Fade Out

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Care?" Lindsay Sharpe looked worried that I would slam my locker shut and storm off like I hadn't even heard her.

As well she should be.

I considered it, but then decided that I wouldn't be that petty. We'd been friends for years, after all. And even if she hadn't acted like it for the last month or so, previous history had to count for something. So I paused, but kept my face buried in my locker as if I were looking for something difficult to find.

"Can you at least look at me?" She asked, and I reluctantly pulled my eyes away from the inside of my locker to see her face. She'd caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and she kept shifting from side to side like she might bolt at any second.

"You passed around the score book."

I couldn't believe she'd started this conversation with an accusation. Well, okay, she was right. I had made those copies and spread them around with Elyse. But I felt like we were beyond that.

I frowned. "Yeah. I found it in the bathroom and when I tried to give it back to him, he treated me like I was some kind of disease. So I read it." I shrugged, reliving this whole thing was getting kind of old. But I did feel like she at least deserved an explanation. Because I'd put her most intimate of secrets right out there for the world to see, intentionally harmful or not.

"I thought all those girls deserved to know that Patrick was doing this to them. I thought it was the right thing to do." I paused and took a step back to really look at her. "What's your excuse?"

Lindsay flinched, as if I'd slapped her. "I didn't lie to you," she challenged. "I didn't listen to you spill your heart out and then lie right to your face."

"Hey. I didn't post those names on that website, Lindsay. Patrick did that. I blacked your name out just like everyone else's. But if you want to hate me for that, go right ahead." I was over being steamrolled by people with bad attitudes. "Because, honestly, if you were any kind of friend to me then you wouldn't have treated me like that. You know what you did and now you have to live with it."

I slammed my locker shut, intent on getting away from her and—frankly—everyone just like her, but she called out to stop me.

"Wait, Care," and she sounded so desperate that I paused. "I'm…" I turned back to face her, to take in her expression. I knew what she was going to say before the words were uttered, but they were so long in coming that I really begrudged her saying them. "I'm sorry."

I guess she saw the unimpressed expression on my face, so she rushed on. "I panicked! I saw how everybody was treating you, and then Madison basically painted a scarlet A on your face, and I… I lost it, okay? I'm not proud of it; it was cowardly and it was shameful, but there it is. I'm not perfect, but I am sorry." She was actually blinking back tears. "And, for what it's worth, I'm glad Elyse ran over Patrick with her car. And I told Silas the truth about Patrick and me. And I also told them both to go to hell. Oh! Well, to go to hallelujah." She paused, her pretty forehead crinkling. "Wait, well, that doesn't really make sense in that context."

I blushed, fighting back a small smile at her efforts. "I don't have a love phrase for that one, Linds. It's just go to hell," I told her. I told her in such a way that it sounded like maybe I was saying it to her. Then I shrugged. "I'll work on it."

"Okay, well…" she shifted, clearly nervous. "I'm going to tell Madison, too. And if she can't handle me as her best friend after that… Well," Lindsay swallowed. She shrugged meekly. "I guess I deserve for you to hate me."

And there it was—my heart softening like melted butter. I frowned at her. "I don't hate you. I'm mad at you, Lindsay." I shook my head. "But I'm sure I'll get over it."

"No," she shook her head. "You don't like me. It's okay, I mean I guess we're not that much alike. I get it." Yeah, she was really blinking back tears now. "You never even told me you liked DC's band, or even knew of it. But you're singing in it?"

And wow, she looked so hurt that I felt like a huge jerk. She was right. I hadn't told her anything, nothing personal, not really. I sat at their lunch table and listened to them talk, and I went to their birthday parties, and I laughed at their jokes… But she and Madison hadn't really been my confidantes. I'd have never told them about Patrick's book, or things with Dorian, or the band, or anything. I hadn't ever even wanted to tell them.

Maybe it was time to accept that sometimes people were only in your life because they were comfortable there, and not because either party had any desire for them to be.

"I'm glad you were never Listed, Lindsay," I offered, shooting her a sad smile. "Maybe you should just put it behind you."

And that was that.

I turned and walked away from her.

