in poisonous exhaust. In a way, it sort of sounds poetic.

Billie parks in front of the record store Manifest and we go in. A few guys in “RANCID” T-shirts browse the heavy metal aisles. Billie excuses himself for a moment to the checkout counter while I make my way to the rock and indie aisles. I flip through some of the vinyls. At the end of the aisle a record player spins off, making static popping sounds.

Occasionally as I browse, I glance up over the sections to Billie at the counter, talking with a pretty redhead with snakebites and a sailor tattoo inching up her arm. He leans toward her, smiling in his golden-boy way.

The more I think about those months before graduation, the doctor visits and skipping school early to take Grams to checkups and endless hours waiting at the pharmacy here in town for her medication, the less I remember of the gang. Thinking back on it, I did distance myself from them. I distanced myself from everyone.

Those months still feel like a hazy dream—the kind you wake up from in a cold sweat and then feel “off” the rest of the day.

When I finally did tell the gang, LD refused to talk to me for a week. She said she was heartbroken that I hadn’t thought to confide in them. But Gram’s illness didn’t affect their lives. If I’d told them any sooner, nothing would have changed. You can’t cure something that you can’t control.

Besides, I wanted them to enjoy their senior year.

It seems like they did, at least.

So why do I feel so betrayed finding out that Billie and Heather also had a—a thing? Out of everyone, I should’ve guessed he would.

But . . .

The redhead leans in, giggling, and he glances over his shoulder at me. He tells her something, and she slides him a piece of paper. Maybe her number? It wouldn't surprise me. He pockets it quickly and starts back toward me.

I quickly turn around to the announcement board on the opposite wall. Band flyers for auditions litter the board like a live Craigslist page. I don’t really read any of them as I flip through them, lifting flyers to look at other ones underneath.

One catches my eye. It has an official-looking header that reads MUSE RADIO. I’ve heard that Muse Records—the record label that signed Jason Dallas and the now-defunct Roman Holiday—partnered with a station.

I unpin the flyer and begin reading it.

CALLING ALL MUSIC ENTHUSIASTS.

WANT A CAREER IN RADIO? HAVE A TALENTED EAR FOR GOOD MUSIC?

MUSE RECORDS, with ROONEY QUILLS, IS TAKING APPLICANTIONS FOR A ONE-YEAR INTENSIVE WITH NEW YORK’S TOP RADIO DJs.

BE PART OF THE MUSIC.

Rooney Quills.

An internship with the Rooney Quills. Bless, that sounds like heaven. Not only wonderful—a dream. Being able to learn from the DJ who crafted the fine art of pop culture interviews. Who squeezed the last bit of juice out of Renee Prosperity’s social life. Who got to the bottom of Roman Holiday’s love triangle. Who has crafted so many memorable interviews and radio shows, he has redefined the shape of how society ingests pop culture.

The Rooney Quills.

I stare at the flyer. It looks like a possibility. The kind that’s becoming more and more rare the longer I root and rot in Steadfast, the longer I keep my head down and my nose clean. It’s a possibility I can’t take, because of Grams and because of Micah—

“You’re nothing,” Labouise’s taunt rings in my ears.

It feels like a stab in my gut. He’s right. I’ve never done anything, but I’ve always chalked it up to bad timing. With club activities in high school, with not going to college, with Micah . . . forever stuck in a loop of nothing.

Being nothing.

But Niteowl isn’t nothing.

“Hey, North, what’re you looking at?” Billie asks, coming back over. He’s got his hands in his pockets. I want to ask what the girl slipped him. He looks at the flyer. “Cool, you like radio stuff?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, not quite a lie. I stare at the flyer, trying to see the answer in it. Or the possibility.

He shrugs. “I think you’d be good at it.”

That surprises me. I tear my eyes away from the flyer to look at him. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

“What, do I have a face for radio?” I joke, and he pales.

“No—no. I didn’t mean that at all. You’re pretty. I mean you’re not pretty, I mean you are but you’re more than just pretty, you’re—”

I begin to laugh. “I was busting your balls!” I punch him in the shoulder and he gives me a wounded look. “But you know what? Maybe you’re right.”

He begins to blush. “You’ve got a massive music collection—don’t think I don’t remember your library.” Of course he remembers, he used to come over and borrow music all the time before . . .

Before he became the golden boy. I miss that Billie. The one with spiky blue hair and death metal T-shirts.

He plucks the flyer from my hand and takes a pen out of his plaid breast pocket. Who still keeps pens in their breast pockets, seriously? He puts the flyer against the wall, beginning to fill out the form.

I pale. “What are you doing?”

“Filling out your destiny,” he replies, writing my name and address.

“Seriously? I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

He ignores me. “What does the radio mean to you?” he asks, reading off the first question on the questionnaire.

“Excuse me?”

“I said—”

I tear the flyer away from him and fold it up, sticking it in my back pocket. “It’s personal,” I reply.

He quirks an eyebrow. “But you won’t fill it out.”

“I will.”

“Pinky swear?” He holds out his pinkie and wiggles it. I give him an annoyed look. “Look North, I won’t believe you unless you pinkie swear with me.”

“What are we, four?”

“We’re whatever we want to be,” he replies. “C’mon, North.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine.” I give in, not because he’s the golden boy or because of his smoldering blue eyes and his charming smile or the way he sounds so confident that I can actually be what I already am in private.

I give in because, for a moment, I see a glimpse of the Billie I used to know. The blue-haired one, who worshipped Bowie and wore holey jeans and told me when I was so, so little and I didn’t have parents to shadow for Shadow Day, that he could be my family because I wasn’t alone.

We hook pinkies and kiss our thumbs.

At the end of the aisle, the skipping record player goes silent and then begins to play a soft, slow song. A soft voice rides the wave of guitar strums. I turn toward the music, listening quietly, and our pinkies unravel.

Billie shakes his head. “Some things never change.”

“Shut up, I love this song.”

“Love it more than Jason Dallas?”

“This is different. Wait for it—here.”

The sound of the song gets louder, stronger, fuller. Piecing together orchestra strings and piano chords, weaving three separate melodies together. Then the chorus breaks—chills. Pure bliss.

I shiver. “Every time. It gets me every. Single. Time.”

“Gets you?”

I don’t know why I’m saying this aloud. I don’t talk about music to anyone—not Micah, and definitely not Billie. Niteowl talks about music. Niteowl has the opinions. But this song has played me to sleep more times in the last few months than I care to remember. My voice is soft, almost a whisper, definitely a secret, “Listening to it, I feel infinite.”

The edges of his lips twist up. He drops his gaze down to our hands. I hadn’t realized how close we were, almost touching but not quite, an invisible shield built of everything he is and everything I can never be. But then he moves through that invisible boundary and takes my hands. His are warm and large and slightly sweaty like they always are.

I remember them—but we’ve never held hands before, have we?

He spins me around. I look up into his emerald eyes, unsure of whatever this is. He tilts his head in. “Remember what you asked in the sunflower maze? Why I changed?”

My heart rises into my throat. I nod.

He bends in closer and presses his lips against my ear, “I haven’t.”

My mouth goes dry. “I . . . I—”

Suddenly, a loud scratch makes me jump. I whirl around toward the record player. The guys in “RANCID” shirts are taking the record off.

“We were listening to that, assholes,” Billie says.

One of the guys scoffs. “Yeah, whatever. Shit song.” Then he puts on Avenge Sevenfold, and the moment’s over. I step away from Billie so quickly, I bump into a stand of postcards and they go scattering across the floor. The RANCID guys point and laugh.

Billie makes a move at them, but I catch him by his fitted plaid shirt and pull him back, advancing on the douche bags. They watch me as I delicately pluck the needle off the record player and move it off.

One of the guys squints at me, and puts it back on.

I pluck it off again.

We glare.

Billie tries to pull me away. “Come on, North, not worth it—”

“Yeah, listen to your boyfriend—”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I rebuke.

He pushes the needle back on the record. “Listen to him anyway.”

“Excuse me.” Before I even get the chance to make a comeback, Billie reaches over and pulls the vinyl from the player with an ear-splitting shriiiiiik! He flicks his wrist like throwing a Frisbee and it goes sailing over the RANCID bros heads, away toward the far wall, where it shatters and clatters to the ground in pieces.

The redhead by the counter looks up from her magazine in alarm.

Billie grabs my hand. “I think we should run.”

“You just destroyed a record!”

“It was a shit song!”

We make a break for the exit before the RANCID idiots can fumble out the story to the redhead, and we jump into Billie’s truck. We don’t breathe until we’re halfway out of North Platte.

Then he looks at me. I look at him.

“Golden Boy, eh?” I finally say, and he cracks a smile to show off those beautiful white teeth, but all I see in his eyes is possibility.

Chapter Fifteen

That evening after Billie drops me off, I just want to face-plant on my bed. Grams comes home a few hours later, having raked the town hall clean. She’s good at bingo—and I don’t know how anyone can be good at bingo. It’s pure luck.

“It’s just the universe paying me back,” Grams jokes, but it’s a bittersweet humor because nothing in the world can repair the bad hand Whoever Almighty dealt her.

She goes to bed early, so I eat a slice of cold pizza (there’s always cold pizza in the fridge), and go upstairs to put a record on and read a magazine. I put on Jason Dallas’s new album and set the needle down on the very end. The stereo crinkles, and the sound of white noise fills the room.

I sit down on the floor and close my eyes, but all I can see is Micah standing outside of Sweetey’s waiting for Heather. Like a Labrador or something. And then he looks at me and waves from across this invisible moat where all of our friendship is drowning, and all I can do is wave back. And then I remember how my hand felt in Billie’s and I’m split in two. I hurt and I want and it’s horrible.

I press the heels of my palms against my eye sockets until the darkness explodes with colors, and that’s when the music from the stereo starts.

It’s a guitar chord progression. Slow, steady. Melancholy and sweet, like dark chocolate. The same tune repeats, around and around like a haunted carousel, and as the melody spins it picks up drums and piano and the bass in a cacophony of sound. The song spins like a tornado, growing louder and more violent.

I can’t get the image of Micah and Heather out of my head, and I can’t stop thinking about the way Billie twined his fingers into mine at the record store.

He said he hadn’t changed. But he has. Four years of change. But the golden boy wouldn’t destroy a record. He wouldn’t vandalize a store.

And he certainly wouldn’t do it for me.

My phone beeps again. I feel for it on the bed and slide my finger across the lock screen.

—LD 8:27 p.m.

you coming over?

it’s battlefield night!

[Attached: 1 Image]

I snort.

—Ingrid 8:30 p.m.

Why are you licking your controller?

Do you even know where that’s been?

—LD 8:31 p.m.

ITS ALIIIIIVVEEEEE!

seriously i thought i’d have to come over and drag you out of your room.

—Ingrid 8:35 p.m.

You wouldn’t find me under all the pizza boxes.

—LD 8:36 p.m.

that’s comforting

come over

pants are optional

LD’s house is across town, but I slide into my favorite pair of leggings and a large sweatshirt and walk over anyway. It takes maybe all of ten minutes. LD’s parents are in the living room watching some summer variety show, and they smile in greeting. LD’s dad was the one who sent Grams to a specialist in March, when we learned . . . well, when life stopped being normal. I haven’t seen him since then.

“Ingrid! It’s great to see you. How’ve you been?” Dr. Darling asks, pulling me into a hug. “How’s everything?”

“Good, sir,” I reply. “She’s good.”

He nods, and I see the look in his eyes—the look everyone gives me who knows what Grams is going through. It’s not quite pity, but it’s in the ballpark of Oh, you’re going through a lot and I want to say that I know how you feel but I don’t. “LD’s upstairs. She’s doing something on her gaming system. It sounds violent.”

“It probably is,” I reply, and head upstairs. I knock on the cracked door. “The party has arrived, my fine—”

“Shhh!” LD throws a hand up to me before quickly returning it to the controller, adjusting the volume on her gaming headset. The light from the TV illuminates her face in pearly white and shadows. The sound of gunfire and a stream of profanities cascade from the fifty-two-inch TV mounted on the wall. It’s some war video game. Blood. Violence. The type that makes conservative parents cream their pants at the thought of banning it.

LD is, as far as I can tell, handing every other player their collective asses.

“No, dickweed, he’s in the freaking grass! The grass! Christ, do I have to do everything around here?” she steams, mashing the controller buttons furiously. There’s the sound of some virtual person dying. She shoots me a quick look. “Come in and sit down. I’m almost done—no not you, Sora42. Why the heck would I be talking to you? Sniper on the roof! YES, I’M TALKING TO YOU.”

I come in, closing the door, and sit down on the bed behind her game chair. She rocks back and forth quickly, eyes trained on the TV. The match ends quick enough, and she’s at the top of the bracket. She says as much to everyone else in a clipped voice she usually reserves for the jockstraps at school.

She logs out with a sigh, taking off her headset, and pats her victory curls back into place. I’m often hair envious of her. Mine’s stringy and long no matter what I do the night before or how I wash it. Hers is whatever she wants it to be that day.

In the dim lava lamplight, she’s thin and ghostly, the planes of her body sharp and angular, accenting the indentions around her mouth from too many bloody lips, and the scars on her knuckles from one too many fights, and all I can think of is how much I want to be like her.

I fall back on her bed. “Video games sound violent.”

She shrugs. “It helps me deal with the real world. I can pretend all those Nazis are Mike and his gang.”

I punch her in the shoulder. “Shush, that’s not funny.”

“I’ll have a bruise there!” she pouts, rubbing her arm. “Almost as big as my bruised ego. I hear you and Billie went to North Platte today without me. I am crushed.”

“Oh, stop that. You were working and you go off with Billie all the time on your day off.”

“Yes, but today was especially terrible. I had to work with Heather.”

“Did you see Micah?”

She shrugs again. “A little—does he always wait for her outside the shop?”

“Always.”

“Boring.” She rolls over onto her stomach, and props her head up to look at me. I like the way she does her makeup even when she isn’t going anywhere. It’s always perfect and cat eyed. “So dish; what did you and Billie do today?”

“What, did Billie say anything?”

“Should he?” she asks.

I blush, remembering holding his hand. “Nope.”

She squints. “Mmmhmm.”

“Seriously, it was nothing.” I roll off the bed and pick through her bookshelves to distract myself. They’re all from fantasy series: A Song of Ice and Fire. The Wheel of Time. The Halo and Dragon Age novelizations. And other books I’ve never even heard of. Sheet music for a violin, in a tall and skinny folder. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the shelf.

The violin itself sits collecting dust in the corner of the room behind the nightstand.

I take out the folder of music and leaf through it, smiling as I come across a transposition of “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks. “Remember when you made this for Micah’s stupid sixteenth birthday? Those were good times.” I brush my fingers along the notes tenderly. “The best times, I think.”

LD scoots to the edge of the bed, frowning at me. “Oh, Iggy-Pop, you need to get over him.”

A knot forms in my throat. “I know.”

“I don’t think you do. Trust me, I know what it’s like to get caught up in someone. It’s poison.”

“Yeah.” I quickly close the folder and stick it back. I motion to the corner of the room, to the violin that was supposed to be her ticket out. “I should’ve been there for you. For your audition. I’m sorry I was MIA these last few months. I’m sorry I let you down.”

“Oh, please, I doubt you wanted to see me choke.” She glances over at the violin case. She never talked about the audition before. It was one of those taboo topics, like Mr. Bleaker’s death, like my mom’s absence. “It was my one ticket out and I choked. I couldn’t even read the notes on the piece of paper in front of me. I didn’t know where to put my fingers. I couldn’t breathe. I choked.”

“So you just gave up?”

“There could be worse spots in hell,” is her reply.

“But you’re good. You’re really good.”

“I don’t want to be good anymore,” she replies, frustrated. She has the music right there at her fingertips—something I would kill to have. Her music is a little piece of heaven in hell, like Billie’s sunflower watchtower, and the space between Micah’s window and mine, and our booth in Den’s Diner where no one else ever sits.

Whenever I sat outside of her practice room door it made me forget for a little while who I was. It made me forget about cramped Steadfast and the jocks in the next hallway and Micah. With her rendition of Green Day’s “Whatsername” she had the power to pick your soul up and waltz you around the clouds.

“I think you deserve more than Steadfast,” I tell her.

“But don’t you know the song? “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

The weight of those words hangs in the air like thick smoke.

I sink down on the bed next to her again. She rests her head on my shoulder, and we stare at the teal violin case for a long, long time.

Finally, I say so quietly, my voice wobbles. “Why couldn’t it have been me?”

She wraps her arms around me. “Oh, Iggy.”

“It’s like he has blinders. Everything is her. Her, her, HER.” I don’t know where all this pent-up anger is coming from, but I can’t stop it. My mouth is running a mile a minute, gushing out with all of the anger in my heart. My eyes are blurring. “I wish I’d never made that promise. I was so stupid. I should’ve just told him to keep screwing her behind the Barn. He didn’t need a girlfriend. He had me. He had me.” I repeat again, my throat clogging with sobs. “He had—he had me . . .”

Tears pour out of my eyes as I sob into her chest, and I can’t stop myself. LD wraps her arms around me and holds me tightly, and she lets me cry and ruin her perfectly good Sailor Moon T-shirt.

After a while, she pulls me away from her and grabs my hands. She squeezes them tightly. “C’mon.”

I stifle as she begins to drag me off the bed. “W-what? Why?”

“Just come on!” Gripping one of my hands, she grabs a candle and a lighter from her bedside table and pulls me out of her room and down the stairs. I try to stop her, but she’s way too strong as she leads me out onto the back porch and into the Darlings’ backyard. A decrepit princess castle sits in the corner, almost overgrown with weeds. LD and I used to play there all the time, self-rescuing princesses fighting an invisible dragon, Sith Lords protecting our new Death Star; Time Lords protecting humanity from the rest of the universe.

“What are we doing?” I ask, wiping the tears out of my eyes. I sound whiny.

She lights the candle and spins back around to me. Wax begins to slide down the sides of the candle. It smells like butterscotch. “Give me your hand.”

“What?”

She grabs my hand anyway and forces my fingers around the candle. She holds them there. The candle illuminates our faces in warm gold and flickers in the breeze. “Iggy, you’re my best friend,” she says.

“And you’re mine,” I agree, and it’s truer than anything I’ve said in a long time. I love her like grass loves rain. Like sunflowers turn toward the sun. I don’t know what or who I’d be without her because she brings out the best parts in me like best friends always do. “But let’s go back inside and—”

“No! You need to get over him. Like I . . . ,” she says, and swallows and forces it out, “like I need to get over Erin.”

“You can do it in your own time—”

“We can do it together.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m willing to try if you are. I’m tired of this ghost in my head. I’m tired of saying her name and feeling like I’m drowning, and I know you feel the same about Micah.”

My throat tightens. More than she knows. “Yeah.”

“Then what could this hurt, right?” She squeezes my hands tightly. “We’ve got half the summer left. We’ve got our whole lives. So let’s just let it go. I read about this in one of Mom’s magazines.”

“The doctor type of magazine or the Vogue type?” I joke.

She pretends to glare. “I’m horrified you even think I read Vogue.”

“Okay, that’s a lie.”

“Shush! Just bear with me. What’s the harm in trying, right?”

I sigh. “Fine. Right.”

“Okay, so pretend this candle is a star.” She looks back to the flickering candle between us. “And imagine that this star is all the feelings you have for that stupid ape-brained piece of shit—loving shit, because we still love him—but shit anyway.”

“And you pretend that it’s She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

“Erin. It’s Erin. And it’s the way she laughed, and how she held my hand, and all the futures we wrote about together in all those notes we passed. The ones where we went to Paris and lived in Beijing and ate churros on a beach in Spain. In the end they didn’t mean enough.”

“You don’t know that.”

She blinks the wetness out of her eyes. “But I do, Iggy.”

It’s my turn to squeeze her hands. “Then let’s let it go. All the way up there.”

She looks up, and I look up, too, even though I’ve seen those constellations a hundred times before, traced by Micah’s oil-stained fingers.

“All the way to Pluto,” I add, “because you are more than any of those notes combined. You’re a symphony, and I’m sorry she couldn’t hear it.”

She’s still looking up at all the stars. “And you’re better than anything Micah could ever want.”

The wax slowly inches down the candle.

I know how I feel about Micah isn’t going to change overnight. I know my heartstrings will still swell and surge whenever his chocolate eyes meet mine. But for tonight, as LD and I stand in her overgrown backyard, with nothing but Orion and Sagittarius as our witnesses, I put all the love I have for him—all the aches, all the pains, all the joy and hate and hope into this flickering little light between us.

We blow it out and send all our love to the stars.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #160

JUNE 25th

DARK AND BROODING: What do you call a chaos of cats?

NITEOWL: A cat-otic mess?

DARK AND BROODING: A cat-astrophe.

NITEOWL: (laughs) That’s terrible!

DARK AND BROODING: It works every time. I promise. See, it just worked. Still sad?

NITEOWL: No—no. I’m just cringing. Do you just collect terrible jokes?

DARK AND BROODING: Like some people collect bottle caps and baseball cards. Don’t knock it! . . . Unless you want to know who’s there.

NITEOWL: I’m quitting you tonight before you get worse. Hello, next caller! What’s your remedy for heartache?

CALLER THREE: Listening to you two! Are you a couple?

NITEOWL: With him? That’s flattering, but if we were in the same room he’d probably be in three different states. In pieces.

CALLER THREE: You’ll change your mind. Like a band coming back for an encore.

NITEOWL: The only encore tonight’ll be the half a burrito I saved for later. Thanks for the call! Next!

DARK AND BROODING: Who did the mushroom go to the party with? A fun-guy. (NITEOWL laughs)

NITEOWL: I’m sorry; I carrot hear you!

DARK AND BROODING: Then you better turnip the beets.

Chapter Sixteen

Since last week’s spiritual Let It Go, I’ve felt . . . no different. Sadder, actually. And maybe a little lonelier, but I’m refusing to let it stop me. I refuse to hold a grudge against Heather (unless it’s for something she does), and I refuse to look out my window at Micah’s window, and I refuse to see if there’s a light on.

It’s harder than one would think.

LD helps. I don’t know if she feels happier or sadder after that night, but she hasn’t mentioned Erin since. She invites me over after work today for a Super Smash Bros. tournament with Billie. The loser buys pizza, since her parents went to a medical convention in Omaha for the week, leaving her in charge of the house. In the final match of the tournament, the two losers—me and Billie—butt heads to see who will be the ultimate loser.

“Hope you brought cash with you,” I taunt, worming my butt into the cushions to get into my fighting sit-stance. Hunched, elbows on knees, clammy hands on the controller.

Billie takes the controller from LD, flopping down beside me on the couch. “Don’t worry, North; they take credit, too, for when you lose.”

LD sits cross-legged on the floor, grinning at both of us. “Ooh, talking dirty. I like this.”

The turtle on the screen floats down from the cloud. The light starts to count down. Three, two, one—

Spoiler: I’m terrible at video games.

“Go, go, go!” LD cheers as Billie and I race our Nintendo characters around the pixelated course. I dodge Billie’s flying turtle shell, but then on the second lap he bounces me out of the way with his star-power. On the third and final lap, we’re neck and neck.

I hunch forward, concentrating. I won’t lose. I’ve lost every time we have a tournament, but I’m getting better. And so far, I’m in the lead.

Which means I’m fifth out of six places.

“Oh, he’s gaining! He’s gaining!” LD announces, tossing her fist into the air. “Go! Go! Go!”

“Whose side are you on?” I cry.

“Mine! Watch out for the—”

Billie jerks his hands over, tapping my knuckles with his. I shoot him a glare. He does it again.

“No,” I warn. One more turn to go and then the home stretch. I’m not losing this.

This time, he bumps his shoulder against mine. My fingers slip, but I manage to keep the lead.

“Playing dirty!” LD crows. “Ten points for Slytherin!”

I mash the A button as deep as it’ll go, but my cart can only go so fast, and Billie’s Donkey Kong is right behind me.

“I swear to God, Billie—” I begin.

He lets go of the controller with one hand and grabs my side, squishing it. I have very squishy sides. That are also very ticklish. I yelp, jumping away. My thumb slips from the button, and Donkey Kong passes my Princess Peach to the finish line.

He throws his arms into the air. “YES!” he cheers.

“Not fair!” I cry, dropping the controller. I launch myself at him, forcing him down into the soft leather couch. “You cheated!”

Laughing, he pretends to struggle against me. “Never said it had to be fair!” Then he grabs me by the thigh and using one of the moves he learned from WWE, he flips us around and presses me into the couch, hovering over me. He grins. “You just assumed.”

“Cheat!” I howl, laughing so hard my spleen is beginning to hurt. “Cheat! Cheat! Foul on the forty-yard line!”

“And what’s my penalty?”

My laughter slowly dies in my throat as I realize how close we actually are. Closer than in the car. Closer than at the record store. We’re so close, everything I see is him, from his golden hair to his emerald eyes to the way he’s smiling—not his golden-boy kind of smile, but a new one. One I recognize, but haven’t seen in years.

And at the same moment, I think he realizes the same thing.

He quickly pulls back and lets go of me, clearing his throat. “Penalty is I buy the pizza,” he decides, scooting to the other end of the couch.

I quickly pull myself up into a sitting position.

LD slides her gaze between the two of us knowingly. “Oh no, don’t let little old me stop you.”

Billie begins to turn red. He fishes out his phone. “I—uh. I’ll go call for pizza.”

“No, I lost, I’ll buy the pizza,” I argue.

“But I cheated.”

“So? LD cheats all the time.”

LD gives a loud gasp, slapping her hand across her heart. “Never!” We both give her a level look, and she rolls her eyes. “It’s not my fault you guys don’t know the shortcuts.”

Billie stands to go into the other room to order. “So a large cheese?”

“No, I said—”

He interrupts, “Have you applied for that internship yet?”

Oh no, he didn’t.

LD blinks. “What internship?”

I open my mouth to respond, and Billie gives me an apologetic look before he takes advantage of the diversion to go order the stupid pizza. I scowl.

“What internship?” she presses. “Iggy!”

So I explain, and when I do she squeals and hugs me and asks me, too, if I’ve applied. Of course I have. I applied before I could second-guess myself, which I’m doing now. “It’s not like I’ll get it, you know?” I tell her. “So don’t get your hopes up.”

“But think of the possibility,” she says, and begins to hum happily.

When the pizza arrives, we eat it while watching reruns of The Office, but after a while I begin to worry about Grams. Billie asks to walk me home, but I’m fine by myself. It’s not like anyone gets kidnapped in Steadfast, Nebraska. Before I leave, LD shouts at me to wait and runs down the front steps. She envelops me in a tight hug and kisses my cheek.

