I winced, feeling my heart squeeze. Even though I’d done everything I could to try and fix this, it had still been a disaster—just a differentkindof disaster than before. I walked slowly up to the stage as the crowd thinned out, everyone off to get their last Grad Nite adventures in—because, for them, this was a night that would never come around again.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed, but even so, I pushed myself up onto the stage. I stood there for just a moment, then picked up the water bottle that Freddie hadn’t touched. Sure enough, I could see that the little seal on the cap had been broken—and I was sure I knew by whom.
“Hey.”
I turned around and saw Freddie standing on the stage behind me, looking surprised to see me there. “Hi. Um, that was…”
“Awful,” he finished, his voice cracking as he said the word. He walked over and picked up his bass. “The manager…”
“I think she left.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. Why would she stick around after that?” He looked at me, and I saw the hurt—the anger—in his expression. “You know, we might get fired? All of us sent back home for unprofessional behavior.” He shook his head. “Maybe if we’d just gone ahead and played like we’d planned, it would have been okay. But you seemed so convincing…”
“Wait.” I took a step closer to him. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what I believe!” His voice was rising. “Itispretty fantastical, Cass, you know that. You know what it sounds like. But maybe if we’d just gone through with it—”
“Alfie would have gotten sick.Onstage. Is that what you want?”
“No, but at least then it wouldn’t be our faults! We wouldn’t be about to get fired!”
“But you don’t want to be here anyway!” Somehow, without my noticing, this had switched from a conversation into a fight, both of our voices getting loud enough that some people passing by glanced up at us, like they were trying to figure out if this was part of the show—or some kind of experimental theater. “You told me you’re tired of playing the same music every night, singing someone else’s songs….”
“Well, maybe that was stupid. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried for so much more. Shouldn’t have tried tomake it in America. I mean, how silly is that—to think that it could happen?”
“It’s not silly. And I’m sorry. I—” A second later, it was like I’d just heard myself, and shook my head, getting mad all over again. “Wait, why am Iapologizing? Do you know how much time I’ve spent trying to help you? Trying to fix this?”
“Yeah.” Freddie slung the bass over his shoulder and folded his arms as he looked at me. “Why?”
“What…What do you mean,why?” It felt like everything I’d been attempting to do—and all the help I’d been trying to give him, everything I’d done to save this performance—was being thrown back in my face. “I guess you’d rather be having hives right now? Sorry for trying to help you.”
“Butwhyare you so focused on helping me? You’ve just said you’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix this. But why aren’t you trying to fix things with your friends? Yourrealfriends?”
I swallowed hard. “Because—this is what I’m meant to do here. The loops are to fix this.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. I’m someone you just met tonight. This isyourjourney. You really think this is happening to you so you can save our performance?”
“I mean…” I blinked at him. This was theproblemwith not having a wise guide to walk you through things. You didn’t have answers to fairly basic questions like this.
Freddie took a step closer to me. “You told me yourself that there are a bunch of people from your past here tonight, people you’re avoiding. Don’t you think thatmaybethis is happening so that you can make things right with them?”
I shook my head, my heart beating hard, as I tried to gather my thoughts and get them in some kind of order. “That’s…It’s not…”
Freddie gave me a long look, his head tipped to one side. “You know what I think? I think it’s easier for you to try to fix this performance than deal with the people you’ve hurt. The ones you keep leaving behind.”
I drew in a sharp breath—it felt like I’d just been slapped. “That’s not fair.”
“But it’s right. Isn’t it?” He just looked at me for a moment. “I don’t think you want this to end. I think you like being in the loops. It’s the way you’ve lived your whole life, right? Always starting over, leaving everything behind and rebooting somewhere else?”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. And even though I was trying to deny these words, the truth of them was making me feel shaken—like the ground was no longer as steady as it had been just moments before. But rather than face this, I just folded my arms over my chest, and when I spoke again, my voice was cold. “Look, I don’t think there’s any fixing this.” I gestured to the instruments, trying not to think about the fact that maybe I also meantus. “Because either Alfie gets sick, or he doesn’t play and the songs don’t work. And it looks like I was just wasting my time trying to help.”
“I don’t think I would call ithelp, Cass. This was a disaster.”
“This disaster was better than all the other ones I’ve seen,” I said, my voice starting to rise again. “At least you didn’t have an allergic reaction this time!” Freddie just shook his head, and I frowned. “You believe me, right? About Niall?”
“About my best friend betraying me? Going behind my back?” Freddie raked his hands through his curls, which felt like something that should absolutely not be allowed when you’re trying to stay mad at someone. When he looked at me again, his expression was pleading. “I mean, you don’t know for sure, right? It’s not like yousawanything.”
“I saw enough.” For just a second, a crack appeared in the wall I’d put in front of my heart, to shield it from everything Freddie had just said to me. I felt it weaken as I looked at how crestfallen his expression was. To lose your big chanceand?your best friend was an awful one-two punch to take, even without adding the girl and her time-loop problems to the mix. “Look, I’m sorry Niall turned out to be a terrible friend. But I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t do that.” Freddie just looked away, and I held out the bottle of water. “Here. Drink if you don’t believe me. It’s not like I want to be right about this.”
