Page 105 of Once Upon a Boyband
“I left Percy at my house with Ringo. And Sarah will be here any minute. I thought you guys might like to read through them together.”
“Sarah knows about these?”
She nods. “She actually drove with me to Hendersonville to pick them up. She looked through a little, but then decided she wanted to wait for you.”
I hate to see Laney go, but I also understand why she wants to give this moment to Sarah.
I walk her out to her car, but Sarah is already pulling up, and she looks like she’s been crying, so Laney and I don’t have much time to say goodbye.
“Thanks for bringing them over,” I say. “I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty wild.”
I hold her gaze for a long moment. “Laney, I’m sorry about this week. That I’ve been so…absent.”
“You kinda do that,” she says. Her tone is gentle, but I still sense the censure in her words. “But you can talk to me about stuff. I know you like to process on your own, and I get that. But if we’re going to do this, you have to answer my texts. You have to let me in.”
She’s right. I know she’s right, but it still takes all my willpower to keep my feet planted, to stay right here withher. I don’t know why I always feel the impulse to flee. But if there was ever a good reason to break the habit, it’s Laney.
“I just get scared,” I say. “And then I think I don’t deserve you, and then the longer I wait, the worse that feeling gets, and then I just spiral.”
She steps forward and lifts her hands to my chest, and I wrap my arms around her waist. “You deserve to be happy,” she says. “You're telling yourself you can’t have a life when your mom is not here because of the choices you made when she was. But that isn’t how life works.”
I drop my eyes, shame washing over me, but Laney moves her hands to my face, her thumbs brushing over my beard. “Look at me,” she says gently.
I force a breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I don’t want to look, but I want to ignore her even less, so I force my gaze to hers.
Her warm hazel eyes are full of love and compassion and understanding, and suddenly my heart is too big for my chest and emotion is climbing my throat with a ferocity that makes me want to punch something and cry at the same time.
“You deserve to be happy,” Laney repeats. “You deserve to have a music career if you want a music career. Or a dog rescue if you want a dog rescue. Or both if you want both. You deserve to love and have people who love you. That’s what your mom would want for you. I know that’s true.”
I pull her against me and bury my face in her hair, letting her words sink in. She smells so good. Familiar and safe and like everything I want in my life. I don’t want to let her go, but Sarah is waiting, and Laney is right. There’s a part of this my sister and I should do together.
And another part I have to figure out on my own.
Sarahand I are up for hours.
It’s weird seeing a catalog of my Midnight Rush years through the eyes of a fan. Even weirder to see Mom’s commentary. But it’s mostly just amazing. She’s funny and encouraging and interested in how the other group members feel about songs and concerts and music videos.
She doesn’t mention me by name very often, which was probably intentional on her part. But in the note she wrote to Laney, shedoesmention me.
@DollyDaeDreams: To @Laneyfeelstherush—you, my dear, are going places! I have loved catching glimpses of you growing up over the past three years. You have matured into a lovely, thoughtful young woman. You’ll be a great vet one day, and I appreciate all the advice about my Marigold! She’s a rotten puppy, but you’ve given me hope she won’t be forever. I know you probably won’t ever meet Deke for real, but I bet if you did, he’d love you just as much as I do.
“For real,” Sarah says as she reads the note over my shoulder. “It’s like she was predicting the freaking future.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t know she was doing any of this,” I say as I turn the page to find a two-page spread fromSeventeenmagazine featuring the four of us looking broody and serious and absolutely ridiculous.
There’s a message board exchange cut out and included at the bottom of the page.
@DollyDaeDreams: Honestly, couldn’t they justphotograph these boys looking like boys? Smiling normally? Like they’re happy to be making music every day? Why so serious?
@laneyfeelstherush: FOR THE SMOLDER. WE NEED THE SMOLDERS!
“I did know,” Sarah says. “I just didn’t know it was such a big deal. She tried to get me to join, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than watching other teenagers fangirl over my brother.”
“Okay, that’s fair.”
It takes me a long time to work up the courage to ask Sarah my next question. In eight years, I’ve never asked. Because I believed I already knew the answer, and I didn’t want Sarah to prove me wrong. Staying angry at myself was easier because anger was better than sadness—than grief.