“You know we’re always here,” she tells me. “Whenever you need us.”

“Thank you,” I reply.

Billie walks me to the end of the road, where he will turn east toward his house, and I’ll turn west. We both stop at the crossroads, and I think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. He just puts on a smile—an awkward one—and turns toward home.

I do the same. I look over my shoulder, whispering despite myself, “Look back,” because if he does, then . . .

Then what? That moment on the couch meant something?

Stupid. Nonsense.

I quickly turn back around and hurry down the road toward home. Who am I kidding? Me and Golden Boy? That’s a stupid idea. He’s had people like Heather. He’s going off to Iowa at the end of summer. I’ve known him since kindergarten. And I hate football.

It wouldn’t work.

It’d be a—what was the joke Dark told? A cat-astrophe.

I’m grinning right up until I turn down onto the street of my childhood. Grams forgot to turn off the living room lamp again before she went to bed.

She’s forgotten every night this week—

“Oh my God, please stop asking, Micah.”

My ears prickle at the voice. Heather. I can tell by the feathery way she talks. I quickly duck down behind the garbage can I’d rolled out to the front lawn earlier and peek around it.

Micah and Heather are standing in his front yard. She has her arms crossed defensively, the dull golden glow from the front porch light illuminating only half of her face, so she looks like a Twilight vampire ’cause of her glitter body lotion. Her bow-like mouth dips into a frown. Micah has his back to me, but his broad, thick shoulders tense.

“This is important to me.” He reaches out for her hand, and takes it gently. My gut twists. “You are important to me. I can’t tell you enough. You’re—”

She pulls her hand out of his. She can’t look at him. “Okay, yeah,” she mumbles, defeated. “I’ll see. We’ll see.”

“I just want to—”

“I said I’d see!” she snaps, and he winces. She turns around on her heels and begins making her way toward her Miata. She drives to Micah’s house even though everyone in Steadfast lives, at the very most, ten minutes apart. Walking.

Wait. If she gets to her Miata and looks over, she’ll see me. Bless, they’ll see me either way. She digs her hand into her purse for her keys, and the headlights on her car blink as she unlocks the doors.

“Heather, please, let’s talk it out. I don’t want to leave it like—”

“Micah, I’m done tonight. I’m already stressed out enough as it is. Can’t you understand that? I don’t need that adding more stress—”

“How is that more stress? Wouldn’t it be less?” he asks, trying to laugh it off. He hates confrontations. He tries to make a joke out of everything.

She throws her hands into the air. Ten feet, nine, still coming closer to me.

Oh well, it was nice knowing you, cruel world.

Then, the door to Micah’s house opens and his mother calls out that Heather left her sunglasses. They turn their backs to me, toward Mrs. Perez, and I make my break for it, hurtling myself up the porch and into my house.

Grams forgot to lock the front door again, too. Thank God.

Chapter Seventeen

Grams’s best friend, Martha Bleaker, Billie’s grandmother, took her out to dinner tonight and then to the book club. So I’m home alone. Going stag.

I shuffle through my stockpile of CDs, trying to find something better to listen to. Mick lets me bring home as many demos as I want. He gets boxes of them every week, and like hell he can listen to all of them. He says I’m his backup set of ears, which is a pretty hardcore title on a résumé.

I don’t even look at the CD before popping it in and crank the radio up to ten. I’d push it to eleven if the dial turned that high. The china downstairs rattled. A guitar rift squeals across the speakers, to my surprise, and curiously I flip over the CD cover.

“There is a secret in the dark, down in your soul, a piece of a puzzle to make mine whole,” sings the suede voice from the speakers.

Bless, really, Jason Dallas?

I sort of want to cry. It’s the one thing I want to hear, and the universe aligned. Or at least Mick’s stockpile did.

His breakout album, Backwash, was pretty much my ninth grade’s theme song. I have a special bond with the lyrics “ah-ah I’m breathin’ so heavy and you are so hard, you’re like a math equation baby and I’m the flash cards.”

Depth and candor ran deep within my graduation class, it did.

Something bounces against the window, probably a bug who just discovered glass, but Jason Dallas’s music grows louder, drowning it out.

Sinking back down on my bed, I open my laptop and begin to scroll through Tumblr. Tonight, Roman Holiday covers my dash. Apparently there’s going to be some sort of vigil in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for their deceased band member, Holly Hudson, and apparently some girl saw the two surviving band members (who went AWOL after the lead singer’s death) buying Doritos in Montana.

Bless, why can’t they just leave people alone? Clearly they don’t want to be bothered—and that’s the perfect topic for next week’s show. I make a note of it on my phone before I keep scrolling—

And pause.

I sit back.

Squeezed between a paparazzi photo of Jason Dallas and a fan gif of Loki kissing Black Widow, there is a picture. An illustration, actually. Of a girl—pretty and light haired and laughing in the arms of a dark-haired brooding-looking young man. They are surrounded by cats. They’re not from any fandom I can think of . . .

But I recognize the speech bubbles above their heads.

“What do you call a chaos of cats? A cat-astrophe . . . See, it just worked. Still mad?”

I slam my laptop closed and shove it to the edge of my bed.

No.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Denied. Abort. Incinerate.

It’s not like that.

It’s totally not like that at all. Not at all. I mean for one, I’d never wear overalls in my entire life. And another . . . I wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t . . . I don’t even know who he is! Or what he looks like! And who in the hell would draw pictures of two strangers they’ve never even seen before?

First the caller asking if we were together and now fan art.

Fan art? Me—being drawn in fan art?

No, I must’ve misinterpreted. I mean it’s probably a very common joke. Maybe something similar happened in a TV show. Maybe it’s not me and Dark at all. It can’t be.

Curiously, I open my laptop again to the website. The picture stares back at me. My heart beats in my throat. The girl isn’t me. This girl in this fan art. She has light hair and light eyes, but I’m sure that’s only because Dark is obviously supposed to be, well, dark and brooding.

But it is us. There is an old-fashioned radio behind us.

For the first time, I wonder what he looks like—the real Dark. Does he fit the description of the namesake I gave him? Or does he look completely different? Is he young? Old? Somewhere in between?

“Why do I care?” I ask myself, staring at the fan art.

Fan art of my show.

Of me.

Are there more? I click on the NITEOWL tag, and suddenly my screen is filled with me. Well, not me—but all my work. My radio show, my comments, soundbites, and transcripts and fan art. People ridiculing my advice, other people praising it.

There is more than I expect.

A lot more.

Niteowl rocks.

There’s a radio show on Saturday nights. [Link here] and it’s hella funny. the radio dj doesn’t even know she’s in love with one of her frequent callers!

is Niteowl fake?

that unrequited love segment was hard. [crying emoji]

Another rock slams against my window.

That’s when I notice the light coming from the window across from mine. There is a shape framed between the blackout curtains.

I get to my feet, wondering if I’d fallen asleep. The CD rolls into the third song, a slow marching serenade, as I shuffle toward the window and slowly pull it up.

Micah is leaning against his sill, a handful of boiled peanuts in his hand. “It’s about damn time,” he says, and gives me a platinum-white smile. His front two teeth are bigger than the rest and stick out a little over his bottom teeth. “I thought I’d have to throw a book against your window to get your attention.”

“Uh, hi to you, too.” I try to act cool. Through the speakers, Jason Dallas begins singing about shotgun heartaches.

He nudges his pointed jaw toward my open laptop behind me. “What were you staring at so intently?”

“Oh, it’s—it’s fan art.”

“Of what?”

“A . . . show.”

“Oh, cool.” Then he licks his lips, hesitating for a moment, before he sits up on the sill. “I need some advice. And you’re the only one I really trust to tell it to me like it is.”

Oh, bless. Is that all I’m good for now? Hookups and dating advice? It’s one thing giving out advice to strangers, but Micah? “Why do you think I’d be good at that?” I lie again.

“Please, Igs, I can’t talk to anyone else.”

Then just dump her and we won’t have to talk about it at all, I think wryly, and I have half a mind to just close the window on him. Except . . . I can’t. A lifetime of friendship wedges the window open.

I’m going to regret the heck out of this later. I can already feel it, like the icky feeling between almost drunk and dancing-on-the-tables. The precursor to the hangover. The part where your body is telling you to hold on there, cowboy, let’s think about your choices before . . . “Okay, shoot.”

Before you wreck yourself.

“It’s about Heather.”

“Ooh, this is getting better already.”

“Your sarcasm really isn’t appreciated right now,” he snaps. “I know you don’t like her, but this isn’t about her; it’s about me. And you like me, right?”

“More than you’ll know,” I murmur to myself.

“Huh?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll keep my sarcasm in my sarcasm box—scout’s honor. Go on, what about Heather?”

He massages his temples.

I stiffen. “Oh bless, she’s pregnant.”

“What?” He looks mortified. “Why would you think that? No—Jesus—she won’t introduce me to her parents. I don’t think she’s even told them we’re dating.”

I stare at him for a moment, waiting for him to go on.

“Well?” he asks, impatiently.

“Oh—sorry. I thought there was more to the story.”

He throws his hands into the air. “You know, forget I said anything. Should’ve known you couldn’t just leave and let be—”

“I think you’re overestimating Heather,” I say, interrupting his diva rant. I admit I’m not in the best mood to be giving advice, but he’s the one who asked. “She’s the mayor’s daughter. Of course she won’t tell her dad at first. What do you think he’d say when she finds out she’s dating the mechanic’s son? No offense.”

His face crumples into a mixture of rage and disappointment.

“Look,” I try to explain, “don’t worry about it. Everything’ll work out.”

“But you just said—”

“The lovers-from-the-wrong-side-of the-tracks is trope-ishly foolproof. I mean, even John Hughes knew that when he wrote Andie with Blaine and not Duckie—I mean, who names their kid Blaine anyway?”

“This is a joke to you.”

“It’s not a joke! You wanted my opinion, I gave it!”

“By comparing me to some stupid movie! That’s not real, Ingrid. You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

“Oh? That’s news to me! Where’ve you been these last two weeks, Micah? Sure as hell not at the diner!”

“Where’ve you been these last few months?” he bites back. “Sure as hell not with us!”

“That wasn’t because of some girl—some prissy manicured oh-look-my-daddy’s-got-money girl.”

“At least she doesn’t wear a stupid cat taco sweater.”

“Don’t you dare insult my sweaters!”

He goes on, enraged. “And just because something isn’t convenient for you, you get mad? Well you leaving wasn’t convenient for us, either, but hey, you did it! And did we hold a grudge? No. The second you wanted to come back we forgave you.”

“Forgave me?” We are shouting between the houses now. I’m pretty sure the neighbors can hear. “I’m sorry if my grandmother became a little more important than . . . than—” I can’t think of the right words, I’m so angry.

“Than us?” He hisses and slams his window closed.

I sit on my sill, mouth half-open, waiting for the right words to come, but they never do. And I don’t expect them to. Finally, I sink back into my room, close the window, and shut the curtains.

The last song on Jason Dallas’s CD cascades into silence, and the static humming of the stereo fills my room like a hurricane.

That’s when I notice the time on my alarm clock. 11:56 p.m.

On a Saturday night.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #161

JULY 2nd

MICK: . . . just peace and love and love and that’s all we need to survive. That’s what I learned on the road. The open road. Was it an open road? It might’ve been a trailer park—those years blur, you know what I mean?

CALLER ONE: Oh . . . kay . . . So, like, you don’t know where Niteowl is?

MICK: I bet you don’t know where the Grateful Dead are, either.

CALLER ONE: Grateful to be dead.

MICK: That’s not what they—hello? Hello? She hung up on me! Caller Two, can you believe that?

DARK AND BROODING: Don’t quit your day job, buddy. You’re terrible at this.

MICK: The show must go on. Or at least until she gets here.

DARK AND BROODING: Where is she?

MICK: She’ll be here. We shouldn’t worry, peace and light and all that. And she’s a big girl. I mean, she’s a big girl—but she’s beautiful and I hope she never changes. She’s got a tough skin on the air, you know? But in real life, I don’t think people get that she’s not as bulletproof. She needs someone to tell her that sometimes. That she’s wanted. Back in my day—

DARK AND BROODING: Shouldn’t you be calling her? She’s never late. What if something’s wrong?

MICK: She’s fine. Stop worrying! It’s probably just her grandma—

DARK AND BROODING: Something’s wrong with Grams?

MICK: No, that’s not what I said but—Hello? Hello? For [censored]’s sake, why’s everyone hanging up on me?

Chapter Eighteen

I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!

I kiss Grams on the cheek on the way out.

“Was that you yelling, darling?” she asks as I grab my bookbag from the kitchen chair and sling it over my shoulder.

“Nope! It was the radio!” I reply, checking the time on my phone; 11:57 p.m. Mick’s texted me four times already asking me where I am.

I’m about to be late for the first time in the history of time, that’s where I am.

I hurtle down the stairs two at a time and stumble toward the road, making my way toward the red blinking light in the sky. It takes at least ten minutes to get there. I’m so going to be late. And I have fans now! They’re expecting me!

Oh God, I have fans now.

They’re expecting me.

Fans.

Oh. Oh bless I just realized. I have fans. People who listen to me. Draw fan art. Dissect my shows and everything I say and—

Headlights flood the street in front of me from behind and I tense, somehow thinking it’s Heather. But the motor’s too loud to be a hybrid, and Heather is probably home by now. Why would she come this way anyway?

A guy pulls up beside me on his motorbike. “North!”

I don’t recognize him at first. For one, he’s wearing a salon cap—you know the plastic ones that you wear when you get your hair dyed and sit under those fancy dryers at salons? I have to do a double take before I actually recognize him. And he looks like he ran all the way from his mom’s salon and not, you know, motorbiked.

“Bless—Billie? What are you doing to your hair? And you’re . . . sweating.”

The worried look on his face melts into a grin. “Oh, yeah. Uh, my mom wanted to try something new. Plastic caps are all the rage these days.” That Golden Boy smile crosses his lips. Wide, honest. Why does my head seem to go gooey every time he smiles like that now? “You look like you’re late to something.”

“I—ah—no I was just, uh, walking. What are you doing on this side of town?”

He ignores the question. “Need a ride?”

I quickly look away. “Um, I think I’m good. I’m just, you know, walking.”

“Need some company, then?”

“Nah, I bet you have stuff to do.”

“C’monnnnnn North, I’m out here in a dying cap in the middle of the night. I have nothing to do,” he replies, and then begins to grin coyly. “You do have a secret boyfriend, don’t you? Gonna go meet him and kiss under the radio tower?”

I laugh. “I’m just walking! Is it a crime to walk? It’s a pretty night for a walk.” And to be late to my radio show. My radio show. The host is never late to her own show!

“You said walk three times in one breath. You’re hiding something. What are you hiding?” He begins to waddle-walk his bike beside me.

The headlight lights the street all the way to my destination. It looks so far away, and yet it’s so close.

Blocked by one Billie Bleaker.

Mick once asked me why I never told my friends about my radio show. There really isn’t a simple answer. I guess I can chalk it up to being selfish, but that’s not the whole truth. The truth of it is I don’t have to pretend to be anyone on the radio. I’m just myself, completely myself. Not living up to standards. Not fitting myself into a mold. I have no history over the airwaves, nothing that confines me, nothing that keeps me here. And that’s sort of sacred to me, that secret. I’m not Ingrid North, the DUFF of her beautiful friends. I’m not Ingrid North whose mom abandoned her when she was seven. I’m not Ingrid North, the sole guardian of her grandmother, now floating away.

I’m Niteowl, and no matter how close my real friends are, I don’t think I can ever expose the parts of me to them that are so easily heard on air. And I want to keep it that way. It’s easier.

Simple.

But this—losing Billie before I miss my show—is not simple.

Billie studies me for a long moment. “It’s not really a guy, is it?”

“Maybe it is,” I reply airily.

“You’d have told me.”

“Would I, though?” It’s a terrible comeback, but it does exactly what I need it to.

His face closes, so very suddenly, like a Venus flytrap. He quickly looks down at the ground. “Sorry, yeah. You’re right. Coming to Den’s tomorrow?” He doesn’t sound angry, just letdown. Hey, if he’s disappointed, then he should just get in line behind Micah.

“I’ll see you there,” I reply.

He kicks the clutch, and his bike roars to life. I don’t go into a full-tilt run until he turns down Corley Street, but then you better believe I make a break for the radio station like the hounds of hell are on my heels. I’m late. And you know what that means?

Mick’s doing my show.

Chapter Nineteen

“GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!”

I bang on the Plexiglas window to the studio, rounding to the door. The LIVE light glows ominously, as if it knows exactly what shade of furious I am. Mick looks up from the microphone, startled.

“Yo, girl!” he greets as I throw open the door. “I was just holding down the fort until—”

“Out, out!” I'm trying not to yell. Everyone who’s listening can hear what's going on, so I lean over and hit the OFF switch on the microphone before they can listen to any more of the catastrophe. Then I sling the roller chair away, with Mick in it, toward the other side of the studio, away from my precious radio show. I’m shaking, pretty visibly. I raise one clenched fist toward him.

“I’m going to murder you!” I cry.

Mick gives me a look like a deer caught in headlights. “I was just filling in . . .”

“I don’t care!”

“Why’re you so mad?”

“Mad?” I scoff, throwing my hands into the air. “You think I’m mad! You practically told everyone I needed to Jenny Craig myself! It’s none of their business!”

He stands, as if being a head taller will bring this fight in his favor. It won’t. “I said you are beautiful just the way you are, and I stand by that.”

I grit my teeth. “You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get, Ingrid?” he asks in that calm I'm-A-Responsible-Adult-Who-Wants-To-Help-You voice, and puts his hands on his hips like all those condescending teachers at school. It’s the movement right before they scold you. Never scolding the person who calls you Chub-a-lub. Nor the person who writes Fat Amy Jr. on your locker. Or the kid who trumpets about your thunder thighs or asks you if your arm flab can help you fly. Or the person who calls you all the names of cattle and drops jars of gumdrops on the floor for you to clean up. It’s the stance of people who want to care but don’t understand how to.

“You shouldn’t hide who you are, girl,” he chides.

I cross my arms over my chest. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” Mick says, ’cause I’m just an old geezer who don’t understand nothing.”

“First thing you got right tonight!” I snap. The edges of my voice wobble. This is the one conversation I don’t want to have. It’s the reason I’ll never get that internship. It’s the reason my college reapplication is sitting on the counter. It’s the reason Mom never takes me with her on her whirlwind adventures.

I grit my teeth and look down at my dirty Chucks. “My radio show is the only place I can be myself, where people don’t have to judge me, and now they can. Oh, she’s fat, so she has to be funny. Oh, she’s a radio deejay because she can just sit there on her fat ass. Oh, no wonder she’s never been in love—no one wants to love her.”

“But none of that’s true,” Mick says, “and to be fair you are funny, and you give great advice. Best advice. Golden.”

I start to leave. I can’t do this, not now. But then Mick takes a hold of my arm. He stops me.

“Get out of my way, please,” I all but beg. “I don’t feel like putting on a show tonight.”

He nudges his head toward the microphone, looking a little pale. “Um . . . I think you just . . .”

To my horror, the LIVE light is still on. I thought I turned it off. Didn’t I turn it off? I feel my throat beginning to close in panic.

They heard everything. My listeners. Heard. Everything.

The phone lines begin to ring. A caller, third line, the red light flashing with the sound. Against my better judgment I move toward the microphone. Mick rolls the chair over again, and I slide into the seat.

I push up the slider to cue the caller in.

“Hello,” my voice warbles, “this is KOTN 93.5 and you’re on the air . . .”

“Glad you’re okay, Niteowl.”

My bones melt to his voice. Soft, suede. The same voice I’ve come to expect every Saturday night, the one I don’t realize I want to hear until he calls. Dark. I wanted the caller to be him so, so badly, it scares me. I don’t even know who he is, or what his name is—and I’m fairly sure he’ll never think of me the same way ever again.

I clear my throat. “Sorry you had to hear that. So go ahead and get whatever it is off your chest—”

“I’m sorry,” he starts. “And I think you’re more than just funny. You’re thoughtful. You respect everyone else’s feelings over yours, and you’re unabashedly selfless. We’ve all been so caught up with ourselves that we never thought to ask about you—how you are, if you’re okay. And I know this goes for me, but I think everyone else will agree . . . we’re here for you, Niteowl, even though we’re not there.”

As he talks, slowly, as if my world is waking up, the other lines begin to light up with callers, one by one, their red lights flickering like fireworks.

Chapter Twenty

Grams links her arm in mine as we walk into the square. The Sunflower Festival happens every Fourth of July. It’s exactly what the name implies—a festival with lots of sunflowers. All kinds of sunflowers. Cardboard sunflowers, real sunflowers, kids made up to look like sunflowers . . . Just a lot of sunflowers all around. All the women in town have to wear these hideous homemade yellow dresses (me included, sadly), the men in dapper trousers and yellow ties and jackets. This is what happens when you live in a town that can barely fill one side of a football stadium—you get to play dress up and pretend you’re still in the ’50s.

But I can’t say I don’t love this part . . . just a little.

Over my yellow soda-fountain dress I’m wearing a cardigan with yellow duckies all over it, being a rebel the only way I know how. Grams wears the same dress she’s worn for the last twenty years. It’s bright-ass yellow with patches of sunflowers painstakingly sewed into it.

Miss Loraine at the apple-dunking booth applauds her dress. “It’s not a festival without Eula’s sunflower dress!” she says, and laughs at us. “Come over and bob for apples, Eulie!”

“Maybe later, dearie!” Grams shouts back, and then ducks her head close to me to whisper, “I hate that nickname. She knows it, too. Hasn’t forgiven me for stealing her man twenty-three years ago.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Heavens no! Your grandfather was enough for me to handle. I didn’t want her fuddy-duddy of a man.”

“Then why don’t you just clear things up?”

“Because life’s no fun if you never stir the pot.”

We pass the main gazebo, where Heather and her posse sit. You can’t mistake them. Flowery dresses, large-brim hats, a boy on each of their arms. They overtake the gazebo like dandelions. I don’t see Micah until we’re closer, and suddenly all I want to do is lead Grams the other way, but she already has her sights set on a stand selling sunflower seeds on the other side of the square. I wouldn’t mind, except it means we have to go through the greens around the gazebo to get there, and that’s one place I don’t want to go.

You’re getting over him. You’re over him, I keep repeating, hoping its true.

Micah catches my eye for a moment—not even that, really—before he looks away. Back to Heather. And smiles at her.

My heart falls like lead into my stomach. I’m not over him. He’s still mad about what I said the other night—and I can’t apologize for something I meant. Did that make me a bad person? I love the gang, but I also love Grams—and having to choose between two things you loved was my worst nightmare. But I don’t regret choosing Grams. I don’t regret distancing myself from school and the gang and everything else to take care of Grams. Grams would do the same for me.

“Oh, Micah sure looks dashing tonight,” Grams says to me, nodding to Micah. He hasn’t looked over again. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s dating Mayor Woodard’s daughter?”

I shrug.

“I always knew he fancied her.”

“What?” My eyebrows quirk up. “How?”

“When you get older, you can tell this sort of thing,” Grams chides. We make our way to the booth, where LD is helping her parents.

Mr. Darling gives Grams a big hug. “Mrs. North! I’m glad to see you out and about. And that dress! Always a pleasure.”

“I’m making sure none of you forget me!” she jokes, wagging a finger. “Goodness knows I will!”

“Grams . . . ,” I mutter.

“It’s no use treating me like a leper, darling,” Grams chides. “We all know what’s happening to me—and tonight, that sunflower pie is happening to me.” She points to one of the pies on the table, wrapped in cellophane. “Lorelei, sweetie, would you?” She looks up at LD.

LD smiles at her. No one has called her Lorelei in years. Not since her girl moved away and hearing her own name became too painful. “Sure thing, Mrs. North. It’s great to see you out tonight. Looking beautiful as usual.”

“Not as beautiful as you tonight,” Grams replies. “I love that hair! How’d you think an old lady would look with it?”

“I could come over and we could find out,” LD replies.

“Grams? Would you really want blue hair?” I ask. “Is it really you?”

She scoffs. “Sweetie, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that none of us have time to be anyone else.”

“It’s a date then, Mrs. North,” LD replies, and hands Grams a plastic bag with her sunflower pie. As Grams wanders away to another booth with sunflower cooking aprons, LD leans in to me and whispers, “She’s having a good night.”

“Yeah, kinda freaky. I’m just waiting for . . .”

“Don’t jinx it!” she warns. “So, I get off in about half an hour. Wanna be my partner for the hoedown later?”

“You will never catch me dancing.”

“It’s a date then!”

I say good-bye to her parents and hurry to catch up with Grams. She crooks her elbow and I intertwine my arm with hers again. We browse some of the quilts at the mayor’s wife’s booth, but we don’t buy anything even though Grams keeps eyeing a beautiful night-sky quilt for a long, long time.

“Wouldn’t that look lovely on the back of our couch? It almost matches the throw pillows,” she says, nodding like she already made up her mind. “Mrs. Woodard, how do you have time to quilt all these?”

Heather’s mother gives a modest laugh. “I’ve had so much more time for hobbies ever since Heather started taking on more secretarial work at the town office. You know Ralph works his bumpkins off. It’s nice to see Heather taking initiative.”

“It’s nice to see some jobs stay in the family,” Grams replies a little tongue in cheek.

Mrs. Woodard begins to object when Heather passes back into the booth and takes her purse out from the back, beginning to rummage around for something. “Mom, did you remember the charger? My phone’s dying again and I can’t find . . .” Heather pauses, suddenly noticing me and Gran. Her face hardens. “Oh, Ingrid.”

“Heather! You’ve grown up so much,” Grams greets her before I can say anything. “You just graduated too, didn’t you?”

“Yes ma’am,” Heather replies, turning her eyes back down to her purse.

“Going to any colleges? I hear Billie’s been accepted to Iowa! And my daughter here . . .” She hesitates, and my blood turns cold. Oh no, not now. Her eyebrows furrow and she corrects, “My granddaughter got accepted to NYU. Isn’t that right, Ingrid?”

“You did?” Heather echoes.

My mouth goes dry. “I—um—I never—”

“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Woodard clasps her hands together happily. “But who’s going to take care of you, Eula?”

Grams scoffs. “Stop worrying about me. Heather, do you have any college plans?”

But Heather’s still staring at me like a deer in headlines. Probably wondering how NYU could accept someone like me. Well, jokes on me, isn’t it? Because I’m not going—and Grams will forget that I ever got accepted soon enough.

Finally, Heather turns away again and pulls out the charger she found in her purse. “No, ma’am. I’m staying close to home.”