It was honest this way—it was real. If I was going to be spending any of my time mending bridges, then I wanted it to be the ones that counted. I wanted friendships worth fighting for, and bonds worth risking everything for, and people in my life that challenged me to be the best version of myself. I wanted the band—every person in it and every feeling that came along with it—and I wanted Elyse, and I wanted my mother. I wanted me. This version of me who knew how to scream in a crowded room and make everybody pay attention.

I wasn't that invisible girl some kid named Brody dropped his lunch on anymore, because he thought she was the trash can.

I was Carleigh Anne Moore, lead singer of The Mixed Bad, and I was lit up in neon greens and pinks and blues. And salty popcorn, I liked it!

…

"We need to set up some ground rules."

I'd been tense for the last week or so, ever since Dorian had decided to take me up on my agreement that he come over as scheduled on Friday night for dinner. So I had honestly expected the confrontation to happen a lot sooner, especially after I left the flyer for my mother about the school's talent show with a note announcing that our band planned to play in it.

I looked up from my bowl of macaroni and cheese, my eyebrows arching. "Ground rules?"

My mother dropped her fork with a heavy sigh. "You're sixteen—nearly seventeen—and I can't control you forever. Actually," she made a small face. "It doesn't look like I can control you at all." I flushed, a guilty feeling creeping up my spine at her words. But she had a point. I listened as she went on. "And moving across the country does seem like it might be a bit of an overreaction. Besides, I had a small problem getting a transfer during the middle of a school year."

My stomach knotted as I realized what that meant. That my mother actually had tried to pack up our lives and move away after I told her about that band. That she'd applied somewhere with the intention of keeping me far away from Dorian Birch and anything to do with a band.

I was surprised by how much that hurt, even after this entire month of silence and disappointed head shakes. But I shook it off, trying to focus on the moment. "Ground rules?" I repeated, prompting her to go on.

"If you're going to date DC Birch and he still intends to sneak over here in the middle of the night, then you'd better sleep with your door open. You do not sneak over there." She shot me a look that made me squirm, as if she could possibly know that the last time it had come up that was exactly what Dorian had asked of me. Jeez.

"I'm only allowing this because what you told me about his mother was awful, and I believe you. And also, despite everything, I trust you." She leveled me with a solid glare, that I could do nothing but nod quickly in response to.

"Okay," I agreed, only too eager to accept these guidelines. But a part of me was still waiting for the catch. "I can do that. We can, I mean."

My mother nodded. "I expect him here every Friday, unless he has a legitimate reason not to come." Well. That surprised me. This most recent Friday, she'd barely spoken to either of us. We'd had chicken stir-fry, basically silent aside from the clatter of our utensils against our plates.

And all Dorian had said was, "Thanks for having me over." He had looked so genuinely grateful that it had taken all of the venom right out of my mother's expression, and she'd just offered him a small smile before leaving us alone.

"Are you going to talk to him?" I asked, incredulous, as I tried to process what could bring about that kind of stipulation from her.

"If he means so much to you, Care, then yes. I want to know who's in my daughter's life."

I pressed my lips together, thinking it over. I couldn't deny that a bigger part of me was wondering if my mother was going to talk to me. But I left that question unasked. "Okay," I frowned, still thinking. "I'll bring it up with him. Anything else?"

My mother laughed, the kind of laugh that seemed to say 'obviously'… And I cringed.

"If you're going to play in a band then you've got to keep your grades up. As and Bs only, no Cs or below, or I'm pulling the plug on this behavior. I mean it." I squinted, not responding, and so she kept talking. "And you're going to graduate high school. If you think you're running off to become a rockstar, I don't think I can live with that. Do you understand?"

"I'll finish high school," I agreed. "I wouldn't want to drop out or be homeschooled. But, mom, I'm not making any guarantees about college. And I can't promise that we won't make it big, because, honestly? We've got one video up on the internet and it already has a hundred thousand hits." Yeah. The view-count had blown me away. But I was still not swayed into considering playing that song again, despite Perry's best efforts. "We're good. Like, really good. And I think we're going to do this thing." It was so surreal to say, especially considering I'd barely even started vocal lessons and I still hadn't managed to play with them in public yet.

But it was just something that I knew now; I knew it in my heart.

"If I go to college, I'm majoring in music. And whatever I do in my life, it's going to be centered around music. This isn't a hobby or a way to pass time, mom. This is my life, and it's my choice, and I've made it. So what I need to know is if you can accept me? Because this is who I am."

