But we understand. This is what she wants. We can’t stand in her way.
“Yeah. My work schedule has been really heavy with my new job. All the training,” I tell her when she pulls away.
Ava frowns. “You’re working too much.”
“I have to. I can’t afford tuition like the rest of you,” I say, immediately hating how…bitter I sound.
“I’m with you on that,” Caleb says, holding out his hand for a high five.
I give it to him, my slap and my smile weak, Ava’s careful gaze tracking my every movement.
“We need to get together,” she tells me, her voice firm. “What’s your schedule like this week?”
“Busy,” I say automatically.
Eli magically appears, wrapping his arms around Ava and pulling her into him. These two have been together for almost two years, and they’re madly in love.
“When is this concert going to start?” Eli asks me, as if he doesn’t know.
Jackson and Eli are roommates. They play on the Bulldogs football team together. They spend almost all of their time together, though Jackson was sneaking around, performing at Strummers secretly, never telling any of us. We only found out thanks to Tony’s girlfriend taking him to a concert here where Jackson opened up for another band.
Despite the secrecy, Eli wasn’t fazed. He loves his bro Jackson with his whole heart, and has missed him this summer almost as much as I have.
“It should start at eight-thirty,” I tell him, glancing at my phone. It’s eight-fifteen now. “We’re getting closer.”
The lights suddenly shut off, and the teenagers start screaming. I suppose I shouldn’t think of them as teenagers like it’s a bad word, considering I’m one too, but I feel so much older than them. Graduating high school changes you. Having to work full-time the summer before you start college changes you too.
I’m tired. And wondering if this is all my life will be for the next four years. Constant school and work? I’ll fry my brain completely by the time I graduate. If I even graduate, considering I have no idea what to do with my life after college…
There’s movement on the stage. I can hear it. And just as quick as the lights went out, they come back on, and there’s a giant wooden throne sitting in the middle of the stage. The girls start cheering, and Caleb whoops it up as he usually does. He even gets everyone to start chanting our star’s name.
“Jack-son! Jack-son! Jack-son!”
Over and over and over again, we yell. Until it’s a rumble, a force growing within the room, ready to spill out everywhere. I’m caught up. We’re all caught up, until someone turns up the volume on the music being played in the background. We go quiet and I frown at Ava as I listen to the opening chords. They’re familiar. I know I’ve heard this song before.
Jackson’s voice starts singing and I smile. So does Ava. The groupies start screaming their joy at hearing their young god’s voice and Caleb cups his hands around his mouth to shush them loudly.
I sway to the beat, caught up in Jackson’s words as usual. There’s nowhere I’d rather be. Lost in his lyrics. He switches to the chorus, the words that always get me.
Only for you, I’d hesitate
Only for you, I’d stand and wait
It’s only you that can change my mind
And only you would leave me behind
Yet again I wonder who he’s talking about. Me? I couldn’t be so lucky. He doesn’t wait for me. He barrels ahead with his life without regard for anyone else. It’s not that Jackson is insensitive…
Okay, if I said that out loud to Hayden right now—who’s currently swaying her hips to Jackson’s song while Tony watches her with appreciation in his dark eyes—she’d tell me I was making excuses for him and I need to call him out for his bullshit.
She’s right. Jackson is a bit of a selfish asshole. I have been waiting for him to see me for over two years, yet he doesn’t. I’m the friend. The original groupie. The one who gushed over his talent and hung on to his every word, glance and touch. The idiot who believed he was secretly in love with me, but didn’t know what to do with his feelings.
Ugh. Yes. So embarrassing when I look back on it now.
Diego and his girlfriend Jocelyn show up to join our group, and I study everyone’s faces, grateful for each one of them. Ava and Eli. Tony and Hayden. Caleb. Hayden’s best friend Gracie. I’ve grown closer to all of these people over the last year, and now we’re all going to college together.
Well, except for Ava.