“It’s not like you’ll lose your way home if you leave!” Grams says, and laughs. “You should go out, find yourself, make some mistakes.”

“Heather and everyone she loves is in Steadfast,” her mother replies, growing a little rigid around the shoulders. “Why go anywhere else?”

“Why not go anywhere else?” Grams rebukes, and then turns to Heather. “Get lost. Find new places. And when you’re done wandering, love is like the North Star. It will always guide you home.” Then, smiling, she points at the quit with the stars. “I’ll take this one. Darling? What do you think?”

I think by the way Mrs. Woodard is turning three shades of red, I think we should get out of here. I quickly pay for the quilt and guide Grams away. Behind us, I hear Mrs. Woodard scold Heather about not talking about the career opportunities the community of Steadfast offers. Which are plentiful, for sure, but there are only so many job positions open to the young people of Steadfast that don’t involve being a sweet assistant at Sweetey’s.

We wander the festival for a few more minutes until the mayor shoos Heather and her posse out of the gazebo so the band can start setting up.

It’s a beautiful night. Perfect for a festival. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, so all of the stars shine down like laser beams of light, the tops of the houses in the square bathed in silver moonlight. And above us all, hanging like theNorth Star, is the blinking red radio tower. Home. I stare up at it, wondering what Steadfast looks like from way up there. Maybe just a toy town, more yellow than usual. Or maybe we all look like little ants running around. Maybe we don’t look like people at all.

Or maybe, from up there, Billie’s right. You can see the whole picture, how small everything is, how inconsequential. From up there, I’m sure you can see Steadfast, but also the abandoned maze beyond, and beyond that the red doors of the Barn, and beyond that the reservoir, as the land stretches farther and farther into the darkness. From up there, I’m sure everything looks like nothing.

Chapter Twenty-One

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” a voice asks beside me.

I jump, but it’s only Billie. He has his hands in his pockets, a yellow button-down stretched over his broad shoulders, and a black tie. And pink hair. Like pastel pink. Cotton candy, the kind you buy at the fair that tastes like it was pooped out of a unicorn.

“Oh bless,” I mutter.

He rubs the back of his neck bashfully. “Don’t get too used to it.”

“What—how—did your mom . . .”

“I, er, I sort of left the dye in too long.”

“Left the . . .” I begin to repeat, and then realize how that happened. “Oh my God, when I saw you Saturday?”

“It’s ridiculous, and I’ve gotten shit all night from it,” he adds, jutting his chin toward his former football team at the gazebo, all paired off in yellow dresses and clean button-down shirts. Mike glances over and sneers at us, and I quickly look away.

“Well, it could be worse.” I pull my cardigan sleeves down over my hands nervously, unable to forget that moment in the record store, his hands over mine. And on the living room couch at LD’s house, our lips so close they almost touched. I wish I could forget. Then my heart wouldn’t be beating so fast.

“I could’ve fried my hair off,” he agrees, and motions to my cardigan. “That’s . . . cute.”

I tug my sleeves down harder. Is that a compliment? “I—ah—it matches.”

“I’d take ducks over this.” He points to his own hideously yellow button-down and tugs at his collar. “Yellow can’t look good on anyone. Yellow and pink? Christ I’ll never get a dance at this rate.”

“You just don’t have the flare to pull my ducks off,” I say before I can stop myself, and then bite the inside of my cheek.

His grin widens. “Is that a challenge?”

“Wouldn’t want the golden boy to look silly.”

His eyes flicker with annoyance, but it doesn't reach his mouth. He must be practiced in keeping grins steady. “You of all people know I’m not golden all the time.”

“Only when people are around,” I mock whisper. “Don’t want to ruin your image.”

“Oh no, that would be scandalous,” he mock whispers back. “Besides, you’re just scared I’ll rock it better than you.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am not. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“Are too. Then give me that cardigan.”

My rebuke turns cold in my mouth. My cardigan? I swallow. “Um . . . you’ll . . . you’ll stretch it out.”

“You’re just afraid my big, broad shoulders’ll make that cardigan killer,” he rebukes, grinning. “C’mon, North. Just a minute.”

I hesitate, but then I slip it off, one arm and then the other. The cool air clings to my skin. I wait a moment, then another, for people to start staring—but no one notices. No one even cares. I offer it to him. “Don’t ruin it—I know where you live!”

He feigns hurt. “Never!” He shrugs it on, making sure to unroll his button-down at the sleeves. The cardigan stretches too tightly over his arms, showing every shirt wrinkle and toned arm muscle. Mostly muscles. I didn’t realize he was so toned—I mean I knew. Hello, he plays football, but still. How have I missed those? Or him, for that matter. When did he start looking so . . .

He’s not sexy, he’s Billie, I chide myself, quickly looking away.

He pops his collar and strikes a Superman pose. “See? I rock it.” He flexes his biceps, and makes a quacking sound. Because, you know, the ducks. “Quack-quack.”

I purse my lips together to keep myself from laughing. “Okay, okay, hand it over.”

“What, I don’t rock it?” he asks, striking another pose.

“Umm . . .”

“Give me an ‘S’!” He forms the letters with his arms in huge, overdramatic displays. “Give me a ‘U’.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to laugh. “Bless, I’d hate to be you right now.”

“Give me a ‘C’!”

“Seriously, people are starting to stare. And it’s not from your hair.”

“Give me a ‘K’!” He points one arm high, the other at a ninety-degree angle, and splays one leg out so he makes the letter.

“Missed your calling as a cheerleader, didn’t you?”

“What does that spell? ‘SUUUUUUCK IT!” Then he flips me the bird.

I feign hurt, and playfully punch him in the shoulder. He catches my fist and drags me in close. He smells like aftershave and the Perez auto shop, somehow not at all bad. He’s bending toward me; so close I can see the pores on his face—not that they’re bad pores. Just human pores. Nice pores. And the scar on his bottom lip from where he ran into a mailbox with his bicycle in third grade. He was trying to do a trick where he surfed on the handlebars. I remember because he was looking at me while doing it.

I wonder what it feels like, and trace my thumb along it. His breath hitches.

Mine does, too.

His lips are so close, dry and soft. Is he leaning in? I think he is. I think I am, too. I wonder what the scar feels like with my lips against it. Will I even be able to notice, the hairline slice that travels from his bottom lip to the middle of his chin? Or will—

The band’s violinist screeches into the first song, and I quickly come to my senses.

I jerk away, remembering my bare arms, and hug myself over my forearms to cover them up. “It still looks stupid,” I say, wishing I had a better insult. “The cardigan.”

He leans back on his heels and rubs the back of his neck. He looks . . . disheartened. “Yeah. I guess I—”

“¡MIS AMIGOS!” LD cries, and slings her arms around both of our shoulders. The tension between us melts like butter in a frying pan. Bless LD. Just bless her. “Sorry, Billie, but Iggy promised me the first dance! Ready to hoe with my down?”

“You dance?” Billie asks.

I shrug. “I never promised I’d—wait, my cardigan!”

LD grabs me by the hand before I can get it back and jerks me toward the gazebo greens, where a few other townspeople are already dancing, forming into large circle as they link arms and begin to kick their feet. The boot-scoot-and-boogie. Kill me now.

Al, the lead singer of the Steadfast Guys (seriously, their band name), throws the crowd into a fast Alan Jackson song.

Country.

Please, please kill me now.

Helplessly, I glance back to Grams, but she’s no help. To my utter disbelief she’s squeezing Billie’s biceps with an innocent sort of flirtatiousness that I thought was beneath women over the age of fifty. But Grams can flirt with the best of them, and she makes poor Billie blush all the way to his ears.

A grin tugs at the edges of my lips. Grams never cheated on Papa, but like hell she didn’t give the other boys hell.

“Who’re you smiling at?” LD asks, although by the twinkle in her eyes she already knows. “Jealous Grams is getting more action than you?”

“What? No—I mean, I’m not—Billie isn’t—Billie’s going away. Then it’ll just be me and you.”

She raises my hand over my head and spins me around without missing a beat. “Then you’ll leave on a jet plane, too.”

“Or you’ll leave.”

“Or, in a spectacular plot twist, we’ll both leave. Wouldn’t that be nice? Leave the Loverboy to his Heathers.” She juts her chin behind me, and I look before I can tell myself not to.

Micah and Heather dance cheek to cheek. Her manicured fingers twine in his oil-stained ones.

Before I can feel my stomach begin to drop—because it’s going to drop, it must just be taking longer than usual—LD jerks me into another spin. “Don’t you dare,” she hisses.

“Don’t I dare to do what?”

“Don’t you dare think of leaving me, Hosanio!” She lets go of my hand and flings her arm up to her forehead in the most terrible display of dramatic woe I’ve ever seen. “How dare you leave me for the maid! What do you think I am? Disposable? My heart, Hosanio! My heart is broken!”

One of Heather’s friends and her boyfriend slowly inch away from us. In fact, everyone does. But I know exactly what she’s quoting—the terrible telenovela Micah’s mother watched when she babysat us. Hosanio was the maid who later became the heiress of a rich oil company in northern Texas. Then she died and was resurrected without her memories, and then found out she was the princess of—

You know what? It doesn’t matter.

“But my love,” I reply with equal fervor, “I cannot stop my heart from beating where it goes!”

“You know not where your heart is!”

“It is there, among the rose gardens!” I point in some vague direction, down Main Street, toward the abandoned sunflower maze. And I falter. Remembering the cool night after the Barn, how quiet Steadfast looked, how dark and cozy, an all-encompassing world. And how much darkness and wonder surrounded it.

“Do I not smell sweet enough for you, Hosanio? Is my nectar not that of your wants?” LD cries, but I barely register him. “Hosanio?”

I snap back to my senses. “What? Sorry, I . . .”

“Looks like Hosanio lost interest in you after all!” shouts Billie.

Al, the lead singer, drops the music low and begins to sway to his microphone. Danny on the bass thumps out a slow, melodic beat. “Guys grab your gals; this is ‘Free’ . . .”

Billie drops into an exaggerated bow and offers up his hand, “Perhaps she needs a new dance partner.”

LD crosses her arms over her chest. “Hmph! Well, Linnetta doesn’t want beautiful Hosanio anyway! The hunky man-boy can take her!” Before I can stop LD, she slinks off through the dancing crowd, pulling out her cell phone as she goes.

Billie’s still bowed to me, waiting for me to take his outstretched hand. “I mean, you don’t have to dance with me.”

My mouth goes dry. What’s wrong with me? Of course I don’t care if I dance with Billie. I just hate dancing, that’s my hesitation. I hate dancing, and I hate the way he’s looking at me. I’m not . . . I don’t . . .

“I hate this song,” I mumble, taking his hand anyway. It’s Eddy’s guitar that makes me do it, or the lyrics of the song. It isn’t because . . . it’s not because . . .

He takes off my cardigan and puts it over my shoulders again. “Just one,” he says.

I let him fold his fingers into mine, and pull me close. His other hand finds the small of my back, and we begin rocking back and forth. All around us, girls press their faces against their partner’s chest, closing their eyes, spinning slowly like planets rotating in their own orbit. We’re so close, I can feel the heat radiating from him, so tall and broad. And impossibly golden.

I don’t like Billie. I can’t like Billie. I don’t want to feel for him what I feel for Micah. I don’t want it to hurt me more. Because it’ll hurt worse this time. But we’re dancing so slowly, and the music is so mellow and beautiful—even though I hate country—I don’t mind the song anymore.

He dips his head and whispers, “You’re a fine dancer.”

“It’s the cardigan,” I reply.

“No ducking way.”

“Oh, stop it.” Then, after a moment, I add, “You’re quackin’ me up.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “Using fowl language now, are we?”

“Yeah, I think it’s catching. I might have to go see a ducktor because of you.”

His smile broadens—impossibly so—as he leans in a little closer. “Nah, I think we’re birds of a feather.”

My steps falter as I remember Dark, and our phone conversations. The midnights we spent word playing like this. And all of a sudden I miss him—Dark—and I wonder what I’m doing here dancing with a boy who’ll go off and forget me in a month.

I drop my hand from his.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asks worriedly. “I’m sorry, let’s forget about it. It was really corny and—”

“Why are you doing this?” I glance around. Heather and her friends are staring at us, including Micah. She bends her head to whisper to Christine, and my heart begins to quicken. “You don’t have to be this nice to me.”

“Nice to you?” This time he sounds hurt. “North, I’m not trying to be nice to you.”

“No, you are, and it’s okay. But you don’t have to. We’re friends either way.”

“Except you want me to forget about it.”

“Because it was corny! Not because—”

I drop his hands and back away. No, I don’t want this again. It still stings, like there’s a crevice inside of me that keeps gaping open every time I look at Micah. And I’m afraid I’ll split open if I let myself try.

“I’m sorry, I can’t—” Turning back toward Grans, my anchor, I push through the slow-dancing crowd to the fringes. Half-abandoned apple-bobbing booths and sunflower seed stands line the edges of the square, interspersed with people just looking to look.

I make my way around the square. Grams isn’t here. Maybe she’s over on the other side, giving Loraine hell again. But she isn’t.

My heart jumps into my throat, and sticks there, suffocating. LD is sitting at her parent’s sunflower booth, holding her cell phone up with her shoulder. The glow of the cell phone makes her smile look soft and demure. Her eyes flicker up from her nails when she notices me coming over, and she quickly hangs up.

“Iggy, what’s up? What’s wrong?”

“Grams—have you seen her?”

“I thought she was over by the apple-bobbing booth again . . .”

“I checked. She isn’t.” My fingers begin to shake.

She grabs me gently by the arm. My eyes find hers, and it gives me a little courage. A little hope. She doesn’t bother to honey her voice as she says, “We’ll find her. I promise.”

I try not to let my voice waver, but I fail so hard. “I'm an idiot.”

“No, you're not. I’ll find my parents and we’ll start looking, okay?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

When LD tells her parents, the festival grinds to a halt to look for her. I want to apologize profusely. I should’ve looked after her better. I should’ve kept an eye on her. A few times, Billie begins toward me, but then he always veers away. Finally, he comes up to me as I’m wringing my hands, following LD into the diner to see if she stumbled in there.

“Ingrid, we’ll find her—” Billie begins.

I turn a glare on her. “You were the last one to see her.”

“She said she was going to stop by Loraine’s again. How was I supposed to know?”

Biting my cheek, I jerk away from him. “Just stay out of my way.”

LD comes back out, shaking her head. “Let’s hop in the car and make a round?” I nod, not trusting myself to talk, and follow her to her parent’s Prius.

We search for the next hour. The weather grows windier. Flashes of white-hot light streak across the sky. Then it begins to drizzle. Grams could be anywhere. She’s out in this and she could be anywhere, completely out of her mind.

Lost, scared—my heart’s in my throat. If I hadn’t gone off dancing, she wouldn’t have wandered off. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with—with me, I would’ve noticed something amiss. I’m sure I would've noticed something.

“Where is she,” I murmur to myself, jostling my knees up and down nervously.

LD rubs at the sleep in her eyes, and it smears her eyeliner. “I don’t know. We’ll find her, though.” But she's beginning to sound like a broken record. “She’s fine. She’s—”

“I know!” I snap. “I just . . .”

My phone begins to vibrate. I quickly reach into my back pocket to answer it. It’s Micah.

“I have her,” he replies. I’ve never felt more relieved to hear his voice. I want to tell him thank you, that he’s my rock, that I’m not sure what I’d do without him, but he hangs up before I can say anything—anything at all. He doesn’t even wait for a thank-you.

LD glances over at me. “Did they find her?”

I nod, my stomach beginning to churn the wrong way. A crusty, vomity feeling rises up through my throat. “Pull over,” I say quickly.

LD glances over at me. “What?”

“Pull over!” I shout.

The car squeals to a stop on the side of the road. I kick open the door and barrel out, but I only make it a few feet before everything in my stomach comes up. My body is shaking and I can’t stop. She could have died, my brain screams, she could have wandered out into the sunflower fields and died. She was lost, alone, didn’t know where she was—and it was all my fault. LD’s hand rubs circles on my back, telling me it’s okay, it’s totally okay.

But it’s not okay.

It’s not okay at all.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When LD pulls up at the house, it looks like the entire town is there. Parked police cars line the lawn like a crime scene. Chief Gursenburg has his hands on his hips, talking to Mrs. Perez inside. I hesitate, wishing I could stay in this car forever, but I have to get out at some point, I realize, especially now that we’ve pulled into the driveway and they’re looking at me. The police I can handle, but the stony look chiseled onto Micah’s face makes me want to die. He waits on the porch steps for me, twirling his class ring on his finger, and all I can think is, Well, he hasn’t given it to Heather yet, so that’s a good thing.

I can see Grams through the window, rocking back and forth in her favorite recliner with a blanket wrapped around her. She’s nodding to whatever Micah’s mom is telling her. Mrs. Perez has a pinched, unreadable expression on her face only reserved for when she’s trying to control her anger.

“C’mon, we’ll go in together,” LD says, and we get out of the car.

Micah stands to greet us.

“Thanks,” I murmur. My eyes are burning from the tears, but I can’t cry. I’m so mad at myself for everything.

“She was lost,” Micah says, putting his hands into his slacks. His yellow tie is loose, hanging limp around his neck. The way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m a criminal. “Said she didn’t know where she was. Why didn’t you have an eye on her?”

“And where were you, buddy?” LD cuts in. “Why didn’t you look after her?”

“Because it’s not—”

“Not your responsibility?” she finishes for him, and Micah’s face goes slack. I don’t want to hear this fight right now. I try to say as much but LD beats me to it. “So, let me get this straight: you’re allowed to go and live your life and do what you want to do, but Iggy can’t? And then you have the nerve to point your finger at her when you’re just as much to blame?”

Micah purses his lips, but then he says what I don’t want him to. He says it because he’s angry, because she’s right. I know Micah enough to know he doesn’t mean it, but the words slip out of his mouth anyway, and they sting like hornets against my chest. “She’s not my grandma.”

LD squints, stepping up to him. “Is that you talking, or is that your leash?”

“Fuck off—”

“I’m sorry,” I quickly interject, stepping between them. I don’t want a fight. I just want them to leave. I just want everyone to go home. “I’m sorry. Thank you—it won’t happen again.”

“It’s not your fault, North,” Billie rumbles, coming over to us. He must smell the fight brewing.

“Don’t be her white knight, Bleaker. Let her own up to it,” Micah snaps at him. His shoulders are tense, his fists clenched. “Or were you her distraction?”

Billie quirks an eyebrow. He crosses his arms over his chest. He’s easily four inches taller than Micah, and a good deal stronger, but it never occurred to me how scary Billie could look. Not until now, the tension tight in the air. “And what if I was? And so sue me, North let Grams out of her sight for one minute to have a little fun.”

Micah narrows his brown-eyed gaze at us. “Well I hope it was worth it,” is all he says, and shoulders between LD and me. His shoulders slam against ours. His muscles are taut and tense, his fists visibly clenched, as he cuts across my yard to his and stomps up the steps. I can’t remember a time when he looked so furious. Why does he even care?

He hasn’t cared in weeks.

A silence settles between the three of us, so thick you can cut it with one of LD’s six-inch heels.

Billie scratches the stubble on his chin. “At least she’s okay.”

“Yeah,” LD murmurs half-heartedly.

“No she’s not okay,” I snap. Billie’s eyes widen in surprise. I glare at him through tear-clouded eyes. “None of this is okay. Micah’s right, I should’ve paid closer attention to her. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted.”

“So it’s my fault?” Billie points to himself.

“No, it’s mine. For fooling myself.”

“North—”

My fists clench. I hate the way he says my name. Like I mean something. I don’t want to, anymore. “Go home, Billie.”

He bites his words, his shoulders stiffening. “Fine—but for the record? I meant what I said when we were dancing.” Then he’s gone, down the road like a broad, sulking shadow.

LD nudges her head up to the chief talking with Micah’s mom in the doorway. “Go see if Gram’s okay. I’ll see you later.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and waits for me to climb the steps to our house before she leaves, too.

After a moment, the chief notices me standing in the doorway and tells me my grandmother is all right. That’s relative, I want to say, because she hasn’t been all right for a while, and no one seems to care. “Sebastian Darling already looked her over,” he says under his thick graying mustache, “and gave her a clean bill but . . . he suggested that she needs extra care. We know you are trying, Ingrid, but her safety comes first.”

“I know,” I quickly reply. “It won't happen again, Scout’s honor.”

He catches me by the arm before I can breeze by him. “This is a serious matter, Ingrid. You need to start thinking about what’s best for her. I’ll have Doctor Darling call you in the morning so we can start setting up something more permanent—”

“I said I’ve got it,” I interrupt. I fist my hands. They’re shaking.

His hard eyebrows soften. “Ingrid, we know you do. Everyone needs a little—”

“Sir.”

He finally gets the gist. “All right, then.” He tips his hat to Grams and leaves.

Mrs. Perez tells me there is leftover lasagna in our refrigerator, and to call if I need anything. I see her to the door and draw the chain lock.

Now it’s just me.

On the couch, Grams is humming another tune from Singing in the Rain. It’s familiar, like a soft radio in another room.

Sometimes, I like to imagine that my mom’s probably in Tahiti or Bora-Bora, interviewing some “retired” twentysomething starlet. Or maybe she’s in Russia, covering the filming of that new superhero movie. Or maybe LA, going to exclusive parties and dating exclusive men and getting exclusives about exclusive lives. Wherever she is, it isn't here.

She isn’t where she should be.

Grams looks up from her celebrity magazine and smiles at me. She doesn't look like she’s been down by the reservoir. She looks like she never went anywhere at all. She probably doesn’t even remember the festival even though she’s still wearing her sunflower dress. “It’s about time you came home!”

I sit on the couch next to her recliner and pull her into a tight, crushing hug. She feels like a bag of bones through her nightgown. “I'm so sorry, Grams.”

“For what?” she asks in good humor, and rubs at the faded mascara under my cheek.

“I wasn't here.”

“Well, where were you?”

I hesitate. I'm so tired of lying. “I was dancing.”

Her gray eyebrows quirk up. “Dancing? Oh, that sounds grand. With a boy? Is he cute?”

“He’s . . . nice. But he’s leaving.”

“That’s silly. So are you! My baby girl going to California. Going to be a real reporter. He can always come visit.”

My heart begins to free-fall from my chest, down, down, down into the pit of my stomach. There are plaques with my mom’s name on them still hanging in the hallway, high school awards for journalism, ribbons and certificates and banners. A reminder every day that my mom left because she was too talented for Steadfast, for me.

“You know what?” Grams grabs my hands and encloses them in her bony ones. There are age marks and splotches on her well-worn hands, calluses as hard as Brillo pads. “I want to tell you something. I can see your father”–grandfather, I correct to myself—“in your eyes, darling, and sometimes people are just too big for the places that keep them.”

She’s wrong. I’m not too big for the town. I’m too small. It’s swallowing me up. I’m stuck in at the bottom of the well, not because I don't have the resources to climb out, but because my ankles are weighted with what I’ll leave behind, and the water’s rising.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #162

JULY 9TH

(CANCELED)

Chapter Twenty-Three

The week rolls by like molasses. Billie doesn’t come to the diner even though LD and I wait for him every day, ordering chili cheese fries. We hope he does, but apparently Golden Boy has found greener pastures. I can’t say I blame him.

I rub the sleep out of my eyes and order a refill of coffee. It’s my third on my lunch break.

“You better stop or you’ll be bouncing off the walls,” LD warns, eating another chili cheese fry.

“I just haven’t been sleeping well,” I reply.

Ever since Grams went missing, my mind’s rattled me awake every night. I’ve tried everything—Led Zeppelin, ocean ambience, counting the popcorn on the ceiling (and that just made me hungry . . .)—but my brain just keeps racing with the same questions, over and over, like a NASCAR track, in circles.

What if Micah hadn’t found her? What if she’d wandered somewhere else? What if it happens again? She doesn’t remember wandering off in the first place. When I asked her what she was thinking, she said she didn’t know.

“But, oh dear, I’m forgetting something. Sloane, what day is it?” she asked this morning, grabbing onto my forearm.

Sloane. Mom.

“June twenty-second, Grams.”

“That isn’t your birthday, is it? No, it’s—Ingrid! Goodness, Ingrid why didn’t you tell me!” She chastised me, and sent me to the store at two in the morning to get cake mix. I didn’t go. I just sat outside until she got up from the couch and shuffled to her room, having already forgotten that she’d sent me.

I can handle this. I have to handle it. I made peace with that in March, when the doctors first told us about her Alzheimer’s. He gave us pamphlets, brochures, websites, informational videos to watch. He told us what to expect, what medicines to try, what to do to ease her pain.

Her pain.

That always worries me. Is losing your memory painful? Or is it something that happens slowly, like sand slipping through your fingers, so slight you barely notice you’re leaving bits of yourself behind?

Stop thinking. Stop thinking. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed—

LD slaps me on the hand. “You get this crease in your brow when you’re thinking something bad. So stop it! It’ll make wrinkles.”

The waitress refills my coffee and I thank her, pouring three packets of sugar into the black cup. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask if you were. Is this about what happened last week? At the festival?”

“I don’t want to talk about it—”

“Well I do.”

I fish in my purse for cash to pay.

“Iggy,” she tries to reason.

“Why don’t we talk about you, Lorelei,” I hiss. “Did you really choke on your audition? Or was it something else?”

“Well I—”

I slam a twenty down on the table and leave the diner before I can hear whatever she has to say. I swung a low blow, I know I did, but it’s not fair how she thinks talking things out is the best medicine when she won’t ever talk about herself. How come I have to bare my soul when everyone else keeps theirs encased in armor?

When I get back to the store, I pull a stool up to the counter and rest my head in the nook in my arms, hoping I can get some shut-eye. Maybe if I’m asleep I won’t think. I don’t want to think.

I must doze off, because the next thing I know the bell above the door rings. It’s a group of people, their footsteps loud, voices annoying. Blearily, I think I recognize them, but I can't tell. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes, I sit up to greet them.

And go still.

“What, can’t get any sleep in the pasture?” Mike sneers. Beside him, Heather rolls her eyes, clutching Micah’s arm like he’s a new Louis Vuitton.

“You have five minutes until my lunch’s over,” Heather says, ignoring him. “So hurry up and pick something out. Baby, want anything?”

Micah kisses her chastely on the lips. “Nothing’s sweeter than you.”

Mike groans. “Gag me.”

The three of them walk past me into the candy store, down the Twizzlers aisle. Micah doesn’t even give me a glance. They follow Heather to the discount shelves, talking about the drive-in movie they’re planning on seeing this weekend. A double feature. Mike complains that they always go to the drive-in whenever he doesn’t have a date.