"Carleigh," she looked so unbalanced that I really thought that this would be the end. The end of our conversation, the end of the ground rules, the end of her effort to make it work. We would keep coming up against this wall, I felt, and that terrified me. But then she said, "You are my life. You're my daughter and I love you and I want you to be happy." I couldn't ignore that she still looked a bit broken as she said it. "I can't deny that I would choose differently for you, if I could. I'm so afraid of watching you fall into a bad way with this. And maybe I handled it badly, and maybe my reaction was too strong. But I won't apologize for loving you or wanting the best for you."

"I never want you to stop loving me or wanting the best for me," I told her. "But you do have to let me choose what the best for me looks like. I'm not a child anymore. I understand the choice I'm making." And I really did. Maybe I always had, maybe that was why I'd kept myself so carefully away from it all of these years. What had happened to my father—it terrified me on so many levels. I didn't want to have that tragic end, and I didn't even want to understand how he'd gotten there to begin with. But I knew I loved music too much, now, to simply let it go.

"Then okay," my mother said, and I could hear how much it weighed. "You can have the boy, and you can have the band." She nodded, taking that statement in even as she said it. "Okay." She repeated. "Okay."

So I got up and flung myself into her arms, because it seemed like the best thing to do.

…

"Are you nervous?" Dorian's eyes stared into mine, and I could see the humor in his expression. I certainly didn't see what was so funny.

I glared at him, feeling my heart chugging like a freight-train. We'd had a couple of small rehearsals in front of friends and in front of his family—the best being the one only for Adelaide, who was maybe the most adorable person in the entire universe—but that was nothing compared to the crowd we'd first drawn at Styx. And that night was a strange mixture of bad and good in my memory bank, so I kept switching between my crazy nerves and my overwhelming anticipation.

The school's talent show crowd was a lot milder than the Styx crowd. And as a bonus, I knew no one would throw fruit or vegetables at us. Mainly because they couldn't, but also because I was pretty sure most of them didn't want to. They wanted to hear the song again, performed live and loud. I knew it.

But that was the problem. We weren't doing the song, and we weren't going to get forced off the stage. This thing was happening and I had no choice but to follow through. The last couple of weeks had been an incredible build-up to this moment. And now it was finally here.

And, yeah, I was nervous. I was terrified.

"Don't be." DC took my face in his hands and kissed both of my cheeks. "Just sing to me. It'll be just like every rehearsal," he promised. "Except a thousand times better." His lips curved into a cute grin and I thought he was going to kiss me. But he said, "I have two things to tell you," instead.

I leaned my head back so that I could look at him, intrigued. And, okay, a little bit disappointed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, and I knew he could see the disappointment, and that he knew why. He could be so cheeky sometimes, I swear. "The first is that your mom is here. I just saw her." Well, okay, now that amped my nerves up about a thousand percent.

All I could think was what if she hated it? What if she had some kind of PTSD over hearing me sing and suddenly rescinded the last couple of weeks of peace that we'd forged together, and decided that she wanted to move me across the country anyway. God, what a disaster.

But Dorian kept talking, oblivious to my inner meltdown. "The second is that I love you." Oh, okay. Not oblivious, then. Just in damage control mode. "And I think I want to tell you why, now." He grinned at me. "You know, why you." He made reference to that question I'd asked him, which seemed like years ago now. Another lifetime, maybe.

But he had my full attention.

He chuckled again, drinking in my rapt expression. "I think it's because: that day I saw you at the bus stop. And it was like, after that, I couldn't stop seeing you," he frowned, clearly displeased with the way his words were expressing the idea he was trying to get across. I knew him well enough, now, to know that he hated not having just the right imagery for anything. There was a reason he wrote most of the songs for the band.

"That's because you were stalking me," I teased, which earned a smile from him.

He shook his head at me. "Stop it, before you make me kiss you. I'm trying to tell you something, here." He sighed at me, as if I were really putting him out, and I fought down an answering smile.

"What I mean is," he shot a slight narrow-eyed look at me and I blinked up at him innocently. "You took what should have been the literal worst moment of my life since the accident, and turned it into something bearable. Something breathable. And when I saw you there, I really saw you. And after that, every time I looked at you, I just couldn't stop seeing you.

