As Dust Dances (Play On 2)

“We’ve created a user account on one of our hotel iPads for you, Miss Finch. Should you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you.” I shakily took the iPad from her and closed the door.

My gut churned.

“Here we go,” I muttered to myself.

It took me a while to access my accounts because I’d forgotten a couple of passwords and had to reset them before I could log in.

My heart pounded as I opened the Twitter homepage and saw under the side bar titled “Trends for you”: #FecklessFinch

Bracing myself, I clicked on the hashtag.

There was a barrage of tweets accusing me of deliberately scaring fans and then having the audacity not to speak up now that I was outed as “alive and well.” People had retweeted the interview on YouTube with the band where Brandon got upset. They called me a coldhearted asshole. Fans asked why the guys had forgiven me. Someone even tweeted:

I wish the bitch had died. I’d rather mourn her than be this disappointed in her. #FecklessFinch #FuckYouFinch

Beneath it I could see people call the person out for crossing the line, but it still made me throw the iPad onto the bed. I wasn’t sure how I could still be stunned by that shit, but I was. I scrubbed a hand over my face, wishing for once, just goddamned once, that a pair of ruby slippers that sparkled and glittered and took you to a magical place called Home really did exist.

I slid down the wall until my ass hit the carpet and I stared unseeing across the suite.

Four days ago, I was gloriously happy. I thought I was home.

Then I’d made one call, one phone call, and I’d lost everything. Because I had lost everything, hadn’t I?

My cell rang, jolting me out of my miserable thoughts. I forced myself off my ass to answer it.

It was Killian.

I considered ignoring it, but that would only bring him to the hotel to check on me, and that might make things worse.

“Hey,” I said, curling up in an armchair.

“Hey yourself.”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of his voice, savoring it.

“I wanted to check in. I wish I were there.”

“I know.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

“The hotel is temporary. We’ll find you somewhere else to live.”

I didn’t mind the hotel. “I slept in a tent in a cemetery for five months. The hotel is fine.”

“How are you feeling about the interview?”

Like I want to stab you in the eyeball for making me do this. “Fine.”

“Lois’s notes make sense?”

“They’re fine.”

“Look, there was a lot to discuss yesterday so I didn’t want to overload you, but we think we should move up the schedule for the album cover photo shoot. It would be nice to have it when you do your interview so fans get your apology and the promise of new music. Does tomorrow sound good?”

Is that why you really called? “Fine.”

“From there, we’d like to shoot the video for ‘In the Wind.’”

So you’ve decided that’s my first single without discussing it with me? “Fine.”

He was silent a moment. “Is that the only word you intend to say ever again?”

“I’m too tired to say anything else.”

“Skylar, you don’t know how hard it is for me to see you have to deal with this. You don’t know how hard it was that the bastards surrounded you and I couldn’t even comfort you afterward.”

But it’s not enough. “I know that.” Tears burned my eyes; I blinked them away. “Hey, listen, I’m really tired. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Of course, get some sleep. I love you.”

That tightness in my chest became almost unbearable.

I hung up without saying it back.

Guilt made me feel sick to my stomach. Then I raged at myself for feeling guilty for inflicting pain on him because he’d inflicted pain on me. Unlike mine, however, I knew his wasn’t intentional. Complicated bastard. I huffed and walked back over to the bed where Lois’s notes were.

They had it all planned.

I read through what she wanted me to say. Anger gripped hold of my hands and crushed the papers. The iPad lay on the bed, the screen now blank. I reached over and tapped it. The horrible tweet glowered up at me. I glanced at the crumpled papers in my hand and then back to the iPad.

Killian was right. I did owe my fans an explanation and no matter if I never released another song again, that explanation would have to happen.

However, I wasn’t the Skylar Finch I was back in Tellurian. I’d been seventeen when we signed our first record contract and I was only twenty-two when I lost my mom and quit the band. I’d listened to everything Gayle and our publicists advised. All of it. I did it their way. I let myself be controlled and manipulated. I didn’t think Gayle or any of them meant anything by it. They were doing their jobs, trying to make us a success.

But two years of living alone, living rough, seeing how the other half lived, had changed me. Whether I wanted to admit it or not now, Killian’s and Autumn’s kindness toward me had also changed me.

I wanted to be stronger.

I wanted to be braver.

And most of all, I wanted to own myself again.

I was done doing it their way.

I grabbed the monogrammed notepad and pen from the bedside table and began to write furiously. I wrote everything I wanted to say. It was extremely personal and it was difficult to give them all of it; however, I decided that it was better I did than let other people make damaging speculations.

When I was done, I read the words over and over until they were solidified in my mind. I then opened the camera on the iPad and began to film in selfie mode.

“Hey, everybody. This is kind of a video letter to you all, and it has been a long time coming.” I sighed, running my hand through my hair, my expression filled with self-reproach. “There aren’t enough sorrys in the world to express my regret that it has taken me this long to reach out to you. My fans want to know where and why I disappeared and the truth is, I owe you an explanation. You’ve all been so loyal to me over the years and I haven’t been very good at paying that loyalty back.

“I was very unhappy while I was in Tellurian. Don’t misunderstand—I loved my guys, Austin, Brandon, and Micah. They’re my family, you know. And I loved the music, I loved my fans, I loved being on that stage. I didn’t love having my personal life splashed all over the internet and magazines for the world to see. As it turns out, I’m a very private person and I guess I didn’t really understand that about myself at seventeen when we signed our first record deal. All I cared about then was performing and writing music. The first time I realized I didn’t have what it took to be a ‘celebrity’ was the first time I saw myself splashed across the front page of a tabloid magazine, the first time I got random, unnecessary negative comments on a benign Instagram post. The truth is they tell us to ignore it, let it wash off us and move on, because attention in any form is good.

“But I found that hard. I was a kid and I was going through all the stuff kids go through, but I was going through it live, in front of the world. Don’t mistake me, I was grateful for the opportunities I was given, grateful to be able to support my family financially and make them proud . . . but . . . well, I guess there’s no way to really explain how I felt without sounding ungrateful. People will make up their own minds about that, and that’s okay. We all have our opinions.

“The point of me telling you all this is that I hid my unhappiness from everyone. I didn’t reach out to someone to tell them I was depressed. And I . . .” I took a breath, not wanting to cry. I wanted to be calm and clear and say my piece without breaking down. I blinked back tears and turned back to the camera. “I kept my feelings locked away from the one person I loved the most—my mom. You guys probably know from all the interviews the band did that we credit Angie Finch, my beautiful mom, with supporting us like no one else ever did. My mom had the kind of faith in me that was extraordinary. I mean,” I laughed softly, “who really believes their fourteen-year-old kid is going to make it as a rock star? I sometimes think—no, I know—it was my mom’s belief that got Tellurian to where they are. We didn’t have much growing up and my mom spent a lot of money she didn’t have on my dream. So when I realized that this life didn’t make me happy, I hid it from her because I felt like I’d failed her somehow. The last couple of years before my mom’s death . . . well, I avoided her. She was my best friend. I knew if I let her in, she would see how unhappy I was and I couldn’t let her down like that. Our relationship was the most important thing in the world to me, and because of me we were not in a good place before she was killed.