“Not my fault you’ve exhausted every girl in Steadfast,” Heather replies sharply. The problem with working in a small candy store is that everything echoes. Voices bounce off the silver shelving and ricochet back to me. Heather knows this, even if Micah and Mike don’t.

“You can start trying North Platte up the road,” Micah adds jokingly. My body goes rigid—but then Mike laughs. If Micah wasn’t dating Heather, that would’ve started a fight. Mike’s started fights over less.

“Ha! But you two are wrong,” Mike replies triumphantly. “I haven't gone through every girl.”

“Mike.” Heather’s voice is even. A warning.

I hear his footsteps—they're easy to catch. Loud, clomping. Like he’s a giant come down from a bean stalk. I sit up straighter on my stool as he picks up a pack of Japanese panda cookies (the ones with the chocolate insides) and tosses them onto the counter in front of me. I begin to ring it up when he stops me.

“I’m trying to decide what goes with those. Got any ideas?” he asks, nudging his chin toward the cookies. I bite the inside of my cheek, staying quiet. “Soda? Coffee? You?”

“What?”

He swirls his pointer finger in a circle. “I’ll buy whatever you want. You can eat whatever you want. I’ll pick you up at four. Don’t thank me—”

“No, thanks,” I interrupt as he turns away.

He pauses, and turns back. “You’re not doing anything.”

“What if I am?”

He snorts. “Come on, Ingrid. Don’t lie. Look, you can hang out with your boy again, too. Two birds with one stone. I’ll make sure you have a good night.”

“No,” I repeat, and slide the box of cookies back. “Sorry, I’m busy.” Saturday nights I usually am busy. I usually go to the radio station. Although this last weekend I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house.

I don’t know if I will this weekend, either.

“Busy?” he echoes, and then an idea dawns on him. He laughs. “It’s Bleaker, isn’t it? I saw you with him at the festival—”

“Billie’d never like me that way,” I quickly denounce before he even begins going down that road. I don’t think I can hear it. I don’t think I want to. That sort of possibility is one I can’t imagine even in a perfect world.

A golden boy and an abandoned girl—there’s a reason there are no love songs about people like us.

Mike grins. “You’re right, you’re right. How stupid of me. Then if not him . . . oh. Oh.” He playfully gasps and leans forward. “It’s Perez, isn’t it?”

My mouth goes dry. “Shut up.”

“No, no; I think I’m onto something. Because I’m finding out there’s an actual person under all those ugly cardigans.”

I stare down at the counter. My insides are squirming. I want to be anywhere else besides here.

“To think, Steadfast’s little Ingrid North has the hots for her best friend—and he’s dating Heather.”

“Shut up,” I croak, begging.

But he keeps going, his words like a dagger in my heart. Twisting, twisting. “You didn’t actually think you had a chance, did you?”

“Please shut up.”

“I mean, compared to you, he had the pick of the litter.”

I fist my hands so tightly my nails indent into my palms.

He leans in closer, and he smells like boy-sweat and Calvin Klein cologne. I hate the smell, the same that’s invaded my nightmares for years, the scent I turned away from in the hallways—like the stench off a corpse. “What’s it like, Ingrid? To realize that even your best friend couldn’t stomach dating you—”

Somehow, with his smell and the way his voice dips into false earnest, it snaps me. I grab the cookies from the counter and throw them. “I SAID SHUT UP!” I cry, as the panda cookies miss him.

They hit Micah’s shoulder and burst open, scattering across the ground.

I stare at him through my blurry tear-filled eyes. His face is open, surprised. No, shocked—horribly shocked. The last thread keeping us together. The last thing—the final straw.

Micah and I stare at each other for a moment, raw and irrational. Nothing hidden anymore, the truth laid bare as though Mike’s words split my rib cage open and bore my bloody, beating heart.

“Igs,” Micah finally asks, hesitant. “Is that . . . do you really . . .”

I swallow the bile climbing in my throat and remember the night LD and I sent my love for him to the stars. I sent it to the moon and it came right back. Is that what the saying really means? That love is a boomerang you can’t escape?

“Yes,” I reply. My voice is calmer than it has any right to be. “Excuse me.” I leave from behind the counter to the workroom, grabbing my backpack. Heather tries to stop me on the way out, but I wrench out of her grip and shove open the door, and leave.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I am rage and hurt.

It sounds romantic, but it’s clawing at me from the inside out. I can’t think—I don’t want to think. At least at home I don’t have to. I climb the worn steps to the front porch and grab the mail from the mailbox by the door.

Inside, Grams is watching a daytime soap opera, rocking back and forth in her recliner. She looks up with a smile that quickly fades. “Oh, darling, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing—I got something in my eye,” I reply, quickly wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. I sit down at the table and begin to sift through the late bills and the college brochures asking me to “Come view our beautiful campus!” as though their green gardens and their cobblestone walkways could pave the way for me to leave.

My hands stall on the last piece of mail.

The return address makes my heart skip. New York City. Muse Records. And it’s addressed to me. I stare at it with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

Muse Records.

The internship.

“Sweetie, is something wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“No Grams,” I reply absently, and run my fingernails underneath the lip of the envelope to slowly tear it open. I hold my breath and unfurl the letter.

Dear Ms. Ingrid North,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected out of numerous other applicants as one of the finalists for our internship at Muse Records. Because of your dedication to the music industry and our high standard of employ, we believe you are an exemplary candidate for our program . . .

The rest of the sentences gloss over.

I sit back in the chair, staring at the raised seal at the top of the letter. This feels like getting my acceptance letter from NYU. A possibility dangles in front of me like a slab of meat, and I’ll never be able to eat it. It feels like walking beside Micah knowing I could never hold his hand. But knowing that if I were different, if this reality was a small shift to the left, if just one thing was different . . .

No. No. There is a door in the back of my mind where I locked those thoughts away. They are ideas I don’t want to think about, dreams I covered over with sand so that someone else might find them. Mine ended at the doctor’s office that rainy day last March when, after so many blood and brain tests, Gram’s doctor dismantled our life and built it back again a different way. Of all the people who abandoned me, Grams stayed.

Mom, who left.

Dad, who never was.

My three cats, my eleven goldfish, Micah . . .

Grams stayed.

I crumple the letter up and toss it in the garbage.

Grams gets up from her recliner. “What’s wrong, sweetie? What did you just throw away?”

“Nothing—junk mail.”

“Oh, we could use that for kindling. You know it gets cold here in the winter.”

“It’s summer, Grams.”

She laughs. “I know, I know, sweetie!” Then she sits down beside me and grabs my hands in hers. She squeezes them tightly. They’re bony and cold, her nails long and the rings on her fingers glistening like sunlight reflecting on the reservoir. “You can tell me anything. I’ve still got some good ears on me, even if Doctor Darling doesn’t agree. Is it a boy? I’ll beat him up if Micah won’t.”

“I don’t think he will,” I reply wryly.

Her nose crinkles. “No, he never seemed the sort to fight for it, but now that William would. Always seemed the type. You can see the fire in his eyes.”

“I don’t think Billie would, either.”

“And why not?”

“We’re not exactly talking right now. Not since . . .” I hesitate, not sure if she remembers the festival. I don’t want to alarm her if she doesn’t, and I don’t want to pretend like I’m dancing around her memories if she does. “We’re just not talking right now. We can’t. I mean—I can’t. It’s . . . it’s difficult.”

I want to tell her. I want to talk like we used to, pour my heart out on the table and have her make sense of it all, jigsawing them all into a finished puzzle. But since her diagnosis, we haven’t. It’s been too strange, and I guess I just never saw the point when she would forget soon, anyway.

I miss talking to her. I miss how she knew what to say and when to say it. I miss the way she knew my heart better than I did. I just miss her—wholly and without measure. And my heart has been breaking these last months as I watch her shrink and shrink and shrink until sometimes she looks like a stranger inside my grandmother’s skin.

But at this moment—here, now—she’s my Grams, and I tip my heart out for her to puzzle back together.

“I love Micah,” I begin, my voice cracking. “I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember, and I’ve tried to stop and I know he doesn’t like me but I can’t, and now he knows.” My eyes are beginning to burn with tears again. I blink, and they roll down my cheeks. They taste like salt. “Now he knows everything, and our friendship is ruined, and I don’t want that. I want to be his friend—I want to be his friend.” I’m sobbing now, and she holds my hands tighter.

I wait for her to fit the pieces back together. To tell me something that’ll help me make sense of it all. To mend this. To make it disappear.

I wait.

She opens her mouth, beginning to say something, and then stops and furrows her brows. Confusion flickers through her dark eyes. My heart begins to tumble and tumble and tumble. Down, down, down into wherever memories eaten go.

“Who?”

My mouth opens, but I can’t say anything.

She pats my hands. “Sweetie, don’t you have school?”

A switch in me clicks. Grams isn’t there. My Grams. My best friend. She’s gone, never coming back. I wrench my hands out of hers.

“I don’t have school anymore!” I shout.

Her face breaks open in surprise.

“I graduated! You were there! You saw! But no, you don’t remember. You don’t remember anything. I got into NYU, too! Did you know that? You sure as hell kept finding out! I worked my butt off to leave this town and I never will! I can’t! I’m stuck here because—with—”

I try to leave, but she catches my arm. “Please, I don’t understand.” Her face is innocent, lost. Like a child.

“Of course you don’t! I—” My words catch in my throat.

Grams is crying.

All the pent-up anger in me turns to ash. I quickly draw her into a hug, holding her so tightly I can feel her shake with sobs. I’m horrible. I’m terrible. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whisper, but I’m not sure that’s enough.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It takes only a few minutes to calm Grams down, and by the time Dr. Darling comes over, she’s already forgotten about the entire episode and is knitting in her recliner and watching Jeopardy. LD’s dad and I talk outside on the porch steps. He brings brochures for retirement homes. One of them is nearby, where I could buy a car and go see her every day if I wanted, but the one he recommends is a few hours away. Farther. I can’t go visit her every day if she goes there.

“I don’t know what to do,” I mutter, staring helplessly at the brochures of smiling old people playing chess or wading in swimming pools. Between her health care and savings, she would be able to afford either of them.

“It’s up to you, Ingrid. You’re being very brave, you know.” He pats my knee comfortingly. “Eula’s lucky to have you.”

I chew on my bottom lip, trying not to cry. His words are lies. “I’m giving up on her though, aren’t I? I’m sending her away. She never sent me away.”

“This is different, Ingrid,” he replies softly. LD has his soft timbre and his sincerity. I miss LD, and my heart hurts more when I think about all the stupid things I said to her. “You aren’t abandoning her. You’re letting her live her best life while you live yours.”

“But she is my life,” I say, and then wipe the tears out of my eyes. “Thanks, Dr. Darling. I’ll—I’ll think about it and call you tomorrow.”

“All right.” He stands, checking to make sure he has his wallet in his back pocket. “This is also her decision too, Ingrid.”

I give him a blank look. “What do you mean?”

“A few months ago we met and discussed the possibility of a retirement home. We visited both already, and I have her signature with whatever you decide.”

“But I . . . I don’t understand.”

“She didn’t want you to worry, so she contacted me directly while you were at work. She wants to go to the one in Omaha. She likes the pool there. And the bingo.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “She knew you’d never let her go if it were up to you. There’s a spot opening at the end of the month.”

“And no one was going to tell me?” My voice cracked. “No one was going to—”

“She said you were going to college. She’s very proud of you, Ingrid.” Then he says good-bye, gets into his Ford Focus, and leaves.

College? No, that can’t be right. I’m not going to college. I never sent in my answer. I never told NYU yes. But then I think about the internship letter, and the thought of New York—of anywhere but here—and I am full of rage and hurt again.

Because no one ever asked me what I want.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I don’t get much sleep.

The brochure for the home in Omaha lays spread out on the table. I stared at it for so long I memorized all of the paragraphs, talking about aerobics classes and bingo nights. It looks like a nice place—everyone has their own small little bungalow and porch and front yard. There’s a community doctor, one of the best in the country, and other people like Grams. It doesn’t look like a terrible place to be, but it isn’t home. It isn’t this blue-vinyl house on the corner of Corley and Goldenrod. The Perezes don’t live next door. The bingo hall isn’t in the town hall.

It’s not home.

The next morning at work is the worst. I’m so tired I can’t even fall asleep. That’s the worst kind of tired, when you’re so tired you aren’t anymore. Heather doesn’t talk to me at all this morning, probably because of what happened yesterday with Mike. I’m sure she got a kick out of it. Instead, she rearranges the Skittles selection in the back for four hours until lunch.

“I’ll be back in thirty,” she calls, which she’s never done before. She usually just leaves. I don’t know what to say in return, so I just don’t say anything, and I wait until she’s out of sight before I wander to the Skittles aisle. I grab a handful of red bags and dump them in the blue-bagged Skittles, but it doesn’t bring me the joy it usually does.

So I put the Skittles back the way I found them.

The bell above the door chimes as I finish redoing four hours of Heather’s life, and I round the aisle to the front.

A flash of blue hair.

The clip of boots.

My heart skips.

LD flips the Open sign to Be Back in Five! She dumps a greasy bag on the counter and calls out to me, “You’re not off the hook yet but I’m willing to negotiate.”

I step out from behind the aisle sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. My jaw begins to wobble. Oh no—oh no, my eyes are stinging.

She gives me a helpless look, and suddenly I’m running down the aisle and fling my arms around her. I bury my face into her bony shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m s-s-sorry.”

“Shhhhh.” She rubs circles on my back. “I know. I know. Dad told me what happened.” She sets her chin on my head. “I’m so sorry.”

“I m-m-made her cry,” I sob into her shoulder. “I h-h-hurt her. I d-didn’t mean t-to. I d-d-didn’t.”

“I know. I know.”

I don’t have to tell her the rest of it because she already knows. She knows I’m torn because I want to give up the rest of the time I have with Grams to make sure she’s happy and comfortable, but I know I can’t. I’m not that good of a person. I’m not that patient, I’m not that kind. There’s a bitter part of me that hates it here. And I’m afraid that someday I’ll hate Grams because of it, too.

We stand there for a long while. I listen to her heart thrum and thrum, a steady cadence, a march of time. Our breaths draw together, inhale, exhale, and I concentrate on that instead of all the thoughts in my head, hoping that someone else can decide my life for me. That someone else can take the reins for a moment—a second—and let me ride shotgun.

“Thank you,” I murmur, looking up at her. “I’m a horrible friend and I don’t deserve you. You’re brave and at least you try—you try. I feel like I . . . I feel like I haven’t even done that.”

“Oh, Ingrid.” Her face, sharp cheekbones and soft eyes, are a constant in my life when everything that’s supposed to be constant begins to fall away. She was always here—even now, when Micah’s gone and Billie’s gone and Grams is going, she’s here. She bends down and presses her plum-colored lips to my forehead.

“You’re so much braver than me,” she whispers against my hair. “I never auditioned.”

I don’t understand at first. Never went to what? I pull away, rubbing the tears out of my eyes. But then I remember our argument in the diner. “But y-you said you bombed it?”

“I was scared.”

“That you’d fail?”

“I was afraid I’d get in.” She rests her cheek against the top of my head. “I was afraid to leave.”

I unfurl myself from her, giving her a curious look. “But you’ve been wanting to leave forever.”

She looks away, somewhat ashamed. “I went to the audition. I had on my cute little black dress—the scoop neck with the sequins across the bottom, paired with my favorite teal Prada to match Vincenzo”—the name for her violin—“and oh were we a sight. It was the best day of my life, I thought. So I sat in the audience, and I listened to my peers play their auditions. I critiqued their concertos and their bravados. I sat through countless Vivaldis, Mozarts as flamboyant as the deaf bastard himself.”

“It sounds like your kind of place.”

She tilts her head. “Was it? I began to ask myself. Did I fit in here with these maestros? And I didn’t know, love. I couldn’t see a gangly girl from nowhere Nebraska sitting up on that stage, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t imagine how my music would sound against theirs, my Green Day against their Gustav Holst. We’d clash, like hot oil in water. I’d bubble and fizz and . . .” She laughs, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t understand, would you? You’ve never had reservations. You’ve always had your sights set just beyond that radio tower.”

My shoulders stiffen. “What does that mean?”

“It’s the tallest point, isn’t it? You’re always looking just beyond it. You’re fearless. You’d kill to leave if you could—and here you are, willing to stay for your grandmother. And I had the chance to leave and I . . . I just sat there when my name was called. I didn’t move. I listened to concerto after concerto and wished I were anyone besides Lorelei Darling.”

The disgust in her voice makes me flinch. I take her hands and squeeze them tightly, and lowers her eyes to meet mine. “But you don’t want to play Mozart and Vivaldi the rest of your life, do you?”

“I could’ve left town. I could’ve . . .”

“You could’ve taken the easy way out,” I fill in, “and the LD I know never takes the easy way out. You’ll get out of here on the heartstrings of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, not some ancient musician in a wig.”

“They did have pretty nasty wigs,” she agrees.

“So let’s eat these greasy fries and figure out some other way to get you out of here—on your terms.”

“And you?”

I smile. I try to make it earnest. I try to smile without regret; push my own hesitation deep down in my stomach, because this part of my life isn’t about me. It’s about her. LD. The bravest, most beautiful girl I know. I squeeze her hands tightly. “I’ll follow you on Twitter.”

We laugh and break apart.

“Now,” I say, “let’s start brainstorming on how to get you and Vinchini—”

“Vincenzo,” she corrects.

“—Out of here.”

“With a little practice, I’m sure I could give him another go.” She tears the greasy bag down the side to reveal a plate piled with soft, gooey fries, cheese, chili, chives, and bacon. Lots of bacon. I grab a fry and let it melt in my mouth, savoring the flavor as it curls against the back of my tongue.

While it doesn’t soothe my soul, it’s the next best thing.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #163

JULY 16th

NITEOWL: Good evening, Owlers. You’re listening to 93.5 KOTN. Sorry about my sudden absence last week. I had a . . . well, life happened. Things. I don’t want to go into it, but I never got the chance to thank all of you before for being there for me, for sticking with me. Thank you—for everything. You’ve been . . . you’ve all been so swell. This week’s topic is actually one requested by an anonymous caller, since summer is coming to a close soon and all you high school graduates will be leaving for greener pastures . . . how to say good-bye. (pause) I’m not very good at good-byes. So, I want to ask you all, my friends, my listeners. How do you say good-bye? Caller One, you’re on the air. Please no cursing or lewd speech. How do you say good-bye?

CALLER ONE: Uh, hi—I, um, I wasn’t good at it, either. So I just never did—it was stupid. I’d just say ‘See you later’ or ‘Call me.’ I thought I’d have ample time, you know? But then something happened and . . . and I never got the chance to tell her good-bye. I never got the chance.

NITEOWL: I’m so sorry . . .

CALLER ONE: Me, too. Just—just when you think you shouldn’t say good-bye, say it anyway. Tell them good-bye and that you love them, because when you’re sitting by their grave and repeating it over and over, it doesn’t do any good because tombstones can’t talk, and the person under your feet is long, long gone. And the good-byes then bury you, too.

NITEOWL: I . . . yeah. Thank you for your honesty.

CALLER ONE: I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to get serious. I’m such a jerk. Just say goodbye to them—and thank you for listening, Niteowl.

NITEOWL: Thank you, too—and good-bye!

CALLER ONE: (laughs) Peace!

NITEOWL: Caller Two, how do you say good-bye? Or do you have a story where you had to? Or didn’t?

CALLER TWO: Wow, talk about the depression zone. Like, I don’t think I could say good-bye, either, like not in person. I’m really bad at stuff in person. But I could say it in a text or like Twitter or something.

NITEOWL: So you’d say good-bye on Twitter? Isn’t that impersonal?

CALLER TWO: I don’t think so? Isn’t saying good-bye impersonal over the radio to someone you’ve never met?

NITEOWL: Point. I’m curious, if you could only tweet one good-bye, and one good-bye only, and it’s the last thing you’d ever say—and it has to be under one hundred and forty characters—what would it be?

CALLER TWO: I’d apologize to this guy I met at this Con. I’d say something like “Devin009, I’m sorry we didn’t try.”

NITEOWL: Maybe Devin009 is listening.

CALLER TWO: Well, if he is, then I’m glad he heard it.

NITEOWL: Thank you for your insight—Caller Three, what would you say?

CALLER THREE: Dear Nolan, (censored) (censored) (censored) (censored)(censored)

NITEOWL: That . . . certainly shows the diversity of the word. Caller Four!

CALLER FOUR: Let it be.

NITEOWL: I’m a fan of the Beatles myself—Caller Five, you’re up!

CALLER FIVE: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

NITEOWL: (laughs) No, not the betrayal! Stay shiny! Caller Six, can you top that?

DARK AND BROODING: Why would you tweet the last thing you’d ever say? And why would it be a good-bye? It seems kind of stupid.

NITEOWL: Well, then, if you wouldn’t tweet it, would you just tell them in person? Are you one of those people who’s okay with saying good-bye? Who knows what to say?

DARK AND BROODING: Depends. Am I saying it to my mortal enemy or my wife?

NITEOWL: You have a wife? I mean—I’m sorry, that was super rude. I didn’t mean to assume—

DARK AND BROODING: It is rude. And just for that you have to answer your own question. How would you say good-bye?

NITEOWL: I don’t—that’s why we’re doing this show! Because I don’t know how.

DARK AND BROODING: I’m sure you have an inkling.

NITEOWL: I . . . well . . .

DARK AND BROODING: What you say doesn’t have to be perfect, you know. Just say what you feel.

NITEOWL: But . . . I . . . my . . . (clears throat) When I was little, my Grams used to come and tuck me in. She’d kiss me good night and whisper, “I love you to the moon and back.” So, that’s what I’d say.

DARK AND BROODING: That’s specific—who’s this good-bye to?

NITEOWL: To someone. I hope they would reply, “And all the stars between.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I meet LD all next week at the diner. Billie still doesn’t show. LD tells me he went to Iowa for some preseason football stuff. I try not to panic, but it doesn’t help. Is he going to come back before the start of college? Is he going to see me one last time? I keep thinking back to the festival, and to how close we danced, cheek to cheek, and I hope that isn’t the last time I’ll ever see him.

“I’ll see him at reunions, right? And when he comes home for Christmas . . .” I mutter to myself, waiting at the counter to pay for lunch. LD and I flipped a coin, so I’m paying today while she steps into the bathroom to reapply her eyeliner.

Miss Maude, the waitress, asks me to give her a few minutes while she attends to Mike and all of Heather’s friends in the corner booth. The waitress looks harried—when ten people order different versions of egg whites with a side of turkey bacon, it gets a little hairy. I’m surprised they’re not waiting on Heather, who can’t come meet them until I return to the shop.

A weird twist of irony, really. I don’t mind waiting.

The diner door opens and Mike looks up. He nudges his chin behind me, and waves. Confused, I turn to the door.

It’s Micah with a bouquet of flowers. Orchids. The tips of their petals are a rosy, bright pink against his dark fur-lined coat. He hesitates at the door, looking at me, before looking down at the bouquet.

Orchids are my favorite.

“Hi,” he starts awkwardly.

“Hi,” I reply, just as awkwardly.

Oil stains his fingers, and he reeks of grease and exhaust, but really it just smells like home. Why did I have to fall in love with him? Why couldn’t I just be happy? He extends the bouquet to me. “I’m . . . sorry I was a dick.”

My eyebrows shoot up into my hairline. “You’re not mad at me?” I whisper, unable to stop myself. “You don’t hate me?”

His eyes widen. “Hate you? I—I’m an ass, Ingrid. I should’ve stopped Mike from picking on you. I should’ve stepped in. I should’ve done a lot of things. But I was so mad. When I saw you dancing with Bleaker . . .”

“Were you jealous?” I ask, oddly curious.

A small smile begins to touch the edges of his lips. I haven’t seen it in ages. It makes my belly ache. I wish things could go back to the way they were before. I wonder if some part of him wishes that, too. Maybe just a piece of him. A smidge.

He runs his first finger along an orchid. “Do you really like me? Do you?”

My mouth falls open.

“I mean, Mike could’ve just been pulling this out of his ass but . . .” He hesitates with a look up to me from underneath his long, dark eyelashes.

I’m paralyzed with what to say. “I . . . I don’t . . .”

“I mean, it’s okay if you do. I just, you know. I don’t think I can . . .” He huffs, trying to make his words come out the exact way he feels. But it’s hard—if I know one thing, I know how hard it is. “We’re best friends, Igs. You and me, it’s always been. You’re like my sister, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you feel this way and I don’t, and I’m sorry I can’t. I just . . .”

I’m not sure what should hurt—the thought that I’m not enough or the realization that I never will be? But neither of them do, I’m realizing. I’m trying to dig down and find those flames of anger I had, those cracks of pain, but I can’t find them in me anymore.

I start shaking my head. “It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay, though, is it? You had these feelings and then I made you hook me up with—I’m an asshole, aren’t I? I’m . . .”

“I’m not mad. I’m not angry—Micah, you’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend. And I miss you. We miss you. That’s what hurts the most.”

His eyebrows jerk up. That, he was not expecting.

We miss you isn’t a sentence, it’s a declaration of how much of him is mixed into the foundations of our collective souls. We miss you means Come back, we’re crumbling. It means Please, just stay awhile. But We miss you, isn’t a plea to come back; it isn’t a request. It’s just three simple words stating more than the sentence can hold; it’s three simple words saying I know you won’t come back, not now, but we’ll be here when you do.

And that’s really what Grams was trying to tell me all along. What you love is the North Star that leads you home. I’m just not his home.

I never will be.

I hear Heather before I see her. The door above the diner dings and she floods in, perfume and dark silky hair and a bright smile. She wraps her arms around Micah’s middle and kisses his cheek. “Baby!” she calls. “I thought we were going to meet at the shop today!”

“I got out on lunch break late,” he replies, not quite a lie, and kisses her back. “You’re beautiful.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me that. I feel fat today—” When she tosses back her hair, she sees the orchids and gasps. “Oh, baby!” She takes them out of his hands and smells them. “You remembered!”

Micah’s face pinches. “Remembered?”

“Don’t play dumb.” She hits his chest with the orchids. My orchids. “Our one month! It’s today.”

“Uh, actually, they’re . . .”

“I really thought you were going to forget, but then I remembered how great you are. You are great, you know that?” She kisses him again, and steals away whatever he was going to say. “I have a surprise for you, too,” she adds coyly.

“A—a surprise?” he asks.

“A surprise,” she repeats, nodding, “later. Come on, let’s eat, I’m starving—oh Ingrid. There you are.”

“Here I am,” I echo.

“I didn’t know if you were coming back so I left.”

