Page 38 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“… That’s like two and a half months away. That’s a little too long to wait for a first date—oh. You’re talking about the book fair.”
Sam’s head bowed as she snickered. “Yep. But interesting that your mind wentthereso quickly, isn’t it?”
“Shut up.”
“Ask her what her rates are for her photo booth thing.”
“Photo booth thing?”
“Marshall says she’s a really creative hobby photographer on the side and has this special camera booth thing that she’s rented out for events. I’ve been brainstorming ways to change things up this year. Fifth year is when things start to get stale if you don’t keep changing it up.”
“She’s a photographer?”
“I’m surprised you don’t already know that.”
Something deep inside me beneath my ribs felt oddly sullen because Ididn’tknow that. Iwantedto know everything about Thea, and I hated I knew so little about her after so many conversations.
Why did I go to sleep so quickly when we were snowed in? Why didn’t I ask her a million questions about herself? Why had I been so involved in my own misery that I hadn’t made the slightest real effort beyond my pathetic attempts at flirting?
I rubbed a tingling spot at my temple. Unfortunately, this was not the crush-on-a-girl type of tingling.
“So excited you’ll be here in person for the book fair this yearinstead of me just bombarding you with pics after. I will say that’s people-watching gold since it’s become a hot spot for a last date night for the university kids right before their exams ramp up…”
I forced a chuckle and then rubbed at the side of my head. “Can’t wait.”
“Okay, so I was kidding before, but now you actually don’t look great.”
I grimaced. I needed to get better at hiding this shit again—not from Sam, but if I ever decided to perform again.
Whoa.
Where did that thought come from?
Even the impending migraine did not churn my stomach as much as the idea of walking out on a stage again did.
“Was there an obvious trigger this time?” Sam asked.
I rubbed the worst areas of tension on my forehead. “That group of tween girls was in here earlier and they sprayed a bunch of perfume in the bathroom. Every now and then I get a whiff of it, and it’s just… it’s super strong. I was hoping I could just work through it.”
Sam frowned at the bathroom door. “This is the third time.Christ, now I smell it too.” Her nose wrinkled. “Will you let me put up a sign at this point?”
“I don’t want to be high maintenance about it.”
“It’snothigh maintenance. It makes you sick, and you work here. I mean, you’re my best friend, but for the record, it’s a pretty reasonable workplace accommodation too. Even if asshole music managers disagree and do whatever thefuckthey want no matter what the consequences are to—”
“I really don’t think the label execfullyunderstood why…” I trailed off with a frustrated growl as the words tangled up in my mouth. This hadn’t happened for a while. “Gah…fuck.”
Understanding what was happening immediately, Sam reached down and handed me a satchel she insisted we kept behind the counter. All of Sam’s emergency diabetes medications were in there as well as my medication. “Fuck that label exec guy. Fuck all of them. They better not step a toe inside Kansas or I’mgoing to kick their asses.” She nodded toward the hall to the office. “Honestly, that smells disgusting. If I ever get pregnant it’ll be good if I’ve already banned gross perfume. Go lie down.”
I grabbed the satchel and my water and headed down the hall, thoughts traveling back to the last time I had borrowed a couch and a dark office. That couch had smelled like scotch, cigarettes, and the staticky smell I associated with all the recording cables.
Since I had started so many new treatments the past couple months, I had absolutely no idea what actually worked. But somethingmustbe. I had gone from twenty migraine days a month to three. There were predictable patterns, and if I preemptively treated them the second I felt symptoms, I didn’t have clusters of multiple bad days in a row.
I should be ecstatic by that type of progress, not feeling panicked from the threat of old memories.
“Fuck,” I said again, this time in a whisper. No matter how bad my speech got with these migraines, there were still certain words I could say without stammering.
And certain memories drove me right to all the profanity.