"This girl who stood alone at the bus stop, who sat to herself and hummed through my panic, and never once told the crazy boy to back up out of her space. Who danced like the world was ending when she thought no one was looking. Do you know that I had three encounters with you before you finally spoke to me? Do you know that Bone and I kept a tally of every word you ever said to us for the first month and a half of knowing you, and we competed over who could get the highest number?"

I blushed, putting that together now that he'd said it. Yeah, it seemed to make sense. That explained things. I shook my head at him, bemused.

"Do you know that when you yelled at me and gave me my key back, that was one of the worst moments of my life? And I was miserable until you started talking to me again. I love you because you're so," he paused, struggling, shaking his head. "You're the sweetest person I've ever met. And your laugh is like music." My stomach tightened, butterflies kicking to life inside of me. "And you kiss me like you're drowning, and I'm the air you need. I love you because every time I see you, I stop feeling alone. And every time I think about you, it's like everything is all right."

I blinked, at a loss for what to say. "You can't make me cry right before I have to sing." I told him, fighting down the shake in my voice. "That's totally unfair."

He laughed and stepped close, and I knew he was going to kiss me. I shook my head.

"Don't you dare." Which caused the laugh to melt into a frown of confusion. "If you kiss me, everything in my head will disappear. And I can't deal with that right now." I pulled in a sharp breath. "Do you know that you make me a better person?" I asked him, trying to organize everything that I wanted to say. "You make me less afraid and more determined and more capable. You keep saying that you break things, but I swear to God you fixed me. And I don't know who I'd be right now if you hadn't, but I do know that I don't regret a single moment of it. I love you, Dorian C. Birch. Now let's go win this talent show."

And then he kissed me, urgent and deep with feeling, and everything in my head did disappear. At least until I heard Perry catcall and Paisley pretend to vomit, and Dorian and I pulled apart.

Which meant—I knew—that it was show time.

When we took the stage, Dorian's kiss was still the only thing on my mind, but I forced myself to focus enough to remember what we'd come here to do. The song I'd written to replace The Snake—The Shark—was a little bit about Patrick Graywake, I had to admit. But it was also about Savannah Reed and Paisley Adams and Dorian Birch, and me. And maybe even Perry, Elyse, and Jeremy. Anyone else who'd ever been in love or broken or hurt.

I took the microphone and fell immediately into my safe space, blocking out the crowd and concentrating on my breathing. The vocal lessons with Angeline had taught me how to get there, had taught me how to breathe so that I wouldn't throw up, and I could see that it was really paying off.

"How're you guys doing tonight?" I called out, remembering the stage voice that Elyse and I had gone over in detail after the whole Styx thing. "I know you guys want to hear a certain song about a certain boy, and I hate to disappoint, but we won't be playing that one tonight." I ignored the disgruntled chatter and scattered boos, and kept talking.

"We have something different for you. It's called The Shark, and I think you'll like it. I'm Care and we're The Mixed Bad!"

Paisley counted off the beat and then the music started, already full throttle, a sort of vibrating high-energy thrum that had me rocking where I stood. I put the mic up to my face and sang out the first line, which immediately halted the chatter and sucked all the attention back on me.

And I actually loved it.

"I went under just to pull you down." I belted the lyrics in my full voice, holding the last note for eight counts; it was the kind of song that demanded all of you. Your whole body moving, your entire headspace, and your voice at full intensity. "As you surfaced, I heard you cry out: Can you help me now?" Every note was long and heavy and beautiful, and I delivered it exactly right. "You cried an ocean in the backyard. But I'm not the lifeguard," The tempo had picked up so that I was spinning, my hips rocking, my shoulders twisting. And I screamed the next line in a talking voice, high-pitched and grinning. "I'm the shark!"

Everything exploded—my energy and the music and the crowd. It was the craziest high, the most exquisite, second only to kissing Dorian Birch. And I knew, in that moment, that everything had fallen into place.

I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I needed to be doing, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

I silently thanked every form of fate that I could think of that this boy had found me and dragged me—kicking and screaming—into this world of flashing lights and screaming emotions, and challenged everything that I'd ever thought I wanted out of my life. Because, without even meaning to, I'd found myself.

And I liked what I found.