“I can see that.”

“I didn’t tell the boss.”

That . . . is a first. “Thank you?”

“Mmm.” Then she marches toward their booth at the other end of the diner, expecting him to follow.

He hesitates for a moment, glancing back at me with an apology in his eyes. “There’s a meteor shower tonight,” he says. “Do you want to . . .”

A truce. He’s calling a truce. I put on a smile. “Meet on your lawn or mine?”

“How about the middle?” he asks before Heather calls him from their booth, and he leaves for her. He doesn’t look back. I don’t expect him to.

A petal stays behind, pastel pink and darkened tip. I pick it up as LD returns, patting her victory curls. She glances at the piece of flower.

“What’s that for?”

“Nothing—c’mon.” I pocket the petals and leave. “Gotta get back to hell before Satan notices no one’s manning the counter.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The one good thing about living in the middle of nowhere is that you can see the stars. They stretch out across the heavens like specks of diamonds scattered over a blanket of dark blue. The constellations seem to swirl together in a trapeze of wires. Or, it could be all swell and pretty if every star didn’t look exactly the same. It really bites the big one when you can't figure the big dipper from Orion’s belt. I don't even know if they’re in the same constellation.

I raise a star chart up toward the sky and turn the pinwheel around so that the stars align. Or at least I think they align. I never really paid attention when Micah used it.

It used to be that the stars foretold your fate. I’m not sure how much of that I believe, that the stars can predict who and what you will become, but I imagine it’d be . . . peaceful . . . to know where you were heading before you got there. Like a road map. You will graduate college here, and you will marry here, and if you look a little farther down you’ll see your kids, and your job, and how happy or sad or indifferent you will be about them.

Mine would probably be pretty boring, stagnant like millions of those stars.

“Damn stupid . . . ,” I curse at the star chart as I try to find the right constellations.

“I think we’re in the northern hemisphere, Igs.”

Startled, I sit up and glance over my shoulder toward the voice. Micah, a dark-blue beanie pulled low over his head, comes to meet me in the middle of our yards.

“Hi,” I greet.

“Hi,” he echoes. “Nice middle ground you have here. Mind if I join?”

“Only if you’ve brought the meteor showers.” I pat the ground beside me. He shuffles over to sit down beside me on the grass.

“We haven’t done this in a while,” he says after a moment.

“No, we haven’t.” I turn the star chart the other way. He leans in close to me, shoulder brushing against mine. I remember when he used to lean so close to me my skin felt ignited with a million little fireflies underneath. Like there was no one but me and him, and the universe was ours. But now . . . now all I can think about is Billie dancing with me at the Sunflower Festival, and the whine of LD’s teal violin as it plays “Whatsername,” and the possibility of Dark and Brooding.

Now all I can think about is how much of the universe I’ve missed all this time, thinking that he was it.

“So, have you seen any tonight?” He tilts his head back to gaze at the stars. I like the way the shadows accent his pronounced jaw, and the way the planes of his face darken and stretch, like he’s something else entirely. I can see why Heather likes him. He really is gorgeous.

“Nah—but you’re supposed to see Mars really well tonight, too. All I see is the moon and a bunch of tiny stars.”

He laughs and gently plucks the star chart out of my hands. “Here, lemme show you.” Turning the spinner so it reflects the night sky, he holds it up, one eye closed, and points to a red-looking star above us. “That’s it right there. If we leave right now, we’ll get there in eight months.”

“Ick, I haven’t even packed. What do you wear on Mars?”

“They’re very fashion forward; you know how those Martians are.”

“I wouldn’t fit in there, then.” I fall back against the grass. The blades prickle against the back of my neck. He lies down beside me and puts his head on my shoulder like old times. I wish it felt like old times, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel new, either. It just feels . . . sad.

“And if we want to go to Venus,” he goes on as if I hadn’t said a word, “it would take one hundred and ten days.”

“But you’ll never leave,” I reply. “You’ll stay here forever.”

“Steadfast is as good a place as any. I heard about Grams. You’re putting her in a home.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you want to leave?” His voice is oddly detached. “Because you’ve got better places to go?”

“What?” I sit up with a jerk. “No! I just—I can’t do this anymore.”

He sits up, too. “You barely even tried.”

“You don’t live with her every day! And who are you to judge me?”

“I’m not judging you. I’m your friend, Ingrid!”

“Friend?” I scoff. “You haven’t talked to me in a month!”

He throws his hands up. “What do you call those orchids?”

“Oh? You mean the orchids for your girlfriend?”

“You know they were for you!”

“But no one else did!” I snap back.

His eyes grow wide with anger. “I’m doing my best, Ingrid! It’s kind of hard to be a good boyfriend when my best friend won’t even try to play nice! You don’t even care about me being happy! And I’m happy, Ingrid. I’m so damn happy and you don’t even care.”

His words feel like a sucker punch in the stomach. I fist my hands. “And your girlfriend is just an innocent bystander in all this? Forgive me if I don’t believe that horse crap!”

“No, the problem is you.”

“Me!” I echo.

What feels like anger begins to well up in my chest like a heartburn after too many cheesy fries, but the longer it sits on my chest, the more it begins to sour. No, it isn’t anger. It’s disappointment. I don’t point out all of the years we “trespassed” on Heather’s parties in the past. I don’t mention the times we busted up a barn party or filled her pool with Jell-O or wrapped all of her guests’ cars in plastic wrap. I don’t mention the years that hang over us like stars, because he isn’t looking at the stars anymore. He hasn’t been stargazing since he met her.

“Keep out of my life, Ingrid.” Turning on his heels, he stalks across the grass, over the footprints he laid just minutes before.

A knot grows in my throat. “Wait!” I blurt, but he doesn’t stop—like he doesn’t even hear me. Or he ignores me. He’s never done that before, and I never thought he would. He stomps up the steps onto his front porch and slams the front door behind him. “My . . . star chart,” I mutter weakly.

“Hon, who are you talking to?” Grams calls out from the front door.

Sighing, I stomp up the steps and knock the dirt off my boots. “No one, Grams.”

She holds up a hand before I get inside. “You got a dirty behind.”

I mock hurt. “Why Grams, you’d deny a warm and loving home to your only granddaughter?”

“If she messes up my furniture, quite right.” She watches as I wipe the dirt off my butt, and cocks her head. The rollers in her snow-white hair clink together. “Was that an argument?”

“Maybe.”

She gives me a hard look, and I cave.

“Yeah, we’re having an elongated argument.”

“It’s about the mayor’s daughter, isn’t it?”

“Sorta.” I turn around so she can inspect my now dirt-less butt, and it must be acceptable enough because she lets me in again. I put my shoes on the rubber mat by the door as she totters off to the dining room table, where she’s been putting together the same flower puzzle since April. If Grams is anything, she’s persistent—even when she doesn’t remember it.

But today is good. Today is a good day.

I hope she has a lot of those before she leaves.

She picks up one of the last pieces and begins fitting it in one of the holes in Santa’s beard. It’s nowhere near Christmas. “It doesn’t surprise me. Love makes you do crazy things. Both the right and wrong kind.”

“Do you think Heather’s wrong for him?”

She shakes her head. “I’m glad he isn’t dating you. I have been worried about that for a while.”

“Gee, thanks,” I reply glumly, sitting down at the table to watch her fit the last pieces in.

“Oh, don’t give me that.” She throws her hand out and slaps me on the arm. But then she pauses, and really looks at me. The crow’s feet around her eyes scrunch together. “Do you love him?”

“I thought I did,” I reply, and realize just how earnest it is, “but now I don’t think I do. Micah says he loves Heather. He’ll do anything for her. He’ll take her side, believe her over me, practically ruin our friendship because I’m not pretty enough or not smart enough—”

“Sweetie, it’s never your fault. You are never not enough. You are never too much. You are smart, and you shine brighter every day.” She pats my hands and smiles. “And that’s why I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore.”

A knot forms in my throat. I’ve been putting off talking to her about the retirement home. I don’t want to ask the questions that I have to ask—why she arranged it all without me, why she didn’t let me have a say.

I hug her tightly. “You’re never a burden to me.”

“Oh, but I am, sweetie,” she says into my hair. “Love’s a heavy burden.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

In school they teach you a lot of things, but they don’t teach you how to apologize. I need to find the courage to call Billie, but I don't know what to say. I go through the motions the rest of the week, stealing cardboard boxes from work to take home and help Grams pack for Omaha. She keeps saying that I should sell some things, but none of it’s mine to sell.

“Nonsense, it’s all yours. Or it’ll be the banks,” she adds, folding an afghan to pad between her fine china plates.

“I don’t want to sell anything.”

“But you won’t be here, either—this house’ll be empty!”

I purse my lips. I don’t argue, because she’ll just persist until she wins. That I don’t think will ever change, even when she loses what my face looks like and the sound of my name on her tongue.

When my radio show rolls around again on Saturday, I don’t know what to do for the topic. The latest celebrity gossip is the “surprising” divorce of some golden couple, and it’s not something my listeners want to engage in. It isn’t something I want to talk about, either.

It’s either that or the upcoming vigil for Roman Holiday’s Holly Hudson. And I don’t want to talk about that either.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask them. “What do you want me to?”

“You sound off, Niteowl,” Dark replies. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” I reply lamely. “We’re not here to talk about me—”

“Actually, we are. We can talk about whatever we want to.”

“And a whole lot of people are listening in,” I say, then laugh to try and bat him away. “And I’ve talked about myself for two weeks now and it’s midnight and—”

“You’re right. It’s midnight, and almost everyone we know is asleep. Why do you think we’re still awake? Listening to you? We’re the same kind of people—the ones who tell secrets, and kiss the people we aren’t supposed to, and make the art no one’ll see, and cry into our pillows after all is said and done. The daylight is for all those other normal people. For all the blunt, round edges in life. But the night? We own the night.”

His voice is soft and warm like a blanket I want to snuggle into and stay. I want to get lost in who he is, whoever that might be, because I’m tired of all these airwaves and all these walls and secrets and silence.

So I talk. About Grams, how I’m afraid to lose her in more ways than one. About Micah, who has already left me all alone. About LD, who is braver and stronger than she gives herself credit for and who will go on to do better things than she’s ever done before. And when I get to Billie—the Boy Wonder, so high up on his pedestal I’m afraid I’m too small for him to see anymore—I talk with Dark and Brooding about how much I don’t want him to go, and how I miss how he smiles and miss how he calls me “North” and how with him I feel validated and special.

Dark stays on the line the entire time, with his “hmms” and “ohs” just to tell me that he’s still listening. That what I feel is important—that I am important.

“You remind me of him,” I tell the voice on the radio.

“And what would you say to him if I was?”

“I’d tell you how much I’m going to miss you.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, so long I think he hung up, but then he says, “I . . . think you should tell him. If you mean it.”

I grin into my mic. “Oh no, remember our deal? I’ll tell mine when you tell yours.”

Then he laughs—a real laugh, not the cynical one I usually get—because obviously it’s a lot funnier on his end. “All right then, Niteowl. It’s a deal. And, Niteowl?”

“Yeah?”

“If you have nothing left to lose, then I hope you get that internship. If Grams is going away, then why don’t you, too?”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see. “I don’t think I’d be that good at—” But then my words freeze in my throat. “Wait. I never told you about that! Hey, Dark—Dark?”

A dial tone buzzes through.

I sit back, perplexed. Had I told my listeners about the internship? And if I hadn’t, who did I tell? But then, does that mean I know Dark? Does he live in Steadfast? Do I know him?

Suddenly, I’m trying to puzzle out who it is. Not Micah, not LD, and Billie isn’t even in town anymore—who would call? I go home that night with all the questions rebounding in my head, taking long looks at every person I pass on my way home, wondering if they’re Dark, but I can’t help but think that I’d know him when I saw him.

I’d know Dark, like my hand knows to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

Chapter Thirty

Whoever Dark is, he’s right.

After I help Grams finish her puzzle on the kitchen table, I dig out the internship letter from the trash and call Muse Records. The interview is the following week, with a complimentary plane ticket.

“I’m going to New York,” I call LD to tell her while I pack.

“OH MY GOD!” she cries. “You are not!”

“I am! Leaving Tuesday, coming back Wednesday!”

“What’s your flight?”

“I don’t know, I have to print out my ticket.” I look over at my laptop and read off the flight information. “Why?”

I hear a few clicks of the mouse and then she says, “Because I just booked a flight with you. There is no way in hell I’m letting you go to my favorite place in the world without me.”

A small curl of relief releases in my stomach. “Bless, I was so scared of flying alone—”

“We’ll have so much fun, it’ll be epic. A girl-cation.” She giggles.

“Well on this girl-cation, should I bring my cat taco sweater?” I hold it up, inspecting the purring cat heads poking out from delicious-looking tacos. “It’s been on this wild ride with me so far, it’d be a pity not to take it now.”

“Dress for every occasion!” she crows.

“Point.” I shove it into my duffel.

I don’t tell anyone else I’m going. Not Micah, not Bossman (as luck would have it, the interview is on a day when I’m off work), not Heather or her cohorts, not even Mick. It’s my secret, but more than that it feels like a dream I’ll wake up from. The only people I tell are LD’s parents, who Grams’ll be staying with while I’m gone that night.

On Tuesday morning, when I’m set to leave, my bags are packed and waiting by the door. I’m only taking a duffel and my backpack. I stand on the porch, shifting back and forth, rubbing my sweaty hands on my skinny jeans. I’ve never flown before. I’ve never even left the state of Nebraska.

Airplanes pass over the skies of Steadfast all the time, small pinpricks of white leaving trails like tractor tracks. I used to try to guess where they were heading with—with who? I frown, trying to remember.

Lying on a shingled rooftop, the soft murmur of Thirty Seconds to Mars and My Chemical Romance wafting from the open window below us. A boy with shaggy hair that hung in his eyes. He always swiped the hair out of his face and smiled a golden smile—oh.

Oh, it was Billie. Before his father passed. Did we hang out often? I can’t remember; only Micah, and I feel like such a jerk for that.

I wonder if I will ever see Billie again. I wonder if he’ll forgive me. I wonder whose forgiveness I really want: the boy with the shaggy blue hair or the young man with the sad green eyes?

“That one’s going to Hawaii,” he once said during a game. It was April—no, the middle of May, just before high school. “There’s a man on the plane with a secret mission to bust a mass smuggling ring.”

“Smuggling what?” I asked.

He tilted his head, deciding. “Coffee.”

“Oh, that’s scary.”

“But it’s what’s in the coffee that they’re smuggling,” he argued, turning to me. His eyes glittered in the afternoon sun. The airplane made a white streak across the clear blue sky. “Millions of dollars of diamonds.”

“Now that’s more interesting.”

Billie and I used to make up stories like that. A teenager going to Russia, only to find out she’s the great-great granddaughter of Grand Duchess Anastasia. An old man off to Australia to single-handedly wrestle a kangaroo. A couple jetting to Paris to BASE jump off the Eiffel Tower.

As I sit on the steps, I play the game again, but this time I don’t have to lie.

Billie, off to a wide, wonderful future outside of Nebraska.

And me, sailing across the skies to the city that never sleeps, all the years of abandoned dreams in tow.

I sling my duffel bag over my shoulder as a yellow cab pulls up. I breathe out through my mouth, trying to calm my fluttering heart. My bones feel all jittery. This is it—this is how you feel when you leave. So full of possibility you could burst.

The yellow cab idles in the driveway as I make my way down the steps and round over to the trunk to dump my crap inside.

I hear footsteps behind me. “Bless, LD, cutting it close, aren’t you?”

But it isn’t LD.

It’s Micah, looking from the taxi to me with a confused crinkle to his strong dark brow. “Heather . . . Heather says you quit the store. And . . . what’s this? What’s this for? Your grandma—”

“Is staying with the Darlings.” I turn away from him to shove my backpack into the trunk, too. “This taxi’s for me.”

“You could’ve asked for a ride.” He motions back to his car in the driveway. “You didn’t have to call a taxi—no offense, man,” he adds to the driver, who finally dragged his lazy butt out of the cab after I’ve already put my things in the trunk. Perfect timing, dude. “I mean, I don’t mind . . . going to Omaha? I’m off today so . . .”

“No, I’m only flying out of Omaha.”

“Yeah it wouldn’t have been a—flying? You’re . . . you’re flying out of . . .”

“My plane’s in three hours.”

He recovers quickly and steps between me and the open door to the taxi. “I can still give you a ride—”

“No thanks, Micah,” I interject softly, closing the trunk. The cabbie lowers himself back into the driver’s seat stealthily, as if he isn’t even here. I wish I could, too.

Micah sighs and threads his hand through his hair. The curls hug his fingers like mattress springs. I used to dream of running my fingers through his hair when we sat watching the stars, his head in my lap. “I’m sorry, Igs. I didn’t mean to hurt you—I just can never say no to her. You understand. You have to understand.”

“I do, Micah,” I reply with a sigh.

“Then why are you leaving? Is it about the flowers?”

“It’s about more than the stupid flowers. It’s about everything else.”

“Last I thought, we were good.” He puts his hands on his hips. “You said we were good.”

With a sigh, I shake my head and murmur something under my breath.

“What?”

Our relationship will never go back to the way it was. I don’t think it can. I wish I could rip my heart out and tell it to fall out of love and shake it until all the bits of Micah fall out of it. I wish we could go back to the summer. Back to before.

But I think I’ve been in love with the thought of Micah for way too long.

I take a deep breath and jut my chin up. “I’m angry, Micah. I’m sad. I’m everything. Whenever I see you and Heather together, so freaking happy I think . . .” My heart is in my throat, and when I try to swallow it down it feels like a marshmallow. A wet, salty marshmallow. “I think why can’t it be me? Because I’m not pretty? Because I’m not interesting enough?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. From down the road LD’s voice shatters the silence.

“Oh thank God you haven’t left yet!” she cries and comes to a stop between us, gasping for breath. She swings a backpack off her shoulder and pounds a manicured hand on the trunk. “Open up! This bag’s killing my arm.” When the driver pops the trunk, she shoves her bag in, and finally decides to acknowledge Micah. “Oh, hi there. Here to see us off?”

He purses his lips together and shoves his hands into his pockets. “No, I was just leaving. Have a good time, you two.” Then he walks quietly back across the lawn from where he came.

“We will!” LD shouts after him, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and leads me toward the door. She lets me slide in first, and then comes in after. “To the airport, chauffeur!” she cries. “Our destiny awaits!”

As the cab backs out of the driveway, Micah watches from his porch until we disappear down the street. I turn back to face forward. He didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t answer me. His silence sits in my stomach like a lump of coal.

LD resituates herself in her jeans, and gives a sigh. “Sorry I ran late. I had to do some last-minute things.”

Her hair is a bright teal, the color of mermaid scales and violins. I rub at a splotch of color on the side of her neck. “I can tell. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world, Iggy-Pop.” She kisses my forehead and squeezes me into a tight side hug. “I love adventure games.”

The taxi bumps along the highway toward Omaha, but I can still smell Steadfast lingering in the car, a whiff of sunflowers and confectionary. After a while, I settle back to lean my forehead against the warm window. The soft pop from the taxi’s stereo fills the cab like an elevator hum.

“I’m sorry he wasn’t smart enough to tell you the truth,” LD says softly, like the words might break me.

“Nah, I heard him loud and clear.” I rest my head on her shoulder and listen to the taxi’s radio murmur out Roman Holiday’s hit, “Crush on You,” as the bright flowering fields pass in a blur of golden smiles.

Chapter Thirty-One

The airport swarms with hundreds of people, all millimeters from colliding into each other as they flit from one terminal to the next. It’s overwhelming, the smell of Auntie Anne’s swirling with the aroma from Starbucks across the way. The inside of the airport looks more like a shopping mall than a place of departure, Cornhusker knickknacks on display alongside bestselling books promising to alleviate the boredom of a long flight. How can anyone be bored when you’re flying thousands of feet in the air?

LD meets me on the other side of security, hopping back into her heels. She mutters something under her breath about being body searched, and eyes me. “How’d you get out so quickly?”

I shrug. “I don’t have on much jewelry.”

“Well, lah-dee-dah,” she mutters, repinning her victory curl.

Rolling my eyes, I grab her suitcase and begin to roll it in the direction of our terminal. This seems easy enough—just follow the signs. There are a lot of signs, each promising a different destination. Dallas, Chicago, Copenhagen, London—so many places I’ve read about in novels and heard mentioned on TV but never actually been. From here, you can go anywhere. You’re free; your small hole of a life cracked open to endless possibilities.

That realization seems wasted on LD. She’s flown before. Her parents vacation in Hawaii every few years, and she flew to Juilliard for the audition she never made. She knows how to navigate the airport, which terminal to go into, how far down the gate is—and step by step, moment by moment, Steadfast begins to peel off her. The stiff, jaded shoulders, the wary gaze, until she’s the girl I've always known in her room, bright eyed and adventurous.

“Come on, I think we’re going to miss our flight if we don’t hurry,” she says, pointing down to the last gate. The plane is already boarding, its past passengers filing into line. She speeds her gait.

I don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just . . .

I don’t know.

Annoyed, she spins around, walking backward. “Come on, Iggy!” she calls. “Last one to the plane has to buy the first coffee in New York!”

“But what if the plane goes down?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes. “And what if I get there and they’ve already chosen someone else?”

“What if the sky falls down? What if the universe implodes? What if you get the gig?”

That makes me an entirely different kind of scared.

LD sees the hesitation and stops walking backward. The stewardess at the gate says, “Final boarding call for flight 4779 to New York City.”

“What if I get it?” I echo, watching her retrace her steps back to me. “This was a bad idea—I should be home with Grams. I should be helping her pack for her move. I should be—”

“Ingrid North,” she says my name softly, and puts her hands on my shoulders. She looks deeply into my eyes, her gaze like a fishhook snagging at my stomach. “It’s okay to follow your dreams.”

I swallow the knot in my throat. “It's just for a day, right?”

“It's just for a day—and for that day you can be anyone.”

“Niteowl,” I murmur.

“Hmm?”

The stewardess makes one last call, and LD takes me by the hand. She squeezes it tightly. I squeeze back.

“You’re right,” I say louder, and she smiles like she’s always known, and we run for the closing gate. To the beginning of possibility—or whatever you call what LD and I are running toward. Certain failure? Mortification? Demise?

Either way, we make the flight and get situated a few minutes before the plane disconnects from the terminal. As it aligns with the tarmac, I grip the armrests nervously, sneaking a look out of the window. LD takes out her earbuds and plugs them into her phone. She sticks one bud in her ear and offers me the other.

“No, thanks,” I reply, my knees bumping up and down. I stare out the window to the other planes rounding through the landing strips like a merry-go-round. Our plane eases into the lineup. “I think I’m too nervous.”

“There’s really not much to listen to taking off,” LD replies, twirling the earbud around on her finger. “C'mon, Iggy.”

I hesitate—and jump when the jet engines rev to life. I swallow the lump in my throat as I take the other earbud. "Yeah, that might—that might be a good idea. What’re we listening to?”

“A really cool podcast. I’m addicted to it.”

“A podcast?”

“Yeah, here it is. It’s actually a radio show but a fan catalogs them and puts them up on the Internet afterward.” She selects one out of the library of files she has, and presses Play.

I begin to ask if that’s legal when a familiar jingle—a silly guitar lick and a bass beat—interrupt my thoughts. I don't pay attention when the flight attendant goes through what to do in an emergency. My mind is back in Steadfast. It’s in the radio tower on Saturday nights.

“Happy midnight, Owlers, and welcome to NITEOWL radio, 93.5 KOTN . . . ”

Heat betrays me in my cheeks, turning them a rosy red. Hearing my voice is one thing, but hearing it coming from my best friend’s iPhone is another. Act cool—there’s nothing to see here. It’s not actually me we’re listening to, it’s . . .

I am Niteowl though, aren't I? I’ve always been Niteowl. Ingrid North wouldn’t be on a plane right now. Ingrid North would be back in that stupid little confectionary store. Ingrid North would be helping Grams pack for Omaha. Ingrid North would still be pining over Micah . . .

But would she, really? I'm not sure anymore. When had Ingrid and Niteowl blurred? When had I become the other, or the other become me? Or was I always her?

I don’t know, I can't decide.

“And by fan,” LD begins, casting a glance over, “I mean me.”

“You . . . you know?” When she nods, I squirm in my seat. “And you’re . . . not mad? That I kept it a secret?”

“Are you kidding? I was mad ecstatic when I realized it was you.”

"For how long? Does anyone else know? Does—"

"Remember when we went to crash Heather's birthday party last summer? When you freaked out and left? Well, I followed you to the radio station." She shrugs. "I was worried."

I feel like a fool. Who else knows? I thought I was so careful, too. "You knew this whole time and didn't tell me?"

"It's your secret, not mine."

"But does anyone else—"

"Ooh! This is my favorite part!" she exclaims, and turns up the volume. I know this show, it's one of the first with Dark and Brooding, when he tells the terrible cat-astrophe joke. She giggles at the joke, and I can't help but smile, too. It's kind of fitting, in a way, to listen to my radio show as the plane roars to life, vibrating the hull until everything inside of it is humming. LD just turns the podcast louder, until my head is full of Dark and Brooding’s velvet voice.

Suddenly, the ground begins to move under us. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster. The ground rushes like a river beneath us, and I can feel the wings cleaving through the wind like butter. LD drops her phone into her lap and takes my hand tightly. Squeezes it. The wheels hop into the air, and my stomach flips, before the tail dips down and we rocket into the sky, pushed by nothing more than the sheer force of our speed.

After a few minutes, we level out. LD releases my hand and breathes out a sigh.

“Checked that one off the bucket list,” she jokes.

I look out the window, but Omaha is no longer there. We are rushing above a sea of clouds. “I wish I could tell Dark about this. This is crazy.”

“What do you think he’d say?”

“He’d probably tell me that it was about damn time.” I grin, but then it drops as I realize something. “If I get this internship, I’ll never talk to him again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah . . .”

But secretly, we both know. Without my radio show, I’ll never talk with Dark again.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The flight lands three hours later, getting dangerously close to the water. If the plane was going down, I'd have to use my boobs as floatation devices. They’d be fabulous flotation devices though. I’m wearing my best bra.

LD leads the way out of the plane and out to the line of taxis. They stretch all the way down the arrivals line, as far as the eye can see. I let out a very nervous breath as we get in the taxi queue, and I look at my watch.

Four thirty-seven p.m.

My interview's at 5:30 p.m.. It was the last slot available, the assistant said. I actually think that they ran out of slots, and just pushed me in last. I hope they haven't already found someone else for the internship—or maybe I'm wishing they have? I don't know.

