Page 12 of For One Night Only

But I know that Valerie’s not the villain in this story. If anything, we’re both antiheroes. My therapist helped me see that there’s no clear good and bad side in this scenario, even if that’s how it looked to everyone else.

And it’s time I told more of the truth. My heart hammers as I try to figure out how to begin.

“It wasn’tmostlyher,” I finally say, letting out a sharp breath. Part of what went down isn’t my story to tell, but I can at least try to explain what happened. “Things were complicated between us in the weeks before, and I’m sure you all felt it. When we got to Vegas for that final show, we were distracted by an argument and it made us both sloppy onstage. After the concert, we stayed back in the greenroom while you all went to get food. I’m not proud ofthis, but…” I clear my throat. “I gave her an ultimatum, and what happened to the band was because of that decision I forced her to make.”

My heart hammers in my ears after I finally admit it out loud, even in vague terms. I’m not some wounded puppy in all this. It was my fault.

I said I would leave if she insisted on hiding our relationship, and she wasn’t ready to make things public.

I didn’t know what they were at the time, but I was having anxiety attacks too. Trying to keep track of which things between us were secrets and what I could share with the press wrecked my mental health. It felt like living a lie. And I was just so tired of collaborating with Valerie at a safe distance in public and being together in secret. I pushed her to make a decision neither of us was ready for, so of course she pushed back.

So I decided the best thing to do was run. My therapist calls it avoidance.

“Dude,” Riker says. “Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

“I was embarrassed?” A dry, bitter laugh escapes my chest. “I was twenty-two and heartbroken, and I ran away from everything instead of facing my feelings.”

“I had no idea,” Riker says. He nudges my shoulder. “That’s why you disappeared for so long, huh?”

I swallow hard, nodding. I told myself I wanted a clean break, but really…I was such a coward. Apologizing to everyone was both one of the toughest things I’ve ever done and long overdue.

My eyes fall to the front door. Through the glass, I can just make out Valerie’s blond strands from her spot on the porch, like she’s standing just outside my view. She’s the one person I never apologized to, because I never knew exactly what to say.

How do you repair a connection that’s been shattered into a million pieces?

Keeley sighs. “So what? I’m not going to just let Valerie off the hook. Whatever happened between you sucks, but nothing I said was untrue—shedoeshave a pathological need to be in charge, and sheisusing this as a last-ditch effort to save her show.”

Valerie probably can’t hear us from her spot outside, but Jane lowers her voice anyway. “Maybe it’s hard for her. The media is eviscerating her reputation, and she probably feels backed into a corner. I heard rumors that The Network won’t renewEpic Theme Songunless she cleans up her image.”

Cleans up her image?Valerie alluded to that at my house, but what is she supposed to do, become a nun? I hate this industry, and that’s part of the reason I left, but just because Valerie stayed doesn’t mean she deserves this. A wash of some kind of emotion ripples through me, and after a beat, I realize it’s indignation. I want to head to The Network offices and yell at everyone who is treating Valerie’s private life like it’s any of their business.

“How’d you hear that?” Riker asks Jane.

“She knows everyone,” Keeley says for her.

“I work on a show for The Network too. I hear lots of things.” Jane sighs. “Personally, I think The Network is using this as an excuse. They’ve been dragging their feet on this show for months, and pinning this on Valerie now is just convenient for them. I’m sure the involvement of another cast member doesn’t help. No wonder she’s scrambling to find a solution.” She clears her throat. “But no matter what started it, I think we all want this to be a good show. Fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“That doesn’t excuse all the ways Valerie hurt us,” Keeley says.

Riker nods. “We didn’t hear about the reunion from her. Everything went through Wade. If we’re going to pull this off, we’re going to need to, like, actually talk to each other the way we used to, figure out our shit.”

I’m definitely not talking to Valerie about our fallout in front ofthe band, but Riker’s right. All these pointed jabs and tense silences are not conducive to the creative process. And it also just sucks. The Glitter Bats used to be the only people in the world who really knew me.

The music bonded us, and once, we thought it was for life.

When we started the band, we were just teens at music camp connecting over s’mores and shared big dreams for what could have been only a summer, if we hadn’t all been so determined. Valerie and I were best friends from the moment we sat next to each other in kindergarten. The rest of us were strangers, and it was just luck—or fate—that we all lived in the Seattle area. Jane and Keeley went to the same high school, but they were in different grades and social circles. Riker didn’t go to school with any of us.

It was tough to coordinate practices, write songs, and find gigs we could actually attend when we were so sprawled out. Only Jane could drive in the beginning, but we were committed to the music, and we made do with Seattle’s public transportation system. We played anywhere that would take us: coffee shops, a random assortment of parties, clubs that allowed underage musicians as long as they stayed away from the bar—one time, we even played for Keeley’s Aunt Daisy’s knitting club. We survived the grind together. In the two and a half years that led to our big break, we became a family.

And we needed one another. With the exception of Keeley, whose family is all sunshine and literal supportive rainbows, the rest of us had a lot of issues at home when we were kids. My parents worked all the time, and Cameron basically raised me and Carrie until she went to nursing school. Valerie’s mom, Tonya, wastooinvolved in her business but never emotionally available to her daughter. Jane’s parents have always been the scary, controlling kind of religious, and Riker’s were one disastrous argument away from their inevitable divorce. We kind of saved one another.

I might not want to be around Valerie this summer, but after the part I played in this band’s collapse, I owe them this. I can suck it up and play my bass, sing my songs, and smile for the cameras.

Valerie steps inside with a stack of pizza boxes before the conversation can turn any more sour.

“Food’s here,” she says quietly.

“Great, I’m hungry!” Jane says, a little too eagerly. The energy in the room shifts with Valerie’s return.

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