We get into the taxi and tell it the address to the radio station. The car smells like amazing curry and my stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven't eaten since breakfast, and even then I just ate a granola bar because I was too nervous to eat anything else.

The taxi driver plugs in the address and turns out of the arrivals line, heading for the highway. We stop about ten minutes out of the airport, stalled on the highway in traffic. We sit for ten more minutes like that as I watch the clock on the dashboard slowly shift toward five.

I bump my knees nervously. “Um—um excuse me?” I hesitantly call up to the driver. He looks back with dark eyes. "Is there another route?"

“When do you need to be there?” he asks in a clipped foreign accent. It dips and flows in a cadence.

“Um, five thirty—preferably before? It’s—it's really important. For a job—”

“Her dream job,” LD adds when the taxi driver doesn't look fazed by the fact that I'll be late.

“It's more of an internship,” I correct.

“That could turn into a dream job,” she argues, but the taxi driver keeps looking at us with the same bored expression. LD breathes out through her nose. “We'll tip you fifty percent if you get us there before five thirty.”

The taxi driver blinks, then readjusts his rearview mirror. Then he backs up, puts on his blinker, and tears out in front of a slow-moving moped. Horns blare. LD grabs onto me for support.

The next thirty minutes are the absolute worst of my life. I want to kill LD. I thought riding on the back of Billie's motorbike was bad—no, Billie has nothing on this taxi driver. He cuts between a van and a huge SUV, and LD lets out a squawk in surprise.

She folds her arm into mine. “I want to make a confession,” she whispers, “if we die.”

“We're not going to—bless!” I fumble for the oh-shit handle on the cab's roof as the driver cuts across two lanes of traffic. “This is all your fault!”

“I cut off Micah’s rattail.”

“You just had to—you what?”

“I cut off his rattail,” she replies. “I hated that thing. I hated it so much!”

“But—but Heather—”

“Covered for me. She knew I’d get kicked off the bus otherwise. But that’s why she hates me!”

I stare at her as though seeing her for the first time—really for the first time. Have I had Heather pegged wrong all along? Holding on to a defining moment that she didn't even define? “You cut off his rattail,” I say levelly, making sure I heard right.

“I’m not sorry for it,” she replies indignantly. “But I am sorry you and Micah and everyone thought it was Heather.”

The taxi veers off onto an off-ramp, into a neighborhood. Far away, across the Hudson, Manhattan comes into view. I squeeze her hand tighter. “If we live through this, I'll forgive you.”

“And if we don’t?”

“We won't be alive to know the difference.”

The taxi driver flips on the radio and Roman Holiday comes through the speakers, loud and clear. Tonight's their big concert with Jason Dallas at Madison Square Garden. Maybe I can stand outside the venue and listen to the residual thump of “Shotgun Heartache.”

Then again, maybe I'll be dead.

We're silent for the next twenty minutes as the taxi flies across the bridge into Manhattan, and we're lost in a jungle of steel skyscrapers and shiny glass windows. WZTQ, the radio station, is in a crisp tall building with potted ferns out front to make up for the lack of foliage. A few blocks down is a park—Bryant Park, LD says, after she tipped the driver fifty percent as promised. We're a good ten minutes early, too.

I sling my duffel bag over my shoulder, looking up, up, up at the towering building. It's hard to imagine that WZTQ could be in such an unassuming place. It's not flashy, it doesn't show and tell. Sweetey's has more heart than this place—and that’s saying something about the mouth of hell.

I check the address to make sure we're in the right place.

"Shall we?" LD says, patting back her curls, and clips toward the revolving doors.

I follow her hesitantly, studying how she maneuvers through it. Just like water through the mill wheel at the reservoir. Except I'm a little less fluid than water. My bag gets caught between the revolving doors, and I shimmy around, yanking it free on the other side. LD chews on her bottom lip so she won't laugh.

“Oh, shut up!” I snap, pulling my duffel bag back up onto my shoulder.

The receptionist at the lobby desk has my name on the list. She tells LD to wait in the lobby, but when LD leans against the desk and gives her one of those sweet smiles, saying how we have flown all this way just to be torn apart by a silly list, the receptionist buzzes us through security. The golden elevators are woven with intricate lacework of roses and screaming faces. Not ominous at all. I press the button for the forty-fourth floor, and we ride it all the way up.

LD jostles my shoulder. “Hey,” she whispers as the elevator dings softly as we pass every floor, “knock ’em dead, Niteowl.”

I smile. I can't help it. I'm raring to go.

Except once we get to the forty-fourth floor, the secretary at the desk tells us to wait in a small waiting area with these terribly uncomfortable white chairs that creak when we sit down. Three other teens are already waiting, two guys and a girl, dressed far better than I am in my cat taco sweater and black slacks.

The girl gives me one of Heather’s best look-downs in the history of judgmental mean girls. She’s tall and reed thin, with curly ginger hair and thick Woody Allen glasses. She gives me a once-over before saying, “You're here for the interview?”

“Fresh off the plane,” I joke, but her bow lips are set in a frown. I shift uncomfortably, the chair groans. “Um, how about you?”

“Sure, if DJ Sims decides to show up. This is such a waste of time. I'm going to miss my flight back to LA, and Renee Prosperity is going to be so pissed—I’m her PA, by the way. Have been since the beginning. I do her personal matters—”

“She fetches the coffee,” interjects the boy with the dyed-bronze hair. He has a nice beard and a vintage hipster scarf and a wonderfully deep baritone fit for radio. When the girl’s face pinches in rage, he adds, “Isn't that what all personal assistants do?”

The girl doesn’t correct him. “And what do you do?”

“I curate music for Bob FM . . . and I make a few Let's Play videos for horror games on the side. I'm sure you've heard my voice.”

LD gasps, uncrossing her legs. “You're Quitenzi! Oh my God. Your YouTube videos get, like, a million views.”

“On good days,” he replies with a smile. “How about you? What do you do?”

“I run a radio show,” I reply, “in Nebraska.”

“In Nebraska! Ah. Well,” the girl strains a smile, “that sounds thrilling.”

But in a way that equates thrilling to watching paint dry. They don’t ask what I do or what I've done. I guess they think that in Nebraska, you really don’t do anything.

“So,” she adds, “did you hear who he’ll be interviewing today on the show? Jason Dallas. We’re supposed to take notes and listen. I’m sure there’s going to be a verbal quiz afterward. Take lots of notes.”

LD and I exchange a look. She asks, “Wait—Jason Dallas?”

The hipster guy nods. “Hell yeah, which is why running so late to this show is the worst career move he could’ve made.”

My eyebrows crinkle. “Wait, but why?”

“Really you don’t know? It’s been all over the news this morning—all last night, too. Nebraska must really be under a rock.”

With an eye roll, because LD doesn’t deal with pompous people and their bull, she takes out her phone from her purse and logs on to Twitter. She scrolls through for a minute, her manicured nails glittering in the florescent light of the office, before her eyebrows quirk up in surprise. “Oh.”

“Oh what?” I look at her screen. My face goes slack. “Oh.”

All across her newsfeed, there are gifs, images, links to Roman Montgomery from Roman Holiday punching the ever-loving snot out of Jason Dallas—on Nick Lively’s live television show.

“Right?” The hipster laughs. “Everyone wants this interview, and DJ Sims got it.”

“Or maybe it was already booked,” says the third guy. He’s not dressed like any of us, in tight black jeans and an oversized hoodie. He’s wearing a black beanie and sunglasses, his arms crossed tightly over his middle as though he’s uncomfortable with other people.

Almost on cue, the phone rings and the secretary picks it up before it even reaches the second ring. “Hello?” she asks, and her hands begin to shake. She pales. “Oh. Oh no . . .” She might look terrified, but I think she’s got so much Botox in her cheeks she can’t frown. “Oh, yes—yes I understand. I don’t . . . no, we can’t send a helicopter. I think he’s already here . . . Right, good-bye.” She purses her lips and hangs up the phone.

I elbow LD and she looks up from a gif of Roman Montgomery nailing Jason in the face, and then to the secretary.

The woman notices us staring and pulls a strained smile over her teeth. Then she stands quaintly and disappears down the hallway to the offices, going into the door at the end of the hall. The five of us seated in the lobby lean just enough to look down the long expanse of carpeted hallway, waiting expectantly.

Then there’s a heavy thump, like something breaking, and a male voice shouts, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S STUCK IN TRAFFIC?”

We all jerk back up into our chairs as the door flies open and someone who could only be the station manager himself storms down the hallway. He’s a squatty, gray-haired man in a polo shirt and crinkled jeans. He storms out into the lobby, his face is so red he might just have a heart attack. Even before the secretary says his name, my heart leaps into my throat. I know this man. I know his voice. And even in his unlaced scuffed sneakers he’s everything I thought he could be.

His secretary follows him, flustered. “Rooney! I can, um, try and call someone—a replacement? A fill-in?”

“Where’s he stranded?”

“There’s apparently a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge . . .”

“So no helicopter . . . ,” he murmurs, and curses. “We don’t have time to find another DJ, Maria. We got an exclusive before one of the biggest concerts of the year and our DJ's MIA. Perfect. The boss is going to love this.” He massages the bridge of his nose, trying to find a piece of calm, before he notices the five of us looking dumbfounded in the lobby. “Who the hell are you people?”

“Sir,” the bearded guy begins, standing, “it’s such an honor to meet you. I’ve been fan of your show for forever.”

“Sure, thanks—you all here for the internship, aren’t you? Maria! I thought I told you to send them home.”

My blood turns cold.

The girl pushes her glasses back up again. “But sir—”

“Do you see Sims here? Do you see anyone? No! Because he’s stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge twiddling his thumbs!” he cries, jabbing a finger toward the wall—and probably in the direction of the bridge. “I don’t have time to interview some over-privileged children. Go. Home.”

Then Rooney Quills—the first voice of WZTQ and a long-time partner of Muse Records (and anyone who wants to challenge me on my Rooney Quills trivia can suck it)—turns back to his assistant and asks, “How about Xana? Can she get here?”

“She has a gig in London tomorrow . . .”

“Marco? DJ Bob? I’ll take a wedding singer if I can get him!”

She hesitates. “I don’t . . . I don’t know any wedding singers, sir.”

He throws his hands into the air and starts back toward his office.

LD’s hand squeezes mine. I can see a door closing in my head, slamming shut, locking, and suddenly I know how I feel about this opportunity, about this interview.

I want it—I want it so bad it hurts.

As the girl with the glasses and the bearded guy gather up their things to leave, I stand, letting go of LD's hand. “Excuse me, sir—sir, just a minute. Please!”

But my idol keeps walking, growing farther and farther away, my chance narrowing until it balances on a pinprick. For a moment, I’m in Steadfast again. I’m the girl who isn’t heard, the one who has her life plotted out, who never had a say.

I don’t want to be that girl anymore.

Steeling my courage, I shout, “I’m not leaving until you give me a chance!”

The young man in all black cocks his head. He hasn't moved this entire time, but now seems genuinely interested in the turn of events. The producer stops in his footsteps as though I’ve shot him through the heart and turns back on his heels to me. There is impatience in his dark eyes. Impatience and kindling anger. I can't waste his time.

I take a deep breath and go on, “Let me run the show.”

The girl in the glasses and her bearded compatriot scoff—like I can run anything, some girl from no-name Nebraska.

Yeah, I am some girl from no-name Nebraska.

Deal with it.

“You,” Rooney Quills voices what the girl and her hipster guy are thinking. “You want to run the show? This isn’t some kindergarten special. Go home.”

“I am home.” My voice comes out louder than I anticipate, and it startles Rooney Quill into listening. I swallow the knot in my throat. “I’m home wherever a receiver is. Wherever a mic is. Give me a few minutes of radio waves, and I’ll show you what it means to be home. You need a DJ, and I’m the best one you’ve got.”

He asks his secretary, “Who is this girl?”

“Ingrid North,” his secretary replies, looking down at my application, “but she has a radio show and goes by—”

“The voice of KOTN,” I interject.

The girl in the glasses gives me a curious look. “Niteowl? You’re Niteowl?”

“One and only,” I reply.

She stares at me in astonishment. The bearded guy asks who Niteowl is, and I want to hear her answer, what she thinks of me. Who is Niteowl? A girl from no-name Nebraska? A fake guru who got all her advice from her grandmother? Or a fool that fell in love over the airwaves?

I might never hear Dark again if I follow my dreams. I may never get to see him, find out who he is, what his passions are but . . .

He told me to listen to my own advice—to follow my North Star.

Drilling up all the courage I have buried deep in myself, I look my idol—who is burning duller and duller the longer we’re in the same room together—in the eye and tell him, “You go on in ten minutes, right? If DJ Sims gets here by six, then he’ll do the show, but I don’t see that happening and you need a backup for what might be the most interesting—if not influential—interview of the season. And this is the biggest concert Jason Dallas has ever done, and it’s with his arch enemy. You need someone to work the angle. You need someone who knows what questions to ask.”

“Do you even know how to run a show?” he asks.

“Like a well-oiled machine.”

“And you’re good at interviews?”

“My show was a call-in, I’ve had everything from the occasional asshole to telemarketers selling dildos.”

“Hmm.” He snaps his fingers and the secretary hands him my application. He gives it a brief look before handing it back to her and checks his watch again. “Fine. We have pre-scripted questions, and Dallas has already been briefed on what he’ll be asked. It’s easy. No going off book, no weird fangirl questions. And if you screw this up, you’ll never work in this business again.”

“I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“No—you have everything to lose. That’s why you’re here.”

The girl in the glasses throws her arms up. “That’s not fair! She can’t just do that!”

“I didn’t see you volunteer,” the station manager replies.

Beside her, the bearded guy angrily slings his pack over his shoulder. “Whatever. I don’t see Jason Dallas here, anyway, so you might not have a show. He’s a cokehead anyway. I quit.” Then he storms out of the lobby and into the hallway, and the girl with the glasses quickly follows.

LD gives a sigh and pulls out her purse, rummaging through it for her lipstick. “Well, they sure were darling, weren’t they? And blind. Don’t you agree, Jason?” she asks the black-clad young man coyly, as she smears a blood-red color over her lips.

Ice creeps into my blood as the young man grins, taking off his beanie and sunglasses, showing a brutal black eye. Black hair, shaved on one side of his head, falls to his shoulders in a swoop.

“Ah, you got me there,” he says in his gravelly voice, and cuts me a look with eyes as dark as storms, and as sharp as knives. “So what’s your angle, Niteowl?”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Rooney Quills gives me a set of interview questions to ask, but I don’t get a chance to look at them before he leads both Jason and me to the booth and sits me in a plush black leather chair. His secretary comes in with two glasses of warm tea with honey and lemon. “Just ask the questions—don’t worry what they are,” she advises in a hushed voice.

“Why? Are they . . .”

She gives a tight smile. “They’re fine.” Then she nods at Jason and leaves the booth. On the other side of the soundproof glass, LD stands just behind the station manager. I’ve never been in a booth like this, where I don’t maintain the volume, where I don’t have control of every little detail of what my audience hears. It’s all up to Rooney Quills on the other side of the soundproof glass.

LD gives me a thumbs-up and mouths the Steadfast High fight song. I bite my lips not to smile and look down at the interview questions. My hands grow sweaty as I begin to read through them.

“Second-guessing yourself?” Jason asks from the other side of the booth, putting on his headphones.

We both have large black mics anchored toward us, outstretched on black extension arms. The pop filters in front of them, to catch our spit and wet consonants, has “Muse Records” emblazoned on the flimsy cloth.

“Should I be?” I ask, putting my headphones on as well, and as soon as I do the world closes around us until there’s only me, breathing. My heart in my ears. I begin to shuffle through the interview questions.

He leans into the mic. His gravelly voice rumbles, soft and bitter like on all of the records I’ve listened to, “Probably. I’m not the nice sort of person.”

“I can tell by that bruise.” I train my eyes down at the interview questions. I’m trying not to fangirl. I’m trying to keep my cool. Maybe I made the worst mistake imaginable—if I mangle this, there’ll be no salvation. I’ll be in Nebraska forever. But I thought, just until a few days ago, I’d be in Nebraska forever anyway. I thought I’d be friends with Micah forever. I thought forever was actually forever, but it never is.

The interview questions are very tame at first. Just the normal run-of-the-mill pop culture things about the drama with his bandmates on tour, and his beef with Roman. But then I flip the page and I see the other questions. About Holly Hudson’s death. About his backlash in the wake. A question asks about his sexual relations with her. About his orientation in general. About his alleged drug problem, and his mother’s death—

I knew Rooney Quills was a shark. That’s why he’s so good at what he does. But this? This is . . . this can’t be right. I’ve listened to hundreds of his shows—repeatedly. How have I never caught on before?

Jason Dallas could not have approved all of these questions. He probably hasn’t even seen them.

I flip the interview questions over again, unable to look at them anymore.

Jason Dallas must see me paling, because he leans forward to ask, “So, how about now? You’re a little thing from no-name Nebraska. They’re gonna eat you up and spit you out if this interview goes sour.”

I raise my gaze to meet his. His eyes are dark flickers of light, like Hocus Pocus’s Black Flame Candle. “Is it going to go sour?”

“That is up to you.”

From the sound booth, the station manager leans into his mic and says over our headphones, “Remember, Ingrid, just read the questions. It’s no fuss. Got it, Ingrid?”

I swallow, but don’t reply.

“Ingrid?”

Quickly switching the mic off, I lean forward across the table and whisper to Jason, “You need to be straight with me—what did you say to Roman Montgomery to get him to clock you?”

He leans forward, too. “I think you need to ask that during the interview.”

“I’m asking now.”

His gaze flickers behind me, to the sound booth, and he leans back in his chair. “I insulted the girl he likes, but really he just needed someone to hit.”

“And you just offered yourself up?”

“A victim for the slaughter,” he replies.

I know he isn’t telling me the whole truth, but he doesn’t have to—I know his tell, now, when he’s lying. He has this waver in his voice I’ve heard a thousand times from a thousand different people over the airwaves. You learn to listen for it after a while. A journalist’s ear, Grams calls it.

I guess I got one good thing from Mom.

I know how to crack this interview wide open. It’ll impress Rooney Quills, but how badly will it damage Jason Dallas? And that’s clearly what they want. They want to have the interview that stirs the pot, the one that brings Holly Hudson back to life for one last interview.

I glance back at Rooney Quills, my radio idol, his slicked-back graying hair coming loose and falls into his face as he tries to buzz me again, tell me to turn on my mic, that we’re going live.

Beside him, LD gives me a worried look. She mouths, “What’s wrong?”

Nothing’s wrong. I know exactly how to ace this interview. I know how to make Rooney love me. I know the questions to break Jason.

But what kind of person will I be if I do?

“Thanks,” I tell Jason, and switch the mic back on, bringing it back to my mouth. “Yeah,” I tell Rooney, “I’m ready.”

“’Bout damn time. Remember, just read through the questions. Jason, have fun. All right, here we go.” The station manager adjusts a few sliders and reaches up to a button near the top of the soundboard. “We’re live in three, two, one . . .”

Jason and I lock eyes as I flip the interview questions over. He smirks, and I mirror it. Niteowl never went by a script before, and like hell I’m going to start now.

The LIVE light blinks on between us, and our headphones fade in with the opening jingle.

WZTQ—THE SWISH

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT

JULY 28TH

NITEOWL: Hi there, you’re listening to an hour of the Swish on WZTQ. I’m Niteowl, filling in for DJ Sims. He’ll be back in the studio tomorrow. Today, though, we have a special guest with us—the one and only Jason Dallas. Yeah, you heard right. The Jason Dallas. The myth. The legend. The stud in tight leather pants—okay, okay, he’s not wearing leather pants today, but you have on occasion, yes?

JASON DALLAS: Yes, on occasion.

NITEOWL: How do you fit into them? Do they sew you into them like they did with Sandy in Grease?

JASON DALLAS: That’s a trade secret, sorry.

NITEOWL: Oh, right, right—sorry, forgot that you’re the mysterious sort of punk rocker. Now I have a few interview questions here for you. They’re pretty lame. The first one is where were you born?

JASON DALLAS: The City of Angels.

NITEOWL: I like how you answer that—the City of Angels. For those of you listening, he leans into the mic when he says it. Locks eyes with me. He’s sporting a nice bruise, but it just adds to the mystery that is Jason Dallas. Jason Dallas the rock singer. Jason Dallas the Grammy-winning artist. Jason Dallas, the legendary Prince of Punk.

JASON DALLAS: All right, stop kissing ass.

NITEOWL: Oh, I’ll let you know when I do. You’re Jason Dallas—the Jason Dallas. But your entire life everyone else has defined you, from the media to your fellow musicians to your fans.

JASON DALLAS: They’re good fans.

NITEOWL: Present! But I—especially me, because I’m going through this sort of phase right now, and we’re close to the same age, right? You’re . . .

JASON DALLAS: Nineteen.

NITEOWL: A year older, so maybe you have it all figured out. But I don’t. I don’t even know who I am most days. A friend tells me one thing, my family wants me to be another—so my question is, who are you?

JASON DALLAS: What sort of question is that?

NITEOWL: Sorry, you want me to throw you a low ball?

JASON DALLAS: No, actually—you asked who I am? I’m Jason Dallas.

NITEOWL: No, no, you. Who are you?

JASON DALLAS: Let’s say I’m a fan.

NITEOWL: Of . . . ?

JASON DALLAS: Of your radio show, Niteowl.

NITEOWL: Wait . . . what?

JASON DALLAS: I’ve been a fan of it for years—and just so you know, the guy who keeps calling about the dildos? Roman Montgomery. He does that shit all the time.

NITEOWL: Wait, so Roman listens, too?

JASON DALLAS: We all did. Do, I guess. Still. When Holly was still around we’d get pissed on Saturday nights and call in. You helped me through Holly’s death.

NITEOWL: I did?

JASON DALLAS: Yeah. So I want to return the favor—if Niteowl’s Dark is listening, I’ll personally fly him to meet Ingrid. All expenses paid. You’ve got two hours. She’s a catch. I’d date her, if I were into that sort of thing. Girls, I mean.

NITEOWL: If you were . . . oh. Oh.

JASON DALLAS: I’m in the mood for a good romance. How about you?

Chapter Thirty-Four

The moment the LIVE light goes dark above us, I can still feel my heart in my throat. Jason Dallas takes off his headphones and pushes his mic away. He looks at me with those flickering black eyes and then lowers them to the interview sheet.

“My treat,” he says, winking, “for not asking the questions everyone wanted.”

“But you . . . but it . . . ,” I blunder as he slides back his roller chair and leaves the room. His publicity agent rushes to his side, grabs him by the shoulders, and shakes him one good time. She’s furious, I can tell, but then her face crumbles and she hugs him like friends do, and he brings his arms up briefly to return the hug, burrowing his face into her shoulder.

He’s gay. There were always rumors, but I didn’t think he’d ever say it. His entertainment agency tried to squash those rumors over and over again.

But he just gave his agency a middle finger, didn’t he?

LD squeezes past Jason and his publicity agent, and hurries into the studio. “That was amazing!” she cries. “You were amazing! You were everything. Everything and more.”

“Yeah,” I reply, still stunned. “An all-expenses paid trip for Dark.”

“Yeah—you might actually get to meet him after all!”

“But . . . what if he . . . if he doesn’t . . .”

“Hey, he could call in two hours.”

“He could,” I reply, but I’m not sure he will. My stomach is rolling with all the nerves and sickness. I might meet Dark and I just got an interview no one else could. I just got an answer.

I just—

“You were supposed to stick to the interview!” Rooney Quills barks, marching into the studio behind LD. I scramble to my feet. I’m not going to die sitting down. “You had them right there! In front of you! And you go off script! I don’t know what they teach you in Nebraska but . . .”

He stops in front of me and puts his hands on his hips, glaring at me with gray eyes that remind me of cold cuts left in the freezer too long. “I . . . um. . .” I swallow the knot in my throat. “I didn’t like those questions. They were lowballs.”

“Of course they were!”

“I couldn’t ask them. They were terrible.”

He tilts his head. “You run a radio show, you said?”

“Yeah, a midnight call-in.”

“Going to college?”

“No.”

“Shame.” He looks down at his shoes, and then back at me. “You need a job?”

My mouth falls open. “What?”

“I got an internship spot open, didn’t know if you heard. I’m looking to fill it. What do you say? You wouldn’t be pulling that shit again”—he nods to the mic, and the interview questions flipped down—“but you got a good head on your shoulders, and you got a good eye for content. I can see that. And I like it. So, what do you say?”

“I . . . ah . . .” I purse my lips, remembering the interview. “Can I think on it?”

“Think on it!” He seems floored. I’m sure people haven’t said no to him in a long, long time. His gray eyebrows scrunch together like caterpillars kissing, and then he breaks out into a laugh. “All right! All right. Think on it. You have until tomorrow—then it’s going to the guy with the beard,” he adds, not waiting for me to come to a decision, then leaves the sound booth. When he’s gone, LD and I exchange a silent look before we both clamp onto each other’s hands and scream for bloody, unconditional, blessed-be joy.

I got the internship. I got it!

By being me.

Chapter Thirty-Five

LD booked us a room in Hotel Douris down in lower Manhattan. It’s an old but charming hotel, fifteen stories tall, the color of cream and peach. When we check in, the hotelier actually takes my duffel bag off my shoulder. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m walking on cloud nine or if this hotel really is beautiful, but everything shines like we’re inside the sun. I suck in a breath, staring up and up and up at the ornate ceilings and the ivy carved into the trim. Murals of cupids and demons stretch across the expanse like a mirror into another, unmoving world. The ceiling reminds me how love ballads sound, sweet and swaying.

The bellhop leads us to a room on the fourteenth floor and sets my bag on the bed, hurrying over to the window to draw back the curtains. The lights from the street come in through the window and give the room a soft glow. LD turns on a lamp on the bedside table.

“Anything else for you, madam?” he asks LD.

“Madam! Aren’t you polite.”

“I can call you Miss, if you’d like,” he replies. He’s tall and lanky, with a head full of golden curls.

She returns a smile. “Sorry, but you aren’t my type.”

The bellboy blushes. “Ah, um—if that’s all, Miss . . .”

“I think we’re good—actually, one thing.” She stops him before he can leave and slips him a bill. I think it’s a fifty. “Maybe a bottle of champagne?”

The bellhop grins, nods, and leaves.

I quirk an eyebrow at LD. “Why LD, I didn’t think you were so sly.”

“Well one of us needs to be crazy, and I don’t think it’ll be you!” she says, and laughs, twirls around, and falls back onto the bed, arms outstretched. I stare out of the window, down at the streets and the passing people. So many people—so many more than I’ve ever seen before.

“Let’s stay here forever,” LD says after a moment, staring up at the smooth ceiling. “Let’s never go home.”

“What’ll we do here?”

“We’ll get jobs. Make a life. Start living—like in all those songs, we’ll make it in New York City.”

I watch the busy streets below our window. Streets where no one knows me. Where I can get lost, and where no one will ever call me bovine names again. “I like the sound of those kinds of songs.”

“Ha!” she scoffs, and rolls over. “If only our lives were songs.”

“You’d be the type of song everyone would sing along to,” I reply, turning back to her.

She stares at the dark TV, her eyes unreadable. “You think?”

“I think so.”

After a few minutes, someone knocks. LD sits up, and like shrugging out of a moth-eaten coat, her face is bright and worry-free again. She gives me a look of mock surprise, pushes herself off the bed, and makes a show of answering the door. “Hark! Now who doth be rapping our chamber d—”

She opens the door, and her words stick into her throat.

A guy, harried, with windswept hair and sweat glistening on his brow, shoves his glasses back onto his face before producing an envelope from his black satchel. “Is there an Ingrid North here?” he huffs. “I’m supposed to give this to Ingrid North—”

“I’m here,” I reply as LD snatches the envelope and begins opening it. I peer around her to get a look at what’s inside. “Who’s it from?”

“Jason Dallas,” he replies.

Inside the envelope are two front-row tickets to his concert tonight, along with the note, “It seems it wasn’t a good romance after all. My condolences, from my blackheart to yours.”

My throat constricts. So Dark never called. He could’ve never known. It was just a two-hour window. Besides, who would be crazy enough to admit it on public radio? And not only that, but who would be crazy enough to call? To get on a plane and leave?

I am disappointed, but not because Dark didn’t call. I’m disappointed that all of the good romances seem to end with the girl getting her man. Where are the romances where a girl gets her best friend?

I flick the tickets up and show them to LD.

“I don’t have anywhere to be tonight,” she says, “if you’re planning on taking a friend.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Madison Square Garden.

The concert venue to end all concert venues. The cream of the crop. The heaven in music hell. The last place on earth I ever thought I’d be. At the concert of the year—maybe even the decade. The concert that was supposed to be Roman Holiday’s first Madison Square gig, but turned into Jason Dallas’s, too.

By the time LD and I hail a cab to get over there, BLACKHEARTS and Holidayers (Roman Holiday fans) alike are rubbing elbows just to get inside. You can practically feel the ghost of Holly Hudson in the crowd like a heavy blanket. It was no secret that this was her dream venue. I didn’t even know the girl—or like her music—and I still feel bad.

LD and I worm past half-drunk college frat boys with mini-bottles stuffed in their cargo shorts and teens with “BLACKHEARTED” T-shirts on and smeared eyeliner. Two types of people I never thought I’d see together, like Micah and Heather, to be honest. Oil and water. Vinegar and butter. They rub elbows and mix and mingle like seasonings in a stew that bubbles with the tune to Jason Dallas’s “Shotgun Heartache.”

I have such a death grip on my ticket that when we finally get to the hallway that lets out into the floor seats, the usher has to smooth mine out against the wall just to scan it.

“Hate the crowd, Iggy?” LD teases with a crooked smile, slinging her arm around my shoulder as we make our way to our seats. Front-row seats. Middle.

“I feel like an awkward appendage,” I mutter.

She nods sympathetically. “Think of all the men with them. So much foreskin, so little foresight.”

I crack a smile. “You’re terrible.”

“But you still love me.”

“Forever and ever,” I agree.

She throws her head back with a laugh, hugging me tighter.

The usher points to our seats, and we make our way down the row to them. A guy in a backward hat and a “BLACKHEARTED” T-shirt gives us a side eye. “’Sup?” he asks LD.

She inclines an eyebrow. “’Sup, bro?”

Then he turns back to his friends and mutters something about who we had to screw to get these seats. LD pretends not to hear, tucking her purse under her seat. I sit down next to her and marvel at how close we are to the stage. I could spit and probably hit Jason Dallas if I want to.

“Jason Dallas must not hate you that much,” she says to me, trying to ignore the douche bro beside her. “I mean, these seats are killing it.”

“Maybe it’s all one big joke though? Maybe these are the worst seats. Maybe these are the spit seats.”

“Spit seats?”

“Yeah, you know when performers spit when they’re singing or talking? That spit goes somewhere.”

She cringes. “Thanks for that.”

“I still can’t believe I actually interviewed him, and I can’t believe . . .”

“I know, Dark didn’t call.”

“I was going to say I can’t believe Jason’s a fan.” I grin, and she grins, too. “It’s so cool!”

“Isn’t it?” she agrees happily. “And that was a damn good interview—”

Suddenly the lights flicker. She gasps, patting my knee. “Ooh, it’s starting!”

Then she jumps to her feet. She’s the last voice I hear before the screams from the crowd become deafening, the Garden so dark all I can see are the cell phones flashing in the darkness like high-definition lightning bugs. We get to our feet, and she grabs my hand and holds it tightly.

I close my eyes and revel in the noise.

All the noise.

Chaos multiplied. A hundred thousand earthquakes. A song no one knows and no one can write the lyrics to. The melody is every sound in unison, an idiosyncratic symphony of vibrations. It pierces straight through me, like a bullet wound, so loud and raw I can’t hear myself anymore. Not my heartbeat or my thoughts . . . only everyone else, screaming. For a moment, I can fool myself into being everyone else.

I suck in a breath. Hold it. I can’t help it. The stage lights blind us like white lightning. The band comes out. Takes their places. They break into the hit “Shotgun Heartache” and the crowd somersaults into the lyrics, screaming them so loudly they screech through their throats. Everyone knows the words. If you don’t know “Shotgun Heartache,” then you live under a rock.

“Roman Holiday didn’t show up,” LD shouts into my ear. “I don’t see them!”

“Then they’re missing out!” I reply.

Jason comes out from the wings and grabs the microphone on the stand. The blood-red scarf tied to the microphone glitters like confetti. He puts a hand up to his ear. “What, I’m sorry, are you people singing?”

And that just prompts everyone to sing louder. The stanza repeats. The band throws up their fists, howling the words as if their hearts beat to them. “This is our last stand. This is where we part. Follow your fortune first. It’s our time to start.”

The crowd is so loud now, their voices quake my rib cage. Everything and everyone are so full of music that it’s impossible to feel anything less than alive.

“This is my love song for all the lost, time to fire the warning shot!”

The Prince of Punk steps up, straightening, unfurling, and for a breathless moment he is made of nothing but music, and then his voice crackles across the speakers and swirls up into the rafters. The crowd breaks into celebration. They thrust up their fists, singing along, the first stanza carrying into the second, and then the third, the crowd pushing and pulling against each other in the rush of the music.

This is my first concert, and I refuse to do anything less than sing the entire thing. This moment is everything. It’s all the moments I thought it could be. I want to bottle it up and share it, tell the world Look at where I went. Look at what I did. Didn’t see that, did you?

I want to share it with—

The lyrics fall off my tongue, a sturdy realization coming over me.

I want to share this moment with Billie.

And then it hits me—it hits me like a bullet train or the whiff of sunflowers just after they unfurl in spring or the sound of a Cadillac cresting over the hill into town—I want to go home.

Home.

To Steadfast. To my radio show.

I want to climb into that watchtower with a bottle of Diet Coke and a pack of Twizzlers and tell Billie how much I really do like him, and I want to tell him before he leaves forever—and before I leave forever. Because if I learned anything from coming here, it’s that you only have one chance.

I want to be bold, and be brave.

I want to be my own North Star.

“Hey—watch it,” I hear the douche bro snap to another guy in the front row. They’re trying to get as close to the stage as possible, pushing and shoving. Someone elbows LD into me. We stumble into the swanky-looking people beside us. The douche bro says something incredibly nasty to one of the other fans, and then I see a fist—and then someone jumps onto someone else’s back. It turns quickly into chaos.

Jason Dallas’s guitarist—bless him—grabs his microphone and shouts, “Security! Security!” but it’s about two seconds too late.

I don’t even have time to blink before LD shoves me out of the way. The douche bro’s fist slams into her face with a crack, and blood goes everywhere.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Ow, ow, ow! That hurts!” LD cries, jerking away from the medic. Her entire right eye is purpling, her rouge-red lips split. She’s bleeding from a gash on her forehead, framed by her now-drooping victory curls.

The medic tosses around the words “CT scan” and “concussion”—words neither of us like. She winces when he shines a light into her eyes, and he mutters something under his breath. When LD took the punch for me, a medical officer and two policemen came and escorted us out into a medical area for the drunks who fall and bust their nose or fangirls who faint during the show . . . and saviors who get punched in the face.

The douche bro is sitting in a corner chair, handcuffed, until the police take our statement and they lead him out.

“Seriously, I don’t have a concussion,” LD tells the medic. “I’m good. I’ve gotten beat-up worse. You should see me on bad days.”

“I still think you need to go to the hospital,” the medic replies. He’s a youngish guy, maybe mid-twenties. He’s wearing a “BLACKHEARTED” pin on his stethoscope. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

“Hmm.” He jots something else down, then listens to her heart. When she checks out, he still says, “I think you need to go to the ER.”

“Seriously, this is no sweat! If I start feeling worse, I promise I will. It’s just kinda cool I got punched in my first mosh fight.”

The doctor gives her a flat look before turning to me. “Look after her, yeah?” he says, and moves on to a girl who apparently fainted from either a lack of food or too much air coming out of her lungs.

Maybe both.

LD presses a bag of ice against her blackening eye and gives a hiss of pain. “Well, good thing I have VIP status at Sephora. It’ll take a miracle to cover this up.”

“You didn’t have to push me out of the way,” I reply. “I could’ve taken it.”

“Oh, please, let me be the hero for once.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean we are self-rescuing princess, aren’t we?”

“Except you saved me.”

She shrugged. “We’re princesses at least, then—

“Where is she?” A voice cuts through the small room.

The fainted girl on the gurney a few feet down snaps her eyes to the guy asking, and her face forms the perfect expression of astonishment. Then she begins to pale. The doctor hands her a paper bag exasperatedly and tells her to breathe into it. Then he motions toward LD and me. “Over there.”

LD and I exchange a look. She sees the person in question first, and her eyebrows shoot up into her wilted victory curls. “Oh, Iggy, don’t panic but . . .”

The sound of footsteps come closer. A whole army of them. Angry footsteps at that. A guy rounds the gurney to face me. His hair is shoulder length and jet black, but he’s wiggling his fingers into his scalp as if he’s trying to find something. With a click, he pulls a weft of black hair out and tosses it at one of his assistants, who is already holding quite a few of them. It looks like he buzzed half of his head some time ago but just never bothered to upkeep it, so he disguised it instead with clip-ins on one side. Which is funny. And vain.

For the Prince of Punk.

“I give you free tickets out of the goodness of my heart and you pick a fight during the first song?” he snaps, and then gives LD a once-over. “She looks fine to me,” he adds to the doctor, who gives an innocent shrug.

“Have you seen my face?” LD accuses and drops the ice pack. The punk rocker’s eyebrows jump up in surprise. “See, not as pretty now, am I?”

“If you’re that vain, then you’ll never be pretty enough,” he replies.

“Maybe I’m just vain enough to know I don’t need to be pretty; it’s just a perk.”

“Then what are you?”

“Besides pretty?”

“Besides not as pretty,” he corrects.

She looks up into his face, searching it, her lips curving into a smile she only ever gives to me—and now, to him. “I’m the girl who’s going to make sure you know that you were way flat coming into the second chorus.”

His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

She goes on, “And your guitarist came in half a note late. It wasn’t really the best opening, so I don’t think I missed much.”

I stare at her like she’s grown another head, darting my eyes between her and the shocked look on the Prince of Punk’s face. But then slowly it settles into a half smirk, and he outstretches his hand. “And what’s your name?”

“Lorelei,” she replies, and hearing her say her name for the first time since Erin left unfurls the knotted strings around my heart. “I’m Lorelei Darling.”

“Lorelei,” he echoes, and accepts her hand. “I was actually a quarter-step off and Paul meant to come in late.”

“So you mean to sound terrible?”

“So the audience doesn’t get the same thing from the recording,” he replies.

I watch them watch each other for as long as I can stomach it before feeling awkward, and turn to his assistant. “So, did Roman Holiday ever show up?” I ask her.

His assistant shakes her head. “Not once. We heard a rumor they were in North Carolina playing a show instead . . . at a bar—”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Jason Dallas interjects, releasing Lorelei’s hand. “They didn’t come to the show tonight. Their contract is void. And I am going to go celebrate it. Would you two care to join me?”

We give each other a surprised glance, but my best friend recovers with the grace of a cat. “You know I don’t swing your way.”

“And we’ve established I don’t swing yours, but I’ve been in the market for an instrument tech and you have calluses on your hands. Fiddle?”

“Violin,” she replies. “Well, we have a flight in the morning . . .”

“But it’s not morning.”

“And will you pay for us if we miss our flight?”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

Hesitantly, my best friend looks from me to Jason Dallas and back to me. On one hand, I don’t want her to go. I want her to come home with me. I want her to stay. But then I see the miles and miles of possibility stretched between her handshake with Jason Dallas, and I want to see where her story takes her, too.

“I . . . think I’m going to bow out,” I reply, making the decision for her. “I can go home alone.”

“But Iggy,” she begins.

“I’ve got someone waiting at home,” I apologize, and I take her hand and squeeze it tightly. “Go get into some trouble,” I tell her.

She winks and slings the purse over her shoulder. Even with a nose splint, she’s fierce enough to slay dragons with just her eyeliner. “Obviously it’s my middle name. Are you sure you don’t want to come . . . ?”

“I’m positive,” I reply, and give her a tight hug. “Go have some fun. See what sort of possibilities are out there.”

“There’s a few of them,” Jason agrees. “I find more every night.”

Lorelei unravels from me, turns without a moment of hesitation, and wraps her arm into his like a new partner in crime. “So, Jason Dallas, where are we heading?”

I don’t hear his response as they leave me behind.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Once, back in third grade, Mom came to visit. She just showed up one evening with Hawaiian flowers in her hair, and when she pulled me into a hug she smelled of suntan lotion and coconuts. In that moment, I thought she was home to stay. But the next morning she was gone again, having caught a cab to the airport. I cried—I was inconsolable because I didn’t understand why I was always left behind. I wanted to go with her, I sobbed. I wanted to be in every part of her life—no, I just wanted to be a part of it. A small part. Just big enough to leave a hole in her heart if I ever left instead.

This doesn’t feel like that, not wholly, but it’s another person leaving—if only for a night—and I remember what Grams told me when Mom left.

Meetings sometimes break your heart more than good-byes ever will.

Because when one door opens, another closes, and you just hope you’re not still in the room when it does.

I gather up my things and leave, too. The fans have already cleared out of the Garden. Trash and glow sticks and ticket stubs litter the parking lot as I make my way down a street. I don’t know where I’m going, but it doesn’t really matter.

I just walk.

There aren’t any stars in the sky, or if there are I can’t see them from all the light pollution. In Steadfast, there are so many stars it looks like a map of constellations wallpapered to a very tall ceiling. I begin to miss it—just a little—and then I look down.

And the stars are beneath me. The sidewalk glitters in the sleepless lights of the city. A little piece of home. I want to tell Dark about everything. I want to know who he is, I want to say good-bye . . . and I want to never have to.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

My flight leaves the next morning back to Nebraska. Without Lorelei. She texts telling me she’s staying a few days in the city, but she’ll come home. She promises.

I text back that some promises are meant to be broken.

When I land, I have three missed calls from Rooney Quill, wondering if I’ll take the internship. The last voice message is a little more than groveling.

The taxi drops me off in front of my house, and I slide out, pulling my duffel bag higher on my shoulder. Home. But not. Darker, different. Grams isn’t home yet—I’m going to have to go get her from the Darlings—but right now I don’t want to live in that reality yet. I need a little time.

Just a tiny bit more.

As I walk toward the porch, someone stirs in the darkness of the stairs.

Micah.

He gets to his feet, his hands in his pockets. He squints against the evening sun. “Hi,” he says.

I take a deep breath, I climb the steps beside him, looking through my duffel for the house key. My stomach isn’t full of butterflies anymore when I see him, and I can’t remember when they started fluttering for someone else. “Been waiting long?” I ask.

“Just a few hours,” he jokes, not really joking at all. I see two soda cans and a candy wrapper pushed between the porch pillars. “So, how was New York?”

“Busy, full, wonderful.” I find the key and insert it into the lock, jiggling the handle to get it to open. The door yawns open into the dark, and vacant, house. Is this how this house will feel without Grams? It doesn't feel like it used to.

I drop my things inside and close the door again. We stand awkwardly on the porch for a moment, unable to meet each other’s gazes, and then I can’t stand it anymore. I turn and head back down the steps.

He follows me. “Going to get Grams?”

"Yeah, from the Darlings."

"Where's LD?"

"Lorelei stayed."

"In NYC?"

"Yeah."

At the end of the road, we turn down Corley toward the Darlings' house. It's a white house on the end of the street with a white picket fence and Grams framed in the window. I climb the steps to the Darlings' front door, and pause before I ring the doorbell. I turn back to him. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah, what?"

"Do you love her?”

His shoulders stiffen. He drops his gaze to his scuffed Converses. “Yeah, Igs. I think I do.”

“And she loves you too, right?” When he doesn't say anything, but doesn’t deny it, either, I return back down the steps to where he's standing and kiss him on the cheek. “It's okay. I'm glad."

"You are?"

"Now I am. I'm just glad I have my friend back."

He kicks the ground bashfully, and looks up through his dark lashes. "I've missed you, too."

"You know what I learned from all this?”

"Don't fall in love with friends?"

"No, just don't fall in love with you."

He smiles, and I realize with a pang of sadness that I’ll never see the smile Heather sees. I’ll never find out how wide it is or how bright it shines. But I think it’s going to be okay, because this smile is just as good—and this smile, for this moment, is for me.

“So . . . wanna go catch a bite to eat Saturday night? I got stuff with . . . well, stuff with Heather, but Saturday night she’s hanging out with her friends. It could be like old times, yeah? Just me and you—what do you say?”

I’ve been waiting all summer for this exact moment. For some semblance of what we were. But I’m not the girl I was at the beginning of the summer, and I don’t want to be that kind of girl again.

I give him an apologetic look. "I can't . . . I’ve got plans.”

“C’mon, Igs, what kinda plans could you have on a Saturday night in Steadfast?”

“You can listen in, if you want." I hurry back up the steps to the front door.

"What?"

"Listen in! Saturday at midnight; 93.5 KOTN.”

“The . . . radio?”

"Of course!" I ring the doorbell. "It’s a little-known fact, but when midnight rolls around, I own the night.”

Chapter Forty

When I show back up for work Thursday, nothing’s changed. Not that I expect it to. I’ve changed, but Steadfast never does.

Heather’s leaning against the registers like a sentry, waiting for me with her usual scowl. She points back to the Twizzlers aisle. “I organized them—again—so don’t mess them up. You have the gum ball machine today. I just got my nails manicured.”

I grab a bag of gum balls from the shelf in the break room and drag it out to the front, onto the counter. “I did it last time,” I complain.

“And?” She looks down at her phone, scrolling through her social media feed. “If it doesn’t get done, then fine.”

I stare at her for a long moment, feeling more pity for her than anything else, then drag them over to the gum ball machine and ask her for a quarter. She fishes one out of the register and tosses it to me. I plunk the quarter in and half turn the nozzle so the gum ball hole opens, and I shove the first gum ball inside.

“Hey, Ingrid,” she begins as I look back to her.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks—” Her phone rings, and she answers it, hopping up to sit on the counter. She pulls one leg over the other, picking the lint off her red-and-white-striped apron. “Hello? Oh, Lila, yeah I heard it Saturday. Whatever—so, apparently Mike, because he’s like a total insomniac, found this really cool radio show last night.”

My hand freezes in the gum ball machine.

“Yeah, she heard from a Tumblr group and like it’s all the rage—whatever. So, like, I was thinking we should go up to that super weirdo who runs the radio station up the street and ask him to throw a listening party. Everyone’ll love it. Like, we have nothing else to do—” Heather notices me staring and makes a face halfway between a scowl and a glare, then turns around. “Sorry, so what do you say? Yeah? I mean, it’s totally relatable and the girl who does it is so clueless that she loves Dark and Brooding—right?” She giggles. “It’s like a romantic comedy. They should make a movie out of it.”

“It’s called Sleepless in Seattle,” I mutter, sticking another quarter in the slot, twisting the crank, and shoving another gum ball in; then another.

My mortal enemy is talking about me, about my radio show, about how cool I am. I wonder how she would feel if she knew it was me. Would I still be cool? I used to think there was a difference, between Niteowl and Ingrid—a girl trapped in a town and a girl trapped on the airwaves. When did I draw that line? And when had I crossed it?

Heather finally hangs up and turns back to me. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then says, “Hey, do you listen to Niteowl?”

I hesitate, rolling a gumboil in my hands. “Not really . . .”

“You should. She’s pretty cool—”

The bell above the door dings and we both turn to Mike Labouise. My shoulders slump.

“Hey, girl,” he greets, sauntering in.

“Hi,” she replies curtly. “Here to buy something?”

“Nah, just come to look around,” he replies, and his foot brushes against the bag of gum balls. I’m not sure if it’s an accident or on purpose (let’s be honest, it’s the latter), but they go skittering across the floor. A few roll under the shelves. Those will come out of my paycheck. “Whoops, sorry about that.”

“Mike,” Heather says. It sounds flat. A warning?

“Oh, come on; she could use the exercise.”

I stare at the gum balls on the floor.

Am I really spending my life in a candy store shoving gum balls up a machine? In the glass of the machine’s bowl I can see my reflection, my eyes bloodshot from going to bed at two and waking up at eight to make it to this terrible job that pays minimum wage, with a girl I can barely stand, living in a house I always thought was home, but home doesn’t even remember my name sometimes. Grams told me she doesn’t want to be a burden. She was never the burden. It’s my own dreams deferred that are my burdens, and I’m so sick of drowning in them.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna say something?” Mike eggs.

“Sure,” I say, getting to my feet. I dust off my white pants. I turn to face him. “What do you want me to say?”

His mouth flops open.

“Oh no, Boo’s here to pick on me again—poor me! I’m so scared!” I mock, throwing my arms in the air. He glances at Heather, confused. “Making my life a living hell must really get you off.”

Heather chews on her lip to keep herself from laughing as Mike pales. “The fuck you say?”

“Oh, come on, Boo,” I taunt. “Can’t you take a joke?”

“That’s not funny—”

“Oh, now it’s not funny, but you bullying me is? Let me tell you something, it’s not. It was never funny. And you,” I turn to Heather, “you just let it happen, don’t you? You don’t do anything about it, you never did. I know you don’t like it, but you don’t stop it. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Heather’s eyes widen. Her lips form into a perfect, glossy O.

“Or are you just scared of what other people might think? Scared you won’t be cool anymore? Bless, you have this great boyfriend and you won’t even show him to your parents! He loves you!”

Heather sinks back, her face a stone mask. There are tears glistening in her eyes. I didn’t think Heather could cry, and I’m sorry I’m the cause of it. Mike tries to grab me by my shop apron but I sidestep out of his grip. “At least she’s not fat like you!”

“Because being fat means I’m evil! Or that I’m not worthy! Or what—that I’m less than you?” I laugh. Turning around, I scoop a handful of gum balls from around my feet and throw them at him. “And for your information, I prefer VOLUPTUOUS!”

At that exact moment the front door swings open, and Bossman enters whistling Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”. The gum balls ricocheted off the back of the door and drop like bullet shells onto the ground. Bossman closes the door, as if flying gum balls hadn’t almost killed him, and slowly pivots on his heels to me. Mr. Harvey—Bossman—is a short ginger-haired middle-aged man who always wears suspenders and pleated trousers, even though he’s only thirty-five. He gives me a wide-eyed look behind magnifying glasses that make his eyes bulge like a comical anime character’s, and I quickly hide my other hand full of gum balls behind my back.

“She’s gone nuts!” Mike shrieks. “I was only trying to help and she’s gone insane!”

“Ingrid . . .” Bossman says my name slowly, like talking to a two-year-old. “What are you doing?”

“He was threatening me,” I say. “He came in here and started messing with me.”

“Heather?” he asks her. “Is that right?”

Heather chews on her lips, darting her green eyes between Mike and me, and back to Mike. I know where her loyalties lie. And I know my job here is done.

“It’s okay, Heather,” I take off my apron and hand it to the Bossman. “I quit.”

He blinks at me as if he doesn’t understand the words. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said I quit,” I repeat and make my exit, gum balls rolling after me as I leave. But then I pause in the doorway to add, “Be sure to tune into 93.5 this Saturday at midnight. You’ll be in for a treat.”

Then I fling open the door and leave Sweetey’s Sweet Shoppe for the last time in my entire life. It feels good. Buoyant. Like I’m paving a road I’ve seen in the distance, but never dared to travel.

Chapter Forty-One

Friday passes like molasses. I keep listening to Rooney Quill’s five messages (mostly the one where he grovels). I surf the Internet, pulling up sound bites from yesterday’s radio broadcast. My voice sounds foreign to me, an out-of-body experience. If I go, I can’t do the radio show anymore. I won’t talk to Dark, I won’t see Billie. I’ll have to intern for Rooney Quills, who wanted me to ask those terrible questions. Maybe I’ll have to again, and maybe next time the interview won’t go so well.

But if I don’t go . . .

This turmoil leads me to sitting on my bedroom floor Saturday night, staring at my phone and the five missed calls from Rooney Quill, and wishing my phone could tell me what to do. As if on cue, it lights up with Lorelei’s face, and I jump to answer it. “You’re alive!”

“Far from dead!” she laughs. “Miss me?”

“So much,” I reply earnestly. “How’s . . . everything?”

She waits a beat before answering. “Iggy, it’s like . . . like I fit in here. Not all of me. But more pieces. Jason really is a tool, but he reminds me of Micah—in a good, less lousy way. I wish you were here.”

“I wish you were here,” I agree. “But I’m glad you’re there. What did Jason say about that job he mentioned?”

She scoffs. “Like I’ll be a sound tech.”

My stomach drops.

“But I am auditioning for a minor role in his touring band. Just for shits and giggles.”

“Holy shit, yeah?”

“Yeah. I probably won’t get it, but . . . it’s a step in the right direction. It’s something. Like I’m finally in motion.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Life is dull without you, Iggy,” she goes on. “Pack up and come back.”

Come back, as if I belonged there instead.

“I . . . think I will.” It’s the first time I’ve decided it, but the moment I voice it I realize it’s true. I want to be there. Home will always be with Grams, but home is also wherever I am, too. “I have to do something here first.”

“I know you do. Good luck, my love,” she says, “I’ll be listening.”

“Thank you.”

After I hang up, I go downstairs to find Grams in the living room, reading another of her magazines. She looks up with a smile, still remembering that I was gone for a day. She asks me how it was, and I tell her everything—about the city, the interview, the concert. How the smell of the city still clings to my skin, how I walked on stars instead of watched them orbit over me, how even surrounded by a million people, I never felt more at home.

“I . . . I think I’ve got my mom’s heart after all,” I say, a little embarrassed. “I want to travel. I want to go places.”

“Your mother didn’t want to travel,” Grams replies. “She wanted to run away, and she’s been running ever since.”

“I don’t want to run.”

She nods, and then she gasps, snapping her fingers. “Oh, I know I forgot to tell you something! Billie came looking for you while you were gone.”

I almost drop the magazine I’m shuffling through. “He . . . he did?”

“The poor boy said he wanted to see you one last time before he left. And he wanted to give you this.” She shuffles to the kitchen and digs through her purse, taking out a CD.

It’s Jason Dallas’s first EP—a collector’s item. I can see where Billie tried to scrape off the price sticker on the top left corner but couldn’t get it all the way gone. Some of the letters are missing, but it says “MANIFEST.” The record store in North Platte.

Wait, was that why we went to North Platte? So he could pick this up? Was that why he was talking with the redhead with those snakebites?

He wasn’t flirting with her?

My heart rises into my throat like a helium balloon.

“Is he gone?” I croak. Even as I say it, I’m standing and grabbing my phone and keys.

“I’m not sure, dear,” she replies. “I’m a bit funny in the head these days, although I’m still taking my medicine.”

“I know.” I kiss her forehead. “I won’t be home until after midnight, is that okay?”

“Sneaking off like you do every Saturday,” she says, and tsks. “Must go somewhere wild, do you?”

Of course she caught on. I wonder how long she’s known I’ve been sneaking out? There’s a radio on the mantel that I start to tune to 93.5—but it’s already there. I want to think it’s weird, but I should know better.

You can’t keep secrets in a town like Steadfast.

Grams wags a finger at me. “I might be old, but I’m not senile yet,” she says. “Now go catch your boy, Niteowl.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I kiss her again—because, bless, I’ll miss kissing her—and set out in a run, hurtling out the door and onto the lawn, in the opposite direction of the blinking red light of the radio tower. I punch in his number, but it goes to voice mail. I try three more times.

He doesn’t answer.

I’ve never been good in PE. I’m terrible at endurance. But I don’t have much time, and I can’t be late for my radio show. The shortcut to Billie’s house is a worn path in my head from the summer when we rode our bikes through the neighbors’ yards and scaled fences. My knees are permanently scarred from all the falls and all the scrapes and scratches, and they might be knobby and they might hurt sometimes, but I wear them proudly like badges. Even though we’ve all grown and changed, LD, Micah, Billie, and me, the yards have stayed the same. The swing sets have gotten older, the dogs grumpier, the shrubs higher—but it’s all the same and leads to the same blue vinyl house I’ve always known.

The porch light’s on, and the cars are home. Maybe Billie is, too. I can’t think about if he isn’t. He has to be. I don’t want to have missed him again.

I remember the summers his dad used to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of fireworks and put on a show on the Fourth of July. We’d all sit on the grass, drinking milkshakes Mrs. Perez made, the taste a sticky-sweet vanilla. Billie always had this concentration the rest of us didn’t. He wouldn’t tear his eyes away from the sky for an instant, not wanting to miss a single firework. I’d shift and wiggle—I hated sitting still.

“Pay attention, North,” he’d say, never taking his eyes away. “It’s the good part.”

But all of it was the good part. The fireworks, the ice cream, the summers cutting through lawns. Our entire lives have been the good part. And I don’t want to miss any more of it.

I ring the doorbell, and his mother answers. “Ingrid! Billie said that he just missed you going to New York! He didn’t think you’d be back.”

“Is he home?” I ask, breathless.

“No, actually he just stepped out . . .” She frowns, noticing my flushed cheeks. “Is something wrong? Want to come in and wait?”

“I can’t,” I reply, wiping my damp forehead with the back of my hand. My heart thumps down into my stomach, and sits there like coal. I missed him—again. And I don’t have time to wait. “Can you tell Billie to tune into KOTN in fifteen minutes?”

“That’ll be midnight!”

“I know. It’s—it’s important. Please?”

“Of course, Ingrid! Do you want him to give you a call?” she shouts after me as I make my way back onto their lawn.

“Sure!” I reply, and finally turn toward the red blinking light. Star light, star bright, I think, staring up at my old North Star, knowing there is only one thing that I could wish for.

RADIO NITEOWL

SHOW #165

AUGUST 4th

NITEOWL: Happy midnight, my fellow Owlers! With a heavy heart I'm here to say this'll be my last broadcast from radio nowhere. You all have been through a lot with me over these last few years, and I'll forever be grateful for it. Thank you for being my ears, for being my diary, for trusting me with your hopes and dreams and aspirations and lost loves. I feel honored to have gotten to know all of you, so thank you. You have all shared so much, and I've shared so little . . . I think I should change that. My name is Ingrid North, and I'm from a small town in Nebraska. I lived with my grandmother, who is my world, and I have three amazing friends who have made me who I am. I'm not sure what my future holds after this, but whatever it is, I hope you'll be with me for the journey. Caller One, you’re on the air.

CALLER ONE: Like, did you really interview Jason Dallas?

NITEOWL: I did! He was very nice. Got front-row tickets to his concert, too. The one that Roman Holiday didn't show up at. Great concert.

CALLER ONE: So he's not a complete tool?

NITEOWL: He could be, but he seemed perfectly nice to me! Give him a chance. Everyone deserves two. Or three. Caller Two, anything?

CALLER TWO: So what're your plans after this? Anything on the radio?

NITEOWL: Oh, I'm a radio heart. I'll never abandon it! Thank you for your call. Caller Three, how are you?

DARK AND BROODING: Hi.

NITEOWL: Oh . . . oh, hi! I didn't think you'd call.

DARK AND BROODING: I'm sorry. The timing's just never been right. And I’m sorry I never called the Swish. I was listening but . . . that timing wasn’t right, either.

NITEOWL: It’s okay. I’m glad you called now. And this is it. The last show.

DARK AND BROODING: That sounds so final.

NITEOWL: Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t—but I just want to say that it’s been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for everything. For being there, for listening, for talking with me . . . I don’t think there are enough words to describe how much I want to thank you. And I’m going to miss you, Dark. I’m probably going to miss you the most.

DARK AND BROODING: I’m going to miss you, too.

NITEOWL: (laughs sadly) So? Should we wrap this up? Did you ever tell your crush you loved her?

DARK AND BROODING: Turn around, North.

Chapter Forty-Two

Someone knocks on the soundproof Plexiglas.

I’m afraid to turn around, not because of what I will find, though, but because how much it will mean. What it will mean. Steadfast is home to three hundred forty-seven people. I know every single one of them. Or, at least I thought I did.

I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I should. Just hearing his voice swells me with a sort of hope I’m afraid to feel. It makes me want to turn around, want to figure out what kind of possibility we could have, or how many cardigans he could fit his bulky shoulders into.

“North,” Dark says over the airwaves, playing over the years and years of my memories, like a dream.

I'm not sure how I missed his voice before.

Slowly I turn my roller chair around.

A boy is standing at the window. He has his cell phone in one hand and a bouquet of orchids in the other. His face is flushed, magenta hair askew, as if he ran five hundred miles to get here.

His blue-eyed gaze strikes me straight through the heart like a glass arrow. I know him. I know this golden boy with the pink hair.

Billie Bleaker.

“There’s someone here,” I say into the mic, but what I really mean is you’re here. As though I’ve been waiting, waiting for a person to come to my window.

What had Dark said at the beginning of the summer, that he’d been in love with a girl who loved someone else? That was me? I remember all the times he almost said something, the scrunched look on his face, the moments when something was on the tip of his tongue but I always walked away or changed the subject or forgot to listen.

But I’m listening now, and here he is with a bouquet of white orchids.

And this time, they’re for me.

I open my mouth to begin to say something—anything—when he blurts, “I’m sorry I changed, but I needed to. I needed to be someone else for a while. I’m sorry you didn’t think it was still me, but it was. I’m still me. I’ll always be. Remember the night Dad died? I ran into the sunflower maze. You were the only one who found me. We stayed there all night, remember?”

Frowning, I think back into my memories. That night was a blur of half-formed memories. I was sitting down with Grams watching Jeopardy until the phone rang. Grams answered it, and it was Billie’s Mom saying that Billie ran away. She couldn’t find him. She was worried. Grams quickly gathered her things and told me to stay put, that she would come back, but I knew she couldn’t find Billie. I knew where he was, and I found him, and we . . .

We had Twizzlers and Diet Coke, and we laid in the watchtower all night, and I held his hand as he cried. He cried all night, I think, until we fell asleep and the police chief found us a few hours after dawn.

Why didn’t I remember that?

“But you’re the golden boy,” I say dumbly.

“And I’m Dark. I’m funny sometimes, and sometimes I’m not. I talk too much, and I don’t say the right things and I’m still trying to figure out who I am—but I know one thing. I love that you bite your lip when you’re nervous, and your closet of tacky sweaters—”

“They’re eclectic,” I argue.

“And I love the way you get this crinkle in your brow when you’re mad, and I love the way you see the world. I love how you’re loyal, and I love how you’re honest.” He presses his forehead against the soundproof window, as if the question's too hard to answer. “And—like Billy Crystal running like a fool through New York in that movie, I ran all this way because I realized that when you love someone, you want to tell them as soon as possible,” he says, staring into my eyes with so much conviction I never think to doubt him.

I get up from my chair and hesitantly open the studio door. He meets me in the doorway, lowering his cell phone. I can feel his body heat radiating from him like the sun, and oddly enough I just want to get closer. Somehow, closer, even though I'm already so near I can smell his aftershave, and connect the constellation of spots on his face and neck and the sliver of chest between the open buttons of his plaid shirt.

“Me?” I whisper. “Me?”

“You’re my North Star, North.”

Then he leans down and kisses me.

He tastes like Twizzlers and Diet Coke and summer nights. I drink in the way his mouth moves against mine, and the sound of my heartbeat, and the hurt in my chest, so full of all the maybes I feel like I just might explode.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my mouth. “I should've told you a million years ago how I felt—I didn’t know how.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I’m sorry I made you.” His hands cradle my face as he pulls away for a moment. “But I’m not sorry for wearing your duck sweater.”

“You totally stretched it out.”

“Call it a boyfriend cardigan.”

My mouth smiles against his. Boyfriend, I like how that sounds. “I’ll just buy you one and we can match.”

He laughs, and we're staring, staring into each other’s eyes as if we want to drown in each other. Maybe we do, maybe we already have, drinking each other in like Diet Cokes in the middle of a maze. “So, I held up my end of the promise. I told the girl I loved her. It’s your turn.”

“Oh, my friends are a bunch of blockheads,” I muse, remembering the first time we talked over the airwaves. It feels like eons ago, and now I know why talking to him felt so natural. Because I have been—for my entire life. “They couldn’t see love if it came hurtling at them from a canon.”

“But if they could?”

At the booth, the phones begin to ring, their little lights flickering to life like new stars. I ignore them, my world the narrow space between gold and dark, sunflowers and night skies. “I’d tell them,” I whisper, “that I’m a kiss away from liking a dark and brooding Golden Boy.”

I feel his mouth curve up into a grin, and he says against my lips, “Then I better fix that. I love you to the moon and back, North.”

"And all the stars in between," I reply.

He kisses me again under the flickering neon of the radio sign, before it finally blinks out.

Acknowledgements

We Own the Night was a very different book when I first wrote it. It’s evolved over the years as I’ve grown to know Iggy—and myself. When I was her age, all I wanted to do was leave my suffocating and small southern town. I wanted to chase my dreams. Move to a big city. Get away. And, spoiler, I did. But unlike Iggy, I didn’t see all of the things I would leave behind.

But—and I’ll tell you a secret Iggy and I know—going away doesn’t mean leaving things behind. You take them with you. You carry them on the plane, tucked comfortably into a small nook in your heart so wherever you are, you are home.

This book wouldn’t be possible without those friends and family.

To my brilliant editor, Meredith Rich. Iggy would’ve gone off the air a long time ago without you. To Eric Smith, who has championed me through writing and life with unending motivation and support. Bro, he’s cool. To my writing friends—Nita Tyndall, Jarad Greene, Christianna Marks, Rae Chang, Hannah Fergesen, Bess Cosby, Lauren Spieller, and a few others I’ve forgotten--thank you for putting up with me during my god-awful writer’s blocks, and for brainstorming with me, and those last-minute coffee dates. To all the readers, reviewers, and bloggers who loved and supported my first book, The Sound of Us—thank you for being the light at a very long tunnel. To my writing playlist—especially the band Motion City Soundtrack—because this book was built on their album Even If It Kills Me. They might be defunct now, like a fictitious pop-rock group I know, but their music survives.

And finally, to my parents.

Wherever I am, I carry you with me.

About the Author

Ashley Poston’s fangirl heart has taken her everywhere, from the houses of Hollywood screenwriters to backstage at music festivals to cosplaying at geeky conventions. She graduated with a BA in English from the University of South Carolina, and now lives in New York City where she can occasionally be seen sitting in coffee shops doing what she does best—procrastinating.

Tweet her at @ashposton and read her blog at www.casuallybeingweird.com.

Wondering where Roman Holiday and Jason Dallas got their start?

Find out in

THE SOUND OF US

from Ashley Poston

THE DEATH OF ROMAN HOLIDAY

John Birmingham

The Juice, June Issue #327

Even if you haven’t heard of Roman Holiday, you have. Multi-platinum and award-winning, the trio of young bright things—Roman Montgomery, Holly Hudson, and Boaz Alexander—have made a name for themselves with breakout hits like MTV’s Video Music Award winner “My Heart War” and the Billboard-crushing “Crush On You.” At their last concert in San Antonio over a year ago, fans stood in line for three hours to snag exclusive tickets to the venue, and their Madison Square Garden gig sold out in twenty minutes flat after fans stood in line for two days in the sweltering New York City summer heat.

There seemed to be no stopping Roman Holiday.

Then, tragedy struck the former pop rock sensation when one dark June evening last summer, Holly Hudson was found dead in her LA apartment.

“[Holly’s] death took us all by surprise,” says musician friend and punk heartthrob Jason Dallas at a recent show in Albuquerque. “We lost the best of us that day. There was no justice in it. It should’ve been Roman, and where is he now?”

Lead guitarist and back-up vocalist, Roman Montgomery had been living with Hudson in the modest West Hollywood apartment where he discovered her body, and what pursued was an avalanche of speculation that it was not suicide at all, but murder. In court, Roman Montgomery refused to state where he had been the night of her death, and without any witnesses to attest to his whereabouts, an LA judge ruled her death accidental.

Hudson had allegedly been taking prescription pain medications for a sprained ankle and a coroner reported alcohol in her system at the time of her death as well.

After Hudson’s funeral in her small hometown of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, both Montgomery and Alexander disappeared without a trace. The award shows were very quiet last year without Roman Holiday, and while they were nominated for both Best Music Video and Best Pop Song of the Year, they went to Jason Dallas.

A year later, Roman Montgomery and his wingman are yet to be found. Muse Records has issued a last offer for the duo to return to their contracts before they become void in August. The fans of Roman Holiday—Holidayers—have pitched tents in front of Muse Records, pleading for an extension. They haven’t given up on this star-crossed band, but perhaps it’s finally time.

The last shot for Roman Holiday was their pre-scheduled event at Madison Square Garden this July 27th. According to the band’s manager, this was Holly Hudson’s dream gig. Now, Holidayers around the world hold onto the last vestiges of hope that Montgomery and Alexander might reemerge to claim their rightful place.

Will Roman Holiday reunite for one last gig in the name of America’s late sweetheart?

Or will the gig—and Roman Holiday—be left for dead?

It’s a dream.

Although, that doesn’t seem to deter him. His hand slides up my arm, slowly, the calluses on his fingertips feeling like sandpaper against my skin, and sends gooseflesh rippling up my body. We’re swaying on a dance floor. People shift around us, shadows, moving to a song that sounds so familiar. I can’t remember the name of it, but he’s humming along. I feel his throat vibrate with the notes as I press my face into the nook between his shoulder and neck. He smells like cinnamon and the sticky sweetness of wine.

I want to ask who he is—but then I stop myself. I’m not sure if I want to know. He pulls me closer into him. His embrace is like iron, complete, solid. It’s a wholeness I can’t explain, like there is nowhere safer, and no place I am more welcome or more at home. The spheres of lights spiral across the dance floor. We’ve stopped dancing, and just stand there in the dark, listening the sound of our breath, my heart to his, existing. He says my name, and my eyes draw up to his. They remind me of melted emeralds. No, I don’t know him at all, but every atom in my body feels like it wants to. “Junebug.”

I jolt up on the couch.

A sliver of light leaks through the closed curtains, and between them, I can see the morning. The beach is sandy white against cobalt waves. I sit up on the couch, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. A runner jogs by down on the surf. I watch him, trying to remember my dream. What was it? Something about green...green what? I frown, and silently study the dark condo. When I fall asleep, I usually have nightmares. The same one, really, repeating the night he died, trying in vain over and over again to...I don’t know. Not save him, because he’s dead. You can’t save the dead.

But in those nightmares, I still try.

The stranger in my dream reminded me of him though, like vanilla reminds you of chocolate, or summer reminds you of the beach, and that only makes me miss Dad all over again. I can still see Dad sitting in the kitchen chair, sipping his morning coffee. Still in those terrible red and yellow swim trunks, belly overlapping his waistband, sunscreen smothering his nose and bald forehead. Sometimes, he passes just out of the corner of my eye, flipping pancakes by the stove, humming “Tequila Sunrise.” And sometimes I hear his footsteps, long but light, like he always had pep in his step, coming out of the bathroom.

I blink away the coming tears. The memories I have of him are so insignificant compared to his life, they hardly do him justice. I’ve almost forgotten what he sounded like, what he smelled like. I’m scared that when I forget, a part of me will die too. Maybe, when I finally forget what he looked like when he smiled, those forgotten memories will leave me hollow and dry.

Sinking back onto the couch, I curl into the blankets and pretend to go back to sleep. It isn’t until three in the afternoon until I finally get my lazy butt off the couch, and put on my bathing suit. I refuse to look into the mirror in the bathroom. I know what I’ll see. Not enough to be anything. Not enough to be too fat and not enough to be too skinny. Not athletic enough, and not flabby enough. I’m short like my dad, and minimally endowed like my mom.

To put it plainly, I’m a wreck in a bathing suit.

Last night while Mom and Chuck played tonsil hockey, I found a magazine Maggie snuck into my duffle without me noticing. The Juice is probably one of the worst tabloids out there. At least, it’s something to read, so I take it down to the pool with me.

I dodge a running kid and flop down in the pool chair beside Darla. “It’s about time you came down. I was beginning to think you’d become a hermit.” She gives me a serious look over her sunglasses. She’s slick with tanning oil, a beer in one hand, and her phone in the other. “Good gravy, your hair is florescent.”

I shrug. “At least you can’t lose me in a crowd.”

Chancing a cautious glance over at Chuck lying face-down in the pool chair on the other side of her, she leans over to me and whispers, “Why did you dye it? You had beautiful blond hair. Is it because they aren’t giving you enough attention? I know after Willy died...things must’ve been—”

“Hard. Yeah.” I flip open the magazine, hoping Darla will get the hint that I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t dye my hair to make a statement, or because I don’t get enough attention at home. I hate attention, so no attention is a dream come true.

I dyed my hair because I realized you only live once. And, besides, it’s not like the Silver Lining has a dress code.

She perks at the magazine. “You a Holidayer, too?”

“No. My best friend is, though.”

“You know, I feel sorry for him. Why on earth would he kill his band mate? Rumor has it he got mixed up on drugs and alcohol and all this craziness. He might have killed her for all we know but he just doesn’t remember!”

“She drowned in her bathtub. The judge ruled her death inconclusive, so whether he did or not, he got a lucky break.” I flip through the magazine. Faces of unfortunate starlets stare back at me from the pages.

“But even if he didn’t do it, it must really be hard when everyone says he did. I mean, if he was a normal person this would just blow over, but he’s famous. “

“Infamous,” I correct, “and I really don’t feel bad for stars. That’s just the risk when you sell yourself for fame.”

Darla barks a laugh, reaches over, and pats my upper thigh. “You’re your momma’s child, that’s for sure—a ball-buster.” She gets up, collecting her towel and beach bag. “I’m off to get a shower. Got a big night tonight!”

“Have fun.” I wave goodbye and turn to the main article in the magazine—the one Maggie has bookmarked with a sticky note saying READ THIS OR ELSE!

My luck she’ll pop-quiz me when I get back, so I might as well try to tough through it. The article was written a month before Holly Hudson’s death. They reprinted it in memory of her. Holly’s face stares back at me, fierce and beautiful, her hair a cascade of brown ringlets. A blue and green peacock feather is tucked behind her right ear. She really was pretty. Not in an exotic way, but hometown pretty, someone you’d see working in an eclectic coffee shop. Throughout the article, The Juice put in the best pictures of her and Roman Montgomery. Having picnics, at the beach, buying coffee, smiling at each other, conveniently leaving out the third member of their band.

I understand why Maggie loves Roman Holiday. Roman and Holly were America’s sweetheart couple—or, they were supposed to be. Never quite official, but always skirting around the edges. They did everything together—wrote music, attended charity events, recorded in the studio. Sometimes it seemed like Boaz was the third wheel. If I feel sorry for anyone, it’s him. Did anyone ask Boaz how he felt about Holly’s death? Or what he thought about everyone accusing his best friend of murder?

The article—We Are Golden—is cliché, but most exposés are. Out of the corner of my eye, Chuck rolls over in his chair and slowly gets up. His entire back is as red as a lobster, and by the way he waddles over toward the vacant chairs beside me he can feel it, too. His swim trunks are outrageous—neon yellow and green. Even if I was blind, I couldn’t miss him. I slap the magazine up so he won’t be tempted to stop for a nice chat.

I try to read on, but I find myself flipping through the pages instead. There’s nothing in it I care about. Some film star got married this past weekend in Las Vegas, and Jason Dallas denied his rumored drug addiction again. I don’t see how Maggie can bring herself to care about people like them—privileged, stupid stars screwing their life up one arrest or failed marriage or nude photo at a time.

Suddenly, fingers crawl over the top of my magazine and tilt it down, and I’m staring into the heart-shaped face of Darla. She gives me a sweet smile.

“Darling, I need a favor.”

So, that’s how I end up at the local stop-n-shop for the second evening in a row buying an economy pack of condoms. I don’t even get to change clothes first. Darla shoves me into her outrageous pink muumuu with a twenty-dollar bill, and hurries me on my way.

Seriously, karma hates me. I’ve never bought condoms a day in my life. I’ve never even seen one before—the night with Caspian notwithstanding. In the store, everyone gives me a wide berth, probably scared that my bad mood is catching.

Or maybe it’s because I look like an all-pink Candy Land reject.

I snag the brand Darla wants and situate it in the nook of my arm so it doesn’t look too conspicuous. Who am I kidding? I look like I’m buying condoms. The box looks like condoms. It has latex written on the top for God’s sake. The only thing I can do is make a quick getaway, but that plan is soon foiled when I get to the checkout and every single cashier is, in classic fashion, is a man. Wonderful.

Old guy with the off-center bald spot it is. I massage the bridge of my nose. The things I do for the change from a twenty-dollar bill. Is this even worth the change? I mean, seriously. Can’t Darla get her own condoms when she’s feeling frisky? At the very thought of Darla and some schmuck doing the old hoedown, I want to shove the condoms into the magazine rack by the register and head for the door.

Behind me, a hand reaches over to pick up a Stars from the rack, and a light, caramel voice says, “’Packed on the Pounds’? That’s shitty Photoshop skills.”

Goosebumps prickle up my arms. I know that voice. Maybe if I stay still, he won’t recognize me.

Junebug, you have pink hair. Like hell he won’t.

“Oh brah, not as photoshopped as that meat-alicious burger. What is that, a Godzilla-Mac?” Another guy laughs. Great, he has a friend this time, who squats down beside me and snags a Cosmo. He has a ridiculous aquamarine mohawk and so many earrings it looks like he has ear armor—wait.

Aquamarine...mohawk?

“Ooh! This one’s better. How to do a pedi at home. Man, pedis are the shit. I had one done in Santa Monica that one time and my feet felt like holy baptized shit for the rest of the week.”

I tilt my head slightly to sneak a peek out of my curtain of hair. Aquamarine mohawk, earring affinity, kilt, combat boots—I might be a bad Roman Holiday fan, but I know Boaz Alexander when I see him. Beside him is my nightmare from last night—tattoos, soda pop orange hair, emerald eyes.

And, if that’s Boaz Alexander then...

Oh, shit.

“Did they scrub the fungus off too?” snickers the tattooed jerkface.

“Bro-ha, you suck.” Boaz flips through the rest of the magazine. “Man, I’m so bored. Hey, I got a killer thought—let’s fire ourselves up and go drunk midnight-mini-ing? YOLO!”

“Say YOLO one more time and I’m leaving your ass here.”

Boaz scoffs. “What crawled up your crack, brah? Be lighter. You’re way too doom-n-gloom

these days.”

“Maybe I like doom and gloom. Together. In a civil union.”

Mohawk rolls his eyes and puts Cosmo back. “I’m going to go get a box of Twinkies. Don’t

ditch me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Like last time, brah?”

“Miss?” the old cashier calls. I whirl my head around, not having noticed that I’m the next in line. Orange-haired jerkface looks at me then, emerald eyes meeting mine, and as the recognition dawns on his face, it dawns on mine too.

Double shit.

His eyes drift down to the jumbo pack of condoms under my arm. A blush begins to creep up the back of my neck, and flood across my face. That sinful, aching grin from last night curls across his lips again. It’s cheshire. It’s trouble.

“I take mine ribbed, actually,” Roman Montgomery says.

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Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York, Oxford, and Sydney

Copyright © 2016 by Ashley Poston

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This electronic edition published in 2016

First published in June 2016

by Bloomsbury Spark, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

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ISBN 978-1-61963-784